Black Gate – Page 322 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

New Treasures: The Bayern Agenda by Dan Moren

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Dan Moren’s second novel The Bayern Agenda shares a world and key characters with his debut The Caledonian Gambit (2017). Publishers Weekly calls his new effort “a frenzied story full of bold spycraft and exciting ground and air chases… suspenseful space opera.” In her feature review at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Emily Wenstrom finds lots to enjoy.

Whether you’ve read that earlier book or not, you’ll certainly enjoy this one, provided “fast-paced, high-action space opera with a spy adventure bent” sounds like your jam; think Star Trek meets Mission: Impossible.

In many ways, the plot hits all the familiar genre beats — active wormholes, intriguing planets, intense face-offs, and a few twists along the way — but set against the backdrop of a satisfyingly built world, it offers plenty to enjoy even if you think you’ve read this sort of thing before. The action takes place during the cold war that gives the series its name, and the complex history of tensions between its two opposing forces, the Illyrican Empire and the Commonwealth of Independent Systems, lends the caper at the novel’s center a fair bit of weight — both sides of the conflict being more than ready to instigate a new wave of aggression at the first sign of trouble.

And as to that caper: Simon Kovalic is a seasoned Commonwealth intelligence agent with deep experience in the field and the psychological damage to go with it… During a mission gone awry that opens the novel, Kovalic obtains intelligence that suggests that the Empire is making some sort of move involving the massive Bayern Corporation, a planet-sized bank. Figuring out what’s going on and why is crucial: with the capital Bayern could provide, the Illyricans could seriously upset the balance of power in the system… though the novel does leverage a few familiar science fiction adventure tropes, it puts them to economical use, moving us quickly into the action. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to enjoy a fast, fun high-concept romp.

The Bayern Agenda is Book One of The Galactic Cold War, which sounds very promising. It was published by Angry Robot on March 5, 2019 It is 384 pages, priced at $12.99 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Amazing15. Read the complete first chapter (21 pages) here.

The Storyteller’s Voice: Basil Rathbone Reads Edgar Allan Poe

Monday, May 6, 2019 Thomas Parker Comments 7 comments

Basil Rathbone

If I say the name Basil Rathbone, I have a very good chance of guessing exactly what you’ll think (if you’re old enough, that is — if you’re below a certain age, you may only think, “Who?”); ten will get you twenty you’ll think “Sherlock Holmes,” the character that Rathbone indelibly portrayed in fourteen films from 1939 to 1946, so successfully that for many people his name has become synonymous with the character.

And if by some chance you don’t think of Holmes, you’ll almost certainly think of the greatest swordsman in Hollywood, the piercing-eyed, hawk-visaged athlete who figured in some of the screen’s most thrilling duels, most famously against John Barrymore and Leslie Howard in Romeo and Juliet (1936), Errol Flynn in Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro (1940), the latter battle the most exciting swordfight in movie history, in my opinion.

In addition to these swashbuckling villains, in his almost fifty year film career Rathbone applied his singular talents to bringing many other characters to vivid life. Some of his most memorable non-action roles are his icily sadistic Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield, his brutally indifferent Marquis St. Evrémonde in A Tale of Two Cities, his rigid, fatally conventional Alexi Karenin in Anna Karenina (all in 1935 — studio era Hollywood worked its players hard), and his witty, cynical Richard III in Tower of London (1939), with Vincent Price as his brother Clarence and Boris Karloff as his murderous, club-footed henchman, Mord; truly, they don’t make ’em like that anymore!

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Hither Came Conan: The Animated Red Nails That Never Was

Monday, May 6, 2019 Bob Byrne Comments 7 comments

RedNailsAnimated_ValeriaEDITED In Keith J. Taylor’s entry for “Red Nails,” I mentioned an animated movie project, based on that story, which never made it to fruition. Here’s some more information on that ill-fated project.

