Black Gate – Page 416 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Pocket Best

Friday, July 13, 2018 John ONeill Comments 10 comments

We’ve spent a lot of time here at Black Gate celebrating Del Rey’s Classics of Science Fiction line from 1974-88 (The Best of Eric Frank Russell, The Best of Fritz Leiber, etc.); nearly two dozen paperback originals reprinting early short stores by C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, John W. Campbell, Philip K. Dick, Fredric Brown, Murray Leinster, Robert Bloch, Jack Williamson, and many others. The series was the equivalent of a Masters-level course in science fiction and, taken as a whole, formed an essential library of 20th Century SF. The entire series, including all the reprints, is cataloged at IMDB. None of the volumes have been reprinted since 1988, and there are no digital versions, but the series was popular enough that copies are easy to find and not particularly expensive. (See below for a handsome set I bought last month for $40).

Lester del Dey wasn’t the only publisher to see the value of a line of Best of collections, of course. Donald Wollheim more or less pioneered the idea with The Book of A.E. van Vogt (DAW Books No. 4, 1972) and The Book of Brian Aldiss (No. 29, 1972), and followed with nine more from Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, Gordon R. Dickson, Philip Jose Farmer, Fritz Leiber, Fred Saberhagen, Poul Anderson, John Brunner, and Andre Norton. Like most early DAW efforts though, these were slender volumes; they’re also not as numerous, and the packaging isn’t nearly as attractive as the Del Rey books, so they aren’t as collectible.

There was another publisher who gave del Rey a run for his money, however. Between 1976 and 1980 Pocket Books produced nearly a dozen substantial collections showing off the science fiction authors in their catalog, including Jack Vance, Robert Silverberg, Harry Harrison, John Sladek, Keith Laumer, Damon Knight, Poul Anderson, Barry N. Malzberg, Mack Reynolds, and Walter M. Miller.

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In 500 Words or Less: A Short Fiction Roundup!

Friday, July 13, 2018 Brandon Crilly Comments 2 comments

Focusing a review into less than five hundred words is tough sometimes, but I feel like I’ve got the hang of it. The obvious next step? Talk about multiple books in one review!

This week I’m doing a roundup of some excellent short fiction I’ve read in the last few weeks. It covers a breadth of genres and styles, so hopefully some (if not all) of what I mention below appeals to you.

First off, I had the pleasure of receiving an ARC of the second issue of Reckoning, edited by Michael J. DeLuca, who I co-hosted the first #solarpunkchat with on Twitter in April. Reckoning focuses specifically on environmental justice, and Issue 2 is packed with a ton of experimental and forward-thinking work about sustainability, culture and the environment. Michael’s introduction concerning how to raise a child knowing their world will be fundamentally different than your own echoed a lot of my concerns about teaching, but the piece that blew me away was Marissa Lingen’s “The Shale Giants,” giving voice to the earth beneath us, which might not be patient and benevolent forever.

If you’re a fan of themed anthologies, get a copy of Alice Unbound from Canada’s Exile Editions, which riffs off Alice in Wonderland with SFF twists. There are too many great stories to mention here. Kate Heartfield, whose debut novel I reviewed recently, creates a tragic narrative around Carroll’s Gentleman in the Paper Suit in “Dressed in White Paper.” Geoff Gander and Fiona Plunkett turn Alice and her friends into Firefly-esque freelancers, complete with a caterpillar alien, in “Full House.” Though the final reveal in Pat Flewwelling’s story of madness spreading through an airport is a little too on-the-nose for me, “Cyphoid Mary” is still the most terrifying piece in the anthology. But my absolute favorite is “The River Street Witch” by Dominik Parisien, told from the perspective of a young girl who believes she’s a witch with no control over her magic, but if you read between there’s much more at play — this is a story that will stay with you long after you’ve finished.

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Birthday Reviews: Stephen Robinett’s “A Penny’s Worth”

Friday, July 13, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 1 comment

Stephen Robinett was born on July 13, 1941 and died on February 16, 2004.

Until 1975, Robinette published using the name Tak Hallus. Although he has mostly used his own name since then, in 1976, he published the novel Mindwipe! using the pseudonym Steve Hahn.

“A Penny’s Worth” appeared in the March 1976 issue of Analog, edited by Ben Bova. It was the story’s only appearance.

Robinett created the lawyer Harry Penny for the story “A Penny’s Worth,” and Penny finds himself hired by a graduate student, Marshal Pierce, to defend Pierce against assault and battery charges. Although Pierce claims no recollection of assaulting Dr. Charles Morrow, there are two witnesses, Morrow’s wife and a neighbor, who saw the attack. The story follows Penny as he interviews witnesses and others with ties to Pierce and Morrow, to figure out what happened. The story is engaging, although the solution is telegraphed rather early on.

