Following on our record 1.26 million page views in July, Black Gate had an even more incredible August. There were lots of small triumphs, but the big one was receiving an Alfie Award from George R.R. Martin at Worldcon (at right). In his blog post explaining this year’s awards, George wrote: One of my special ‘committee awards’ went to Black Gate, which had 461 nominations in the Fanzine category, second among all nominees and good for a place on the…
Black Gate had 1.26 million page views last month, very nearly a record. Much of that bump in traffic was due to a series of very popular posts. Derek Kunsken has long been one of our most popular bloggers — his interview with Christopher Golden was our third most popular article in October, and last month his piece on Rebirth: DC’s corrective reboot was #5. But he thoroughly dominated the charts in July, claiming both the #2 slot, with his look back at Marvel’s…
Ah, June. Not a bad month at all, now that I look back on it. For one thing, M Harold Page pointed out how Osprey Publishing made a compelling argument for the true location of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, otherwise known as the Battle of Chalons, in “OMG They Found It! Osprey’s The Catalaunian Fields AD451.” That casual revelation was enough to catapult Martin’s article to the top of a crowded field, giving him our most popular blog post last…
Black Gate had 1.16 million page views in May, slightly more than our monthly average last year. We’ve gotten used to significant traffic increases year after year, so it’s actually something of a relief to have traffic stabilize for a bit. Nonetheless, we’re grateful to you, our readers, for all the time you spend with us each month, and we hope we keep things interesting for you. How did we keep things interesting last month? Our top story for May was Black Gate‘s second Hugo…
Good to see Star Trek is still enormously popular with our readers. The most widely read post at Black Gate last month was William I. Lengeman III’s review of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the latest installment in his ongoing Star Trek Re-Watch (his review of ST III was #2 last month). Or maybe we’re just old. The most popular category last month was Vintage Treasures (that’s my favorite too!) When I get old enough, my eyesight will fade enough that I can’t…
The number one post at the Black Gate blog last month was Sean McLachlan’s report on the historically fascinating castles of Gondar, Ethiopia. Sean’s adventures in Ethiopia certainly captured the attention of our readers — he also had the #3 post, with his photo-essay on the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. Coming in at #2 was the fifth chapter in William I. Lengeman III’s ongoing Star Trek re-watch, on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. I’ve been re-watching the early…
The top article at Black Gate last month wasn’t even a BG piece, strictly speaking. It was a brief link to Matthew David Surridge’s essay The Great Hugo Wars of 2015, at Splice Today. Based on the overwhelming traffic to that article, and the high number of comments, it seems our readers are still more than casually interested in the Hugo Awards. Number 2 on the list was M Harold Page’s look at Fool’s Assassin, and How Robin Hobb Writes Lyrical Fantasy…
The most widely read article at Black Gate last month was Andy Duncan’s obituary for Tor senior editor David G. Hartwell, the founder of the World Fantasy Convention and one of the most accomplished editors this field has ever seen. In the last few weeks we’ve compiled several articles on David’s most popular books, including: The Masterpieces of Fantasy The Dark Descent and The World Treasury of Science Fiction The Early Horror Paperbacks Foundations of Fear and The Ascent of…
BG blogger M Harold Page had a fabulous month in December, with three of the top four posts for the month, all dealing with Medieval Worldbuilding: How to Get From Worldbuilding (or Research) to Story An Adventurer’s Guide to the Middle Ages: What if There’s No Room at the Inn (or No Inn Whatsoever?) Three Classic Books for Medieval Worldbuilders and Armchair Time Travellers Mr. Page has clearly fired the imaginations of all the aspiring medieval novelists in our audience (and…
The most popular article at Black Gate last month was M. Harold Page’s “An Adventurer’s Guide to the Middle Ages: Town Watch? Where?”, a look at the much-loved concept of a citizen’s militia in fantasy. It’s not hard to see why it was popular: The first thing that Conan — or Locke Lamora, or Grey Mouser, or Vimes, or a D&D party — would notice about a real medieval city would be the almost total absence of an Ankh Morpork-style town watch….