Comic book artist Kevin Eastman is the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He also owned Heavy Metal magazine from 1992 to 2014, and I believe he is still the publisher.

Eastman, a long-time Conan fan, drew a variant cover for the new Savage Sword of Conan comic from Marvel.

Back in 2003, he was trying to set up a new studio and wanted to do a full length animated DVD of Red Nails with a limited theatrical release. A temporary deal was reached with Fredrik Malmberg’s company, but the business plan didn’t work out for Eastman.

Steve Gold, who had worked on the Conan and the Young Warriors animated television show, was also interested in a Red Nails project at the time. When the Eastman deal fell through, his company, Swordplay Entertainment, signed a contract with Malmberg to animate Red Nails. A screenplay was developed and Gold’s group looked for financing.

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction, by H. Bruce Franklin

Monday, May 6, 2019 Steven H Silver Comments 3 comments

The J. Lloyd Eaton Award was established in 1977 and initially was presented to the best critical science fiction book of the year. It was not presented in 1981, 1992, 1997, 1998, or 2000 and was put on hiatus after the 2001 awards were presented. When the award was started again in 2008, it was no longer given for a critical work, but rather for lifetime achievement. The award is presented at the annual Eaton Conference, held at the University of California at Riverside. The first Eaton Award was presented to Paul A. Carter in 1977 for his book The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Science Fiction. In 1980, the winner was H. Bruce Franklin for his study Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction.

H. Bruce Franklin’s Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction was not the first book-length exploration of Heinlein’s life and writings, nor would it be the last, but it did take a unique view of Heinlein’s fiction, breaking his career into five segments and tying them to different aspects of American civilization.

Franklin opens his study with an exploration of Heinlein’s childhood, the small town of Butler, where he was born, and his father, uncle, and grandfather’s employment both there and in nearby Kansas City. Franklin isn’t merely giving background, but as he discusses Heinlein’s childhood, he ties the vicissitudes of his relative’s business ventures to Heinlein’s own take on the American dream and the way things work, or should work.

Once this background is out of the way, Franklin defines five periods of Heinlein’s writing, not only chronologically and thematically, but by tying each one to a specific period of American history. Heinlein’s earliest short stories, for instance, are linked to the Westward expansion and pioneer motif. The second period of Heinlein’s work was his emulation of the dime novels, when he was writing juvenile science fiction. This was followed by a third period which Franklin sees as mirroring the 1960s counterculture, during which Heinlein was writing. The seventies formed the fourth period with Franklin predicting a fifth period of Heinlein’s writing to kick off in 1980, the year following publication of Franklin’s study, with the publication of Heinlein’s own The Number of the Beast.

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Vintage Treasures: Infinite Dreams by Joe Haldeman

Sunday, May 5, 2019 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Cover by Clyde Caldwell

Joe Haldeman is chiefly known for his Hugo and Nebula award-winning novels, including The Forever War (1974), Forever Peace (1997), and Camouflage (2004). But he’s equally adept at shorter length, and in fact has been nominated for many major awards for his short fiction, including the novellas “Hero” and “The Hemingway Hoax,” and the stories “Tricentennial,” “Graves,” “None So Blind,” and “Four Short novels.”

Over the years I’ve hunted down several of his collections, including Dealing in Futures (1985), A Separate War and Other Stories (2006), and the huge retrospective volume from Subterranean Press, The Best of Joe Haldeman (2013). But I only recently became aware of his first collection Infinite Dreams, published in paperback by Avon in 1979 with a cover by popular TSR artist Clyde Caldwell.

Infinite Dreams gathers much of the best of his early short fiction, published 1972 – 1977 in magazines like Analog, Galaxy, F&SF and Cosmos, and anthologies like Damon Knight’s Orbit 11, and Kirby McCauley’s Frights. It contains “To Howard Hughes: A Modest Proposal,” “The Private War of Private Jacob,” “The Mazel Tov Revolution,” and his Hugo and Locus Award winner “Tricentennial.”