While Morrow and Pierce don’t know each other, there are several links between the two. Pierce worked as a graduate student for Ray Winslow, Morrow’s former, and now dead, partner. At one time Harry dated Nora, who went on to marry Winslow before leaving him for Morrow. Vernon Vernon, Pierce’s boss who fired him for stealing something after Winslow died, although Pierce claims he had Winslow’s permission to take it, also has ties to Morrow. What is clear to the reader from early on is that the medication Winslow had Pierce take somehow makes Pierce seek out Morrow to get vengeance for what Morrow did to Winslow.

Sometimes, however, plot isn’t the most important thing and so knowing the solution, rather than spoiling the story, provides a sense of foreshadowing. What caused the attack in this case is less important than Penny’s way of finding out what the reader has already figured out. His interviews with Nora, Morrow, and Vernon and his instructions to Pierce to help the boy avoid prison time for assault or worse, are the keys to the story and make it a very entertaining piece of fiction. Penny and his world seem as if they were developed to be an ongoing series, and Robinett would return to the character the following year in the novella “The Man Responsible.”

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Goth Chick News: Welcome to the World of Comic Book Gross-Outs…

Thursday, July 12, 2018 Sue Granquist Comments 2 comments

This week Image/Skybound Entertainment broke with new release tradition and dropped the first issue of an all-new series without preamble, by comics titans Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Outcast by Kirkman & Azaceta, Oblivion Song), Scott M. Gimple (Punisher: Nightmare, writer and producer for The Walking Dead TV adaptation on AMC), and Chris Burnham (Batman Incorporated, Nameless, Nixon’s Pals), with colors by Nathan Fairbairn who gets to use whichever one he wants as long as it’s red. The first issue of the series entitled DIE!DIE!DIE! went on sale Wednesday.

Kirkman himself made the rather gleeful announcement circulated Tuesday, which is rather last minute as these go, and entirely on purpose:

That’s right, in stores TOMORROW! We want to make going to a comic shop exciting again — a place for discovery! The internet has drained all surprise and anticipation from comics. Everyone hears about exciting new projects and then has to wait months or years for it to be in their hands… and half the time at the end of that buildup, the stories get spoiled in some lame attempt at getting wider media attention. So, surprise! Here’s a new monthly series. How cool is that?! This is literally the only way I can be like Beyoncé.

Gimple added:

I spend most of my time working in TV, the big Walking Dead programs keep me plenty busy, but I’ve had a burning passion for comics since I was nine. I used to go to panels to see Robert Kirkman talk. And now he’s writing quotes in a press release as me that I can read over and tweak!

Yes gentlemen – the euphoria is real and we feel it too.

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New Treasures: Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys

Thursday, July 12, 2018 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

Ruthanna Emrys’ tales of The Innsmouth Legacy began with “The Litany of Earth,” a novelette originally published at Tor.com in May 2014, which picks up the threads of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” Aphra Marsh, who with the other residents of Innsmouth was forced into internment camps, discovers humans trying to replicate her people’s secret rituals, with sinister consequences. If it weren’t for the noxious Hugo-grab by the Rabid Puppies, it would almost certainly have ended up on the 2015 Hugo Award Ballot.

The story eventually grew into Winter Tide, one of NPR’s Best Books of 2017, which Liz Bourke called “an exceptionally accomplished debut.” Like a Great Old One emerging out of the Pacific, the tale has continued to grow and spread. The sequel Deep Roots, the second volume in what’s now a planned trilogy, arrived in hardcover from Tor.com Publications this week. Here’s the description.

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Birthday Reviews: James Gunn’s “The Day the Magic Came Back”

Thursday, July 12, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 3 comments

James E. Gunn was born on July 12, 1923.

In 1976, Gunn received a Worldcon Special Convention Award at MidAmeriCon for his book Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction. The same year the Science Fiction Research Association presented him with the Pilgrim Award. He was recognized with an Eaton Award in 1982. In 1983, his book Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction won the Hugo Award for Best Nonfiction Book. He received the Clareson Award from the SFRA in 1997. He received the Moskowitz Award in 2000 and was named a SFWA Grand Master in 2007. In 2009, he was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame. Gunn was one of the Guests of Honor at LoneStarCon 3, the 71^st World Science Fiction Convention held in San Antonio, Texas in 2013. Two years later, Gunn was inducted into the Science Fiction Fall of Fame in Seattle.

“The Day the Magic Came Back” was purchased by Scott Edelman for Science Fiction Age and appeared in the January 1996 issue. Gunn later included the story in his collection Human Voices, originally published in 2002.

When world class physician Dr. Knowland is unable to cure 9-year-old Linda Constant’s disease, her family brought in their preacher, Mr. Alma, to the hospital to pray for her. As she slowly became better, Knowland had to admit that she was cured more by Alma’s prayer than by Knowland’s medicine, and Knowland went in search of the faith healer to learn his methods.

