Last week, we had something of an introduction to Tony Hillerman and his Navajo Tribal Police novels. A quick read before continuing on here might serve you well. Or, you can throw caution to the wind and keep going! In July of 1945, Hillerman was was on a sixty day convalescent furlough from World War II, with a patch over a damaged eye and a cane to assist his gimpy leg. He had been wounded near the German village of Niefern….
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Lots of great reading for fantasy lovers this month — including some terrific tales at Tor.com, new issues of Fantasy Scroll, Lightspeed, Apex, Clarkesworld, Analog, and many more. For our vintage magazine readers, Rich Horton reviewed the March 1964 Amazing Stories, and Doug Ellis dug deep into his impressive collection to report on the Early Chicago SF Fan Club, and Otto Binder’s 1937 letter on John W. Campbell, and we introduced you to Gideon Marcus’ website Galactic Journey. Check out all…
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My first novel Drake has been described as a mix of Urban Fantasy and Noir, and I suppose it is, in a way. So what does that mean to me? Well I think we all have an idea of what Urban Fantasy is – the king of the genre is obviously The Dresden Files, with the magical detective in a big modern city helping the cops solve the unsolvable, inexplicable paranormal crimes. Drake’s not that. Don Drake isn’t a detective,…
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We’ve got lots of great magazine coverage to point you towards the best new short fiction this month. We started our coverage of Interfictions with issue #6, and reported on the arrival of the massive Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume 1. In our reviews section, Learned Foote took a look at Nike Salway’s “The Karen Joy Fowler Book Club” in the October Lightspeed, and Fletcher Vredenburgh highlighted the best in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and Swords and Sorcery…
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Perhaps my favorite Sherlock Holmes pastiche is 1974’s The Return of Moriarty by John Gardner. In it, Professor Moriarty (who did not perish at the Reichenbach Falls) is a Victorian Era godfather, with a criminal organization the envy of the American mob in the Roaring Twenties. A sequel followed it the next year, The Revenge of Moriarty. The trilogy was completed with Moriarty, just a few weeks before Gardner passed away in 2008. Having completed one muddle of a screenplay…
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We have a tradition here at Black Gate of respecting supernatural detectives. Let’s face it, they don’t get much respect anywhere else. But who else is going to defend the Earth from the forces of darkness? Usually without a salary, decent pension, or bennies of any kind. We’re not sure why they do it, but we’re glad they do. Later this month Titan Books will publish Stephen Jones’ anthology Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries, which collects classic tales of…
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By now, readers of this column (all three of you) know that I’m ‘all-in’ on Sherlock Holmes and Solar Pons. But I am also a long-time hard boiled fiction afficionado. I’ve got a section of the bookshelves well-stocked with private eye/police novels and short stories, from Hammett and Daly to Stone and Burke. Now, I wouldn’t bet my house on the premise of the following essay, which first appeared in Sherlock Magazine back when I was a columnist for that…
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In 1926, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle penned his last Holmes tale, The Adventure of the Retired Colourman. Rex Stout, a fan of those tales, would shortly create a detective who would not only evoke memories of Holmes, but who would cast his own (gargantuan) shadow: Nero Wolfe. The seventy-four stories, written over forty-one years, would be collectively known as the Corpus, akin to the Sherlockian Canon. Nero Wolfe lives in a New York City brownstone with Archie Goodwin, Fritz Brenner,…
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By E.E. Knight This is a complete work of fiction presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of E.E. Knight and New Epoch Press, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Copyright 2004 by Pitch-Black LLC. Have you heard the tale, O Exalted One, of how the old Myrhyran Spire in Dinhun came to be called the “Tower of Screams” and, even down to this modern and skeptical day, thought accursed ground?…
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Lawyers in Hell (Heroes in Hell, Volume 12) Created by Janet Morris, edited by Janet and Chris Morris, and written “with the diabolical assistance of the damnedest writers in perdition.” Perseid Press (456 pages, June 8, 2011, $19.95 in trade paperback) This is volume twelve in the most clever and interesting shared-universe series I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. Lawyers in Hell actually precedes Rogues in Hell and Dreamers in Hell, both of which I previously reviewed here. And…
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