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Gremlins, Bizarre Capers, and Artifacts on the Moon: New Print Magazines in May

Saturday, May 4, 2019 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Asimov's Science Fiction May June 2019-small

Analog Science Fiction May June 2019-small

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May June 2019-small

The May/June batch of print SF magazines has brand new fiction from a host of popular writers, including Carrie Vaughn, Ian R. MacLeod, Ted Kosmatka, Bill Johnson, E. Lily Yu, Harry Turtledove, Alec Nevala-Lee, Stanley Schmidt, Bud Sparhawk, Edward M. Lerner, Bruce McAllister (x2), Cynthia Ward, Marissa K. Lingen, Lavie Tidhar, Matthew Hughes, Tobias S. Buckell, Andy Dudak, and many others. Here’s editor Sheila Williams summation of the latest issue of Asimov’s SF.

May/June 2019 is powerhouse issue for novelettes. In his stunning story, Ted Kosmatka reveals the excruciating cost of “Sacrificial Iron” on an interstellar voyage; Asimov’s poet John Richard Trtek’s first prose piece for us is a lyrical tour de force about time travel and “Recrossing Brooklyn Ferry”; Ian R. MacLeod brilliantly conveys the tricks of a broken mind in “The Memory Artist”; and in his enjoyable romp, Bill Johnson escorts us to Canada and onto the Ship for some “Unfinished Business.”

Not to be outdone by the novelettes, Carrie Vaughn’s soaring novella investigates what’s up with “Gremlins.” We also have a full roster of exciting short stories. In Sean Monaghan’s new tale, a heart broken mother races against time while “Chasing Oumuamua”; new to Asimov’s author Rahul Kanakia looks at some timeless concerns in “The Intertidal Zone”; Jay O’Connell presents us with a bizarre caper wherein we discover that it’s “Not Only Who You Know”; Peter Wood explains why “Never the Twain Shall Meet”; and in her first tale for Asimov’s, Campbell-Award-winner E. Lily Yu examines “The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi.”

Robert Silverberg’s Reflections celebrates “Our Shaggy Cousins.” James Patrick Kelly’s On the Net commands us to “Fire the Canon!” In James Gunn’s Thought Experiment “Science Fiction Considers the Post Human” while Norman Spinrad’s On Books ponders whether writers can go “Beyond Mimesis?” Plus we’ll have an array of poetry and more features that you’re sure to enjoy.

And here’s Trevor Quachri on the new Analog.

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Lore Olympus: One of the 2019 Eisner Nominees

Saturday, May 4, 2019 Derek Kunsken Comments 0 Comment

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I’ve been following webtoons.com on my phone’s app for a while and had Lore Olympus suggested to me many times because it is one of the most highly recommended. The thumbnail didn’t do much for me, but I recently decided to try it. The first episode is here. Oh my God…. It is so good!

In Lore Olympus writer/artist Rachel Smythe retells the Persephone-Hades story in the trappings of a modern urban fantasy. It is a full-on romance story, but also fully placed in the world of the gods and the nymphs and legends of ancient Greece, with cell phones, Fatesbook, cars and glitzy parties.

Nineteen-year old, over-protected Persephone is staying with Artemis while she starts university. They go to a party at Hera’s house, and only intend to stay for one drink, because Demeter, to protect her daughter, raised her in the mortal realm and Persephone is not used to any of the gods’ vast wealth. In her family, they make things.

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Kay Kenyon Wraps Up the Dark Talents Trilogy with Nest of the Monarch

Saturday, May 4, 2019 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

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Covers by Mike Heath

At the 2016 World Fantasy Convention I enjoyed a bunch of terrific readings, but my favorite — by a wide margin — was Kay Kenyon, who read from her WWII spy novel At the Table of Wolves, the tale of a young English woman with superhuman abilities who stumbles on a chilling Nazi plan to invade England using superhuman agents. The sequel Serpent in the Heather arrived last year, and just last month the concluding volume in the trilogy, Nest of the Monarch, was published in hardcover by Saga Press. Kay’s Amazon bio has a nice summary of the entire series; here it is.