Although what Knowland learned was a conflict between belief and science, he approached Alma’s technique with an open mind, coming to the conclusion that Alma was influencing people’s health through an unknown, and not provable or necessarily reproducible, means. The realization produces a fear in Knowland not because he frets for his job, he admits that science needs something to fall back on, but rather because it destroys his understanding of the fundamental way the universe works. Even if his science and medicine continue to work, his universe has suddenly become too unpredictable for his tastes.

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Gibralfaro Castle in Málaga, Spain

Wednesday, July 11, 2018 Sean McLachlan Comments 0 Comment

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Last week I wrote about the Alcazaba Castle in Málaga, Spain. As I mentioned, it’s only one of two castles protecting the Mediterranean harbor. Up the hill from the Alcazaba, on top of the Gibralfaro Mountain, is Gibralfaro Castle.

The summit was originally home to a Phoenician lighthouse, hence the name in both Arabic and Greek, gebel-faro meaning “rock of the lighthouse”.

In 929 AD, Abd-al-Rahman III, Caliph of Cordoba, built the first castle here. It was later expanded in the 14th century by Yusef I, Sultan of Granada. He also connected this fort to the Alcazaba by adding a double wall down the slope to make one continuous fortification. You have to buy a ticket for each, though. Poor old Yusuf is spinning in his grave.

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R.A. Lafferty, the Past Master of Science Fiction

Wednesday, July 11, 2018 John ONeill Comments 12 comments

R.A Lafferty is one of my absolute favorite classic SF writers. Though I’ve never read any of his novels.

Yeah, I know that sounds weird. But Lafferty is remembered today mostly for his brilliant short fiction, collected in priceless collections like Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1970), Strange Doings (1972), and Lafferty in Orbit (1991). And his novels… well, they’re not so well remembered. There are a lot of theories about this. In his wonderful SF biography Past Masters (the title of which is an homage to Lafferty), Bud Webster quotes Mike Resnick, who was close to Lafferty:

There were a number of people… who thought he was the most brilliant short story writer in the field. But his novelettes weren’t as good, and except for Space Chanty (sic) his novellas were unexceptional, and his novels were for the most part mediocre. I blame his drinking for this. If he could grind out a story in one or two sittings, he could be brilliant. But if a novel took him 50 writing sessions, you get the feeling that each day he had to refresh his memory of what the hell he wanted to do, how he wanted to say it, etc.

Not all of Lafferty’s novels have a poor rep. His first, Past Master (1968), was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula, and today has become one of the most collectible SF paperbacks ever published by Ace Books, with good-condition copies commanding $50-85 and up on eBay.

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

Wednesday, July 11, 2018 Steven H Silver 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 Planet” was also nominated for the first Nebula Award. He posthumously won the Seiun Award three times, for his short fiction “Think Blue, Count Two” and “A Planet Named Shayol.” His third win was for the novel Norstilia, which was also a nominee for the Jupiter Award.

“No, No, Not Rogov!,” was originally purchased by Damon Knight and published in the February, 1959 issue of If. Judith Merril included the story in The 5^th Annual of the Year’s Best S.-F. and Smith used it in his collection You Will Never Be the Same. Knight reprinted the story in the anthology Science Fiction Inventions and it was one of Smith’s stories in his collection The Instrumentality of Mankind. When Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg were selecting stories of The Great SF Stories 21 (1959), “No, No, Not Rogov!” made their cut. Jim Mann opened the NESFA Press collection The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith with the story. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer used it in The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF. It most recently appeared in the Baen Books collection of Smith’s work, When the People Fell. “No, No, Not Rogov!” has been translated into French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

“No, No, Not Rogov!” is an indictment of the Soviet system. Smith tells about Soviet scientists N. Rogov and Anastasia Cherpas, whose professional competitiveness turns into respect and eventually a scientifically collaborative marriage. Whether or not they actually have any affection for each other can’t be determined from the story, although Cherpas does resent the crush that the scientist Gausgofer, who was sent to spy on them, develops on Rogov.

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E3 2018: Xbox Press Conference

Tuesday, July 10, 2018 Matt Drought Comments 1 comment

Every year, in early summer, the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) showcases the industry’s upcoming games, gaming tech, and gaming culture. Studios from around the world vie to create a buzz for their brands by announcing new games, new content for existing games, and upcoming new hardware.

The largest Studios, such as Xbox, Bethesda, Playstation, etc. hold live, large press conferences that can be viewed in person, streamed live, or be watched later on the internet. These press conferences are fairly long events, often lasting over an hour. Typical content for these events are live game demos, prerecorded demos, and short video teasers for games not far in development. These presentations sometimes include celebrities and often include developer commentary.

This year, the first press conference was held by Xbox.

As I have mentioned in the past, Xbox has been losing the “console war” to Playstation. With the Playstation 4 outselling the Xbox, the Microsoft brand had a lot riding on this years E3 conference.

In order to convince consumers that their consoles are the place to play the best games, Xbox needed to double down on compelling exclusive games, timed released games, and DLC. They would need to create games and content that they can get nowhere else.

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