That is a slight oversimplification of M. Harold Page’s mission as a fiction writer. Let’s get the whole thing: “The exploration of complex human themes through the medium of interpersonal violence and blowing $%#! up in space.” If you threw “and magical worlds” on the end, you’d have a pretty good starting description of what most of us Black Gate readers look for in a book. That may sound a bit flippant, but in fact Page can be deeply thoughtful…
Read More Read More
November/December 2021 issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Maurizio Manzieri, Shutterstock, and Maurizio Manzieri (again) The November/December print magazines have an impressive list of contributors, including Jack McDevitt, Nalo Hopkinson, Robert Reed, Eleanor Arnason, David Gerrold, Megan Lindholm, Bill Pronzini & Barry N. Malzberg, Jack Skillingstead, Sandra McDonald, Sheila Finch, R. Garcia y Robertson, Ray Nayler, Gregory Feeley, Shane Tourtellotte, Alice Towey, and many others. Sam…
Read More Read More
A Review of Immortal Muse & Interview with Stephen Leigh Complements this Excerpt. Jeanne Hébuterne / Amedeo Modigliani with commentary by Stephen Leigh, the author To the reader: This abandoned and unfinished long draft section may not make a great deal of sense unless you’ve already read IMMORTAL MUSE (DAW Books 2014), an alternate history fantasy novel about exactly what the title implies: a genuine muse who is immortal, who also happens to have been Perenelle Flamel (b….
Read More Read More
Ah, Horror in the time of Covid! It seems almost superfluous, like a feather boa on an ostrich. However, we the authors of A Sinister Quartet (Mythic Delirium 2020), have pranced fancily forward on that ostrich! Ostriches piled on ostriches! Feather boas galore! Which feather boas, I might add, sport an unnerving number of teeth and eyeballs. (Editor and author Mike Allen likes to say of our book: “It’s the fun horror, the kind you consume for imaginative shocks and chills, not the kind that…
Read More Read More
For Us, the Living by Robert A. Heinlein; First Edition: Scribner 2004. Jacket illustration by Mark Stutzman (click to enlarge) For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein Introduction by Spider Robinson; Afterword by Robert James, Ph.D. Scribner (263 pages, $25.00 in hardcover, 2004) Almost on a lark, I picked up the first novel by Robert A. Heinlein a few days ago, and read it through. It’s a fascinating book on several levels. First, it’s Heinlein’s…
Read More Read More
H.P. Lovecraft One of the most exciting books to cross my desk this summer was an advance proof of The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham. It’s the follow-up to Leslie S. Klinger’s monumental 928-page The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, published by Liveright in 2014, which Harlan Ellison called “an Olympian landmark of modern gothic literature.” Beyond Arkham is an absolutely gorgeous book, packed with 22 more Lovecraft stories, including several of his most famous, and 200 vintage photographs and illustrations….
Read More Read More
Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger have edited four popular Holmes-themed anthologies: A Study in Sherlock (2011), In the Company of Sherlock Holmes (2014), and Echoes of Sherlock Holmes (2016). Their newest features contributions from a stellar list of authors, including Peter S. Beagle, F. Paul Wilson, William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello, Duane Swierczynski, and Gregg Hurwitz. Publishers Weekly says it presents a wide range of genres “from cozy to horror;” here’s a snippet from their full review. The 14 selections…
Read More Read More
By Andrew P. Weston This is an excerpt from Hell Gate by Andrew P. Weston, presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of Andrew P. Weston, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Hell Gate will be available in trade paperback and digital editions. Copyright 2018 by Perseid Press. The Angel Grislington is dead, effaced from existence during an epic battle with Daemon Grim that destroyed a Zion forged blade…
Read More Read More
By Scott Oden This is an excerpt from A Gathering of Raven, by Scott Oden, presented by Black Gate magazine. © 2017 by Scott Oden. It appears with the permission of Scott Oden, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. A Gathering of Ravens is available in hardcover and digital formats from Tomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. Cover by James Iacobelli. For two days, under skies hewn from the cold heart of winter, Grimnir guided them south and…
Read More Read More
Sunday, July 16, felt in some ways like the day Fantasia 2017 really began for me. I had three movies I planned to watch, of three very different kinds, though all at the De Sève Theatre. The first was a horror-inflected American independent film called The Honor Farm. The second was a Hong Kong action movie called Shock Wave (Chaak Daan Juen Ga). The third was a Chinese art movie called Free and Easy (Qīng sōng yú kuài). That mix…
Read More Read More