Search Results for: nightmare men

Beauty and Nightmare on an Alien World: NIGHTBORN: COLDFIRE RISING BY C. S. FRIEDMAN

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  What if your feelings had shape and were visible? What if you could see your nightmares manifest as they turned on you? C. S. Friedman has published 14 novels, including the highly acclaimed Coldfire Trilogy and the groundbreaking science fiction novel This Alien Shore (New York Times Notable Book of the Year -1998). Her Nightborn: Coldfire Rising novel will be published this July, 2023 by DAW Books; this post reviews an advanced review copy (preorder from the publisher). The…

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Adventure in a Nightmare-fueled Landscape: Deadlands: the Weird West

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Deadlands: the Weird West (Pinnacle Entertainment Group, April 2021) Kickstarter completely transformed board gaming a decade ago, and over the last few years it has thoroughly reinvigorated role playing as well. It’s the de facto launch platform for the hobby gaming industry these days, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon. I’ve been playing RPGs since 1979, and in all those years I’ve seen countless new and innovative game systems fail because they couldn’t grow…

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A Philosophical Policeman: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton

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Gabriel Syme was not merely a detective who pretended to be a poet; he was really a poet who had become a detective. Nor was his hatred of anarchy hypocritical. He was one of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most revolutionists. He had not attained it by any tame tradition. His respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion against rebellion. He came of a family of cranks, in…

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Wendy N. Wagner will Assume Editorial Reins at Nightmare Magazine with Issue #100

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Recent issues of Nightmare Magazine. Covers by Alexandra Petruk / Adobe Stock Images Nightmare may well be the best magazine of horror and dark fantasy on the market. In the last twelve months, under the skilled editorial guidance of John Joseph Adams, it’s published original fiction by Simon Strantzas, Adam-Troy Castro, Brian Evenson, Rich Larson, Ray Nayler, Senaa Ahmad, and many others. However, JJA is a busy guy. In addition to Nightmare he also edits the acclaimed Lightspeed magazine, a line…

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Future Treasures: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019, edited by Carmen Maria Machado and John Joseph Adams

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Cover by Galen Dara For the fifth volume of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, series editor John Joseph Adams asked Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties) to narrow down 80 contenders from the US and Canada into 20 finalists, 10 fantasy and 10 science fiction. In her introduction, Machado says that to make her selection she ignored the distinction between “literary” and “genre” fiction, instead asking if the stories were a pleasure to read. Does she succeed? Booklist thinks…

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A One-Way Trip on the Road to Hell: Detour Gets the Criterion Treatment

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I love extra features on Blu-rays and DVDs. I don’t just listen to commentaries, I listen to dull commentaries. I watch restoration comparisons and making-of documentaries. I listen to audio-only interviews with scriptwriters, production designers, and character actors. I ponder the effects of deleted scenes and alternate endings. I scrutinize stills galleries. I watch compilations of grainy on-location footage shot by local news stations. I read inserts and booklets, alternately nodding sagely and muttering sharp disagreements under my breath. In…

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Shipwrecks, Labyrinths, and Sentient Islands: The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy by Francis Stevens

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The Bison Frontiers of Imagination line has reprinted dozens of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Clark Ashton Smith, Philip Wylie, E.E. “Doc” Smith, A. Merritt, Jack London, Ray Cummings, Hugo Gernsback, Robert Silverberg, and many others, in handsome and affordable trade paperback editions. We’ve reviewed several of them here at Black Gate including: The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney, reviewed by Thomas Parker Perfect Murders by Horace L. Gold, reviewed by Bill Ward I’ve been…

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The Government We Take into Space: Imperial Stars, edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr

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Much early science fiction concerned itself with the rise and fall of galactic empires, and I admit being rather taken with the idea in my youth. There’s something rather romantic in the notion of man’s ultimate destiny being among the stars, testing himself against vast and incalculably ancient powers as he carves a home for himself across the parsecs, proving his worth on the greatest stage of all through gumption, guile, and fearless determination. Today the whole idea seems rather quaint, and more than…

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Hither Came Conan: Dave Hardy on “Vale of Lost Women”

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Welcome back to the latest installment of Hither Came Conan, where a leading Robert E. Howard expert (and me) examine one of the original Conan stories each week, highlighting what’s best. Dave Hardy is the leading El Borak scholar around, and today he weighs in with a fresh perspective on what is pretty much regarded as one of Howard’s worst Conan tales. PAIN CRYSTALLIZED AND MANIFESTED IN FLESH: THE VALE OF LOST WOMEN “She was drowned in a great gulf…

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Modular: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes — Disturbing Entities to Inspire Great Adventures… or Nightmares

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Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition seems to have a good handle on what’s needed for a rule book, and what’s needed for an expansion. Like its immediate predecessor, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes covers a variety of topics. It’s meant to fill in some gaps for specific areas players and game masters might want to have more detail about. It’s broadly divided into two sections: five chapters devoted to the history of different races and their factions…

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