Search Results for: book reviews by Fletcher Vredenburgh

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hardboiled Fantasy – Garrett, PI

Comments 6 comments

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun) The extremely talented Glen Cook is best known for his excellent dark fantasy series about a mercenary group, The Black Company. In 2018, Fletcher Vredenburgh wrote a FOURTEEN-part deep dive into the series. If I…

Read More Read More

The Sillliest Stuff I’ve Ever Read: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Comments 13 comments

HIPPOLYTA ’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. THESEUS More strange than true. I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold; That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow…

Read More Read More

Talking Terry Pratchett

Comments 13 comments

It’s always a good time to talk about Terry Pratchett! He was, simply, brilliant. Pratchett, who passed away in 2015 from Alzheimer’s, wrote the terrific fantasy series, Discworld. He gets my vote as one of the great satirists of our time. And he used classical fantasy tropes to do it! Did I mention, ‘brilliant’? I re-read (and listen to) Pratchett books throughout the year. I got in the mood again recently, and did a mini-binge. Discworld is fantasy world, with…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace by Tim Powers

Comments 12 comments

Dinner at Deviant’s Palace (Ace, 1985). Cover by John Berkey Tim Powers is a much beloved figure among American fantasy fans. As Gabe Dybing pointed out here in 2020: He has a strange sort of fame. The most obvious cause for his celebrity is that twice he has won the World Fantasy Award for best novel (Last Call, 1992, and Declare, 2000). He also has been credited with inventing, with The Anubis Gates (1983), the steampunk genre… Finally, for whatever…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith

Comments 24 comments

The City of the Singing Flame (Timescape, 1981). Cover by Rowena Morrill We’ve written a lot about Clark Ashton Smith at Black Gate. Like, a lot. Over two dozen articles over the last decade or so by my count, by many of our top writers, including Brian Murphy, Matthew David Surridge, Fletcher Vredenburgh, Thomas Parker, James Maliszewski, M Harold Page, Steven H Silver, John R. Fultz — and especially Ryan Harvey, who’s penned a third of our coverage all on…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Hooting Grange by Jeffrey E. Barlough

Comments 7 comments

Hooting Grange, eleventh volume in Jeffrey E. Barlough’s Northern Lights series, published March 2021 by Gresham & Doyle. Cover “The Close Gate” by Ernest William Haslehust. One of the most popular fantasy series in the Black Gate offices these days doesn’t come from a major Manhattan publisher. In fact, it doesn’t come from traditional publishing at all. For the last 23 years Jeffrey E. Barlough has quietly been writing one of the strongest and most unusual fantasy epics on the…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Alien Earth by Megan Lindholm

Comments 0 Comment

Alien Earth (Bantam Spectra, 1992). Cover by Oscar Chichoni Megan Lindholm is a bestselling fantasy writer under her pseudonym Robin Hobb. But before she began producing epic fantasy trilogies under that name in the late 90s, she had a successful career as Lindholm, writing highly respected novels such as Wizard of the Pigeons, Cloven Hooves, and the 4-volume Windsingers series. She also dabbled in science fiction, most notably with her 1992 novel Alien Earth, the tale of small team of…

Read More Read More

Imaro Series Tour Guide

Comments 11 comments

“Who am I? Who is my father? Where is my mother? Why do death and demons follow me wherever I go?” – Imaro in The Quest for Cush Charles R. Saunders, the originator of Sword & Soul, passed away May this year (2020, Greg Mele covered a tribute for Black Gate). Saunders is most known for his Imaro tales chronicling an African-inspired “Conan the Barbarian” on the fictional continent of Nyumbani. Saunders also wrote of a heroine named Dossouye (separate series), amongst…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Land of Dreams by James P. Blaylock

Comments 5 comments

Land of Dreams (Ace, 1988). Cover by James Warhola In 1986 James Blaylock’s novelette “Paper Dragons,” originally published in Robin McKinley’s anthology Imaginary Lands, was nominated for a Nebula award, and received a World Fantasy Award. A year later Blaylock returned to the same setting with Land of Dreams, a contemporary fantasy that Science Fiction Chronicle called “Blaylock’s best novel to date, one that will undoubtedly catapult him into prominence,” and which caused Gardner Dozois to proclaim, “James P. Blaylock is one…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Timescape Robert Holdstock

Comments 2 comments

Cover art by Carl Lundgren Robert Holdstock, who died in 2009, was one of the most important fantasists of the 20th Century. While he wrote over a dozen novels, he’s chiefly remembered for his breakout novel Mythago Wood and its sequels. In his review right here last year, James Van Pelt wrote: I really can’t recommend Mythago Wood enough. In a time when everyone else was echoing Tolkien, Holdstock created a completely different take on fantasy (rural fantasy — if that’s…

Read More Read More