My trilogy, The Dark Talents novels finished in spring of 2019 with the publication of Nest of the Monarch. The series features Kim Tavistock, who deals with dark Talents, Nazi conspiracies, and espionage in 1936 England and Europe. Both Nest of the Monarch and At the Table of Wolves received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly.

In Book two, Serpent in the Heather, Kim must track down the Nazi assassin who is systematically killing young people with Talents. Kirkus called it “A unique concept that is superbly executed.” Book three brings Kim undercover in Berlin… I was inspired to write this series by the stories of the many women spies, radio operators and resistance fighters in the world wars. See my blog series, “Women spies in the World Wars” at www.KayKenyon.com.

Kay offers a great teaser for the closing volume at her website.

I wanted to pull out all the stops for what Kim Tavistock is capable of, and place the events of the book in the scariest environment I could imagine, at least for a spy: 1936 Berlin and a secret SS outpost. The result is my richest story yet, I’m thinking

Here’s the full description for Nest of the Monarch.

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Wordsmiths: Interview with Award-Winning Author Rebecca Roanhorse

Friday, May 3, 2019 Brandon Crilly Comments 1 comment

Being a reviewer and interviewer definitely has its perks some days, especially when I get the chance for a one-on-one chat with one of my new favorite fantasy authors. I’ve mentioned Rebecca Roanhorse quite a bit in my column here, which made it extra exciting to be able to chat with her about her previous work and what might be on the horizon. Hope you enjoy!

ME: I read your story “Harvest” in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color and I loved the vague and unsettling nature of it, which is struck me differently than the other work of yours I’ve read. Can you tell me a little about where the idea for that came from, and how it developed?

REBECCA: Interestingly enough, I think “Harvest” has a lot in common with my other works. The style is more lyrical, but the themes it explores like identity and community are similar. Also similar is the exploration of what makes one a monster and what makes one human, and how sometimes the difference is a matter of perspective. I was also striving to capture a feeling in the story for the kind of love that leads to infatuation and self-destruction and whether that’s always a bad thing. And, of course, the ending of the story, much like “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience(TM)” should call into question the protagonist as reliable narrator and what is real and what is not. To me, at least, it’s very much a “Roanhorse” kind of story.

Everything that I’ve read of yours — this story, “Indian Experience(TM)”, Trail of Lightning — carries undertones about a variety of indigenous issues. Why discuss these topics through fantasy as opposed to contemporary literature?

I’m a nerd. I’ve always been a Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF) reader and writer from my earliest memories of reading Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander as a kid and then Eddings and Jordan and Herbert as I got into high school, and as an adult Butler and Le Guin, among many, many others. I’ve always written SFF, too, from my very first stories in middle school. It’s what I love. What else would I write?

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Goth Chick News: Strange Blood

Thursday, May 2, 2019 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

As our friends over at The Nerdist pointed out, 2019 is seeing a resurgence in our favorite classic fiend, the vampire. Not those angsty, flannel-wearing lot from Seattle, but the old school leather and lace variety who unapologetically drink human blood. The kind who either haunt our nightmares or make us think maybe sunlight is overrated after all.

And that’s a big relief if you ask me.

So, know it or not, the timing was just about perfect for author Vanessa Morgan to come out with a compilation of the strangest of the strange vampire stories ever placed between covers.

Strange Blood brings together 71 essays from 23 countries, delving into the most offbeat and underrated vampire movies going back 90 years and right up to the present day. Titles include The White Reindeer (1952), Requiem for a Vampire (1971), Nadja (1994) and my person favorite, the Swedish version of Let the Right One In (2008) just to name a few.

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