Search Results for: david C Smith

Disgust and Desire: An Interview with Anna Smith Spark

Comments 2 comments

It is not intuitive to seek beauty in art deemed grotesque/weird, but most authors who produce horror/fantasy actually are usually (a) serious about their craft, and (b) driven my strange muses.  This interview series engages contemporary authors & artists on the theme of “Art & Beauty in Weird/Fantasy Fiction.”  Previously we cornered weird fantasy authors like John Fultz, Janeen Webb, Aliya Whiteley, Richard Lee Byers, Sebastian Jones, Charles Gramlich, and Darrell Schweitzer. This one features the “Queen of Grimdark,” Anna Smith Spark. Anna Smith Spark is the author of the…

Read More Read More

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: David Langford

Comments 3 comments

The Fan Activity Achievement Awards (FAAN) were founded in 1976 by Moshe Feder and Arnie Katz. The award was presented annually from 1975 through 1980 and then became moribund until it was revived in 1994 and presented at Corflu, a convention for fanzine fans. Due to a change in the eligibility year, o awards were presented in 1996, but it has been presented annually since then. The Best Fan Writer Award was presented in the inaugural year to Don C….

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Cordwainer Smith’s “No, No, Not Rogov!”

Comments 4 comments

Cordwainer Smith was born Paul Linebarger on July 11, 1913 and died on August 6, 1966. As Linebarger, his most famous work was Psychological Warfare. Frederik Pohl revealed that Smith was really Linebarger in an editorial that ran in the December 1966 issue of Galaxy Smith was nominated for two Hugo Awards, first for the short story “The Game of Rat and Dragon” in 1955 and later for the novel The Planet Buyer in 1965. His novella “On the Storm…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Rosel George Brown’s “David’s Daddy”

Comments 2 comments

Cover by Burt Shonberg Rosel George Brown was born on March 15, 1926 and died on November 26, 1967. She participated in the Milford Writers Workshop and in 1959 was nominated for a Hugo for Best New Author (losing to No Award; Brian W. Aldiss and Kit Reed were also nominated that year!) Brown wrote the novel Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue and a sequel that was published posthumously. She also collaborated with Keith Laumer on Earthblood. Many of her short…

Read More Read More

A Jaunt Through Clark Ashton Smith’s Collected Fantasies—Vol. 3: A Vintage from Atlantis

Comments 5 comments

Horrible it was, if there had been aught to apprehend the horror; and loathsome, if there had been any to feel loathing. —“Ubbo Sathla” Clark Ashton Smith was approaching his writing peak and fortunate to have multiple markets open to his best work during the period of the stories in this volume (1931–32). Three magazines were publishing him on the regular: Weird Tales, Wonder Stories, and Strange Tales. The situation didn’t last; Smith suffered a slowdown when Strange Tales folded…

Read More Read More

A Jaunt Through Clark Ashton Smith’s Collected Fantasies—Vol. 2: The Door to Saturn

Comments 4 comments

I’m back from my latest amble through the collected SF and fantasy stories of Clark Ashton Smith from publisher Night Shade. I’m reading these at a gradual pace, sprinkling a story here and there among whatever else I’m reading. It’s like having Clark Ashton Smith casually hang out with you for months at a time, a darkly erudite and sporadically mordantly humorous traveling companion who occasionally asks: “Hey, what are you reading there? Well, let me tell you this story…

Read More Read More

Wordsmiths: An Interview with Evan May

Comments 1 comment

Well, folks, we’ve survived the first month and a bit of 2017 – barely, some might say. I’m of the mind not to let various disruptions get you down or mess with the writing mojo, which is partly why I’m really glad to be sharing this interview with my fellow rational human being and generally chill writer, Evan May. Below we discuss his first novel, The King in Darkness, which I reviewed a few posts back, as well as the fantasy…

Read More Read More

Wordsmiths: An Interview with Leah Bobet

Comments 0 Comment

Greetings, folks! As an addition to my reviews at Black Gate, I will be occasionally interviewing some of the authors and editors I talk about (if I’m lucky enough to know them, or they’re gracious enough to agree). I’m fascinated with the idea of getting into the mind of creative people, and some of the best conversations I have in my day-to-day are with other writers, so I’m hoping to capture some of that insight in this “Wordsmiths” series. My…

Read More Read More

The Books of David G. Hartwell: Visions of Wonder and The Science Fiction Century

Comments 4 comments

We lost David Hartwell on January 20th. This is our sixth article in a series that looks back at one of the most gifted editors in our industry. With the publication of The Dark Descent and The Ascent of Wonder, David quickly established himself as the go-to guy for big genre survey volumes, and he produced many of them. These massive books were popular with libraries and book clubs, and many stayed in print for years. David had found a fine niche for himself…

Read More Read More