Black Gate – Page 416 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Mage: The Hero Denied #8

Friday, June 22, 2018 MichaelPenkas Comments 3 comments

So I’m starting work on my review for Mage: The Hero Denied #9, when I realize that, while I wrote a rather lengthy review of issue #8, I never got around to posting it. Expect the next review in the next week or so.

See the previous reviews in this series here.

Being a fifteen-issue series, issue #8 is obviously the halfway point for the story and as such we expect it to be something of a turning point. And while some parts of the story are very predictable for a mid-point chapter, this issue did manage to surprise me a few times. The two starting points are Magda waking up in the villains’ lair and Kevin facing the ogre that trashed his house. Magda gets the stereotypical James Bond treatment, where her enemy sets her up in a luxury suite and promises to provide her with every comfort before killing her. And Kevin gets pummeled by a monster. But then both story threads go in unexpected directions.

It starts with the way that Kevin handles the ogre. His focus here is on finding his family and since killing the ogre won’t help him in that goal, he refuses to fight back. The result is that the ogre starts tossing him around while Kevin just keeps asking where his family’s been taken. This isn’t the strike-first and ask-questions-later approach that we expect from Kevin. It’s the tactic of a more responsible hero who is controlling his rage so that he can achieve a more important goal than just defeating the monster.

The scene switches to Magda demanding to see her children. And here we see another parallel between Magda and the Umbra Sprite. She’s told that the Umbra Sprite values her daughters as much as Magda values her children. She’s then reunited with Hugo. And we’re left to wonder what’s happened to Miranda.

Back to Kevin, who continues to get pummeled by the monster, refusing to fight back until his questions are answered. But then he discovers that only Hugo and Magda were captured. Miranda is hiding in the rubble. Once he realizes that his daughter is there and could be harmed, he makes very quick work of the ogre, revealing that he could have easily killed the monster at any time.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1954: A Retro-Review

Friday, June 22, 2018 Matthew Wuertz Comments 3 comments

The March, 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction features a cover by Ed Emshwiller. I’m not certain how easy it is to see, but I like how he added EMSH to the symbols in the background.

“The Telenizer” by Don Thompson — Langston is a reporter who becomes a target of someone with a telenizer. The device, once honed to someone’s brain waves, can change a person’s perception of reality. One countermeasure is drunkenness, but Langston opts for a neutralizing device that he can carry in a briefcase.

Langston starts a story on himself, beginning with an investigation on Isaac Grogan. Langston did an expose series on Grogan years ago on bribery and corruption, which eventually led to the man’s arrest. Now that Grogan is free, he has motive for revenge. But there could be more at play than the obvious.

I like the premise and some of the action sequences; the story has a good pace. I couldn’t find much information on Thompson, which made me think the name could be a pseudonym for another author, given that this is the longest story in the issue. But I’m not turning up anything.

Maybe someone else (e.g. Rich Horton) has more information.

“The Littlest People” by Raymond E. Banks — Space labor forces are shipped cheaply by placing people in stasis while being shrunk to just a few inches in size. John’s father is the personnel director on an asteroid and meets with Mr. Mott, who arrives with new people available for hire. As John wanders the ship, he finds one of the little people — a woman — lying on the floor.

He picks her up and means to tell Mr. Mott, but there’s a bit of chaos at that moment, and John pockets her. Later, his sister brings the tiny woman (whom she names Gleam) out of stasis by accidentally injuring her leg. So John begins caring for Gleam like a pet while she bemoans her uselessness because of her permanently injured leg.

This is a really intriguing tale by Banks, and aside from some physical violence, it’s a good coming-of-age story.

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Remakes And Do-overs

Friday, June 22, 2018 Violette Malan Comments 17 comments

sherlock2 There’s one thing that novelists, as a rule, don’t need to worry about and that’s having a remake done of one of their books. Sure, there are movie adaptations, but that’s not really the same thing.

Films and TV shows, on the other hand seem to get remade frequently. Often. All the time, even. Some more successfully than others. I’ve seen 5 different Hamlets, and that’s not counting live drama. Come to think of it, I’ve seen at least 3 Henry V’s. It’s actually expected that someone will make a new version, whether performed or filmed, of King Lear, or Romeo and Juliet, or Murder in the Cathedral.

An iconic character is a shoe-in for a remake – a few just keep re-and-reappearing. It would take some effort to figure out whether Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes has appeared in more films or TV series, or how many different actors have played these leads. Some are more successful than others, while some, especially in the case of Tarzan, aren’t successful at all. There are more recent Tarzans, but for many people the quintessential Lord of the Jungle is still Johnny Weissmuller, in the films of the 1930’s and early 40’s. That was certainly the only really successful movie series of the character.

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Birthday Reviews: Octavia E. Butler’s “The Book of Martha”

Friday, June 22, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22, 1947 and died February 24, 2006.

Butler earned a Hugo Award in 1984 for her short story “Speech Sounds.” In 1985 her novelette “Bloodchild” received both the Hugo and the Nebula Award. She received a second Nebula Award in 2000 for the novel Parable of the Talents. In 2010 she was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. She received the SFWA’s Solstice Award in 2012. Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, based on her 1979 novel Kindred, earned her and Damian Duffy a Bram Stoker Award in 2018. She had several other award nominations as well.

Butler’s sold “The Book of Martha” to Ellen Datlow for publication in SciFiction on May 21, 2003. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer picked the story up for Year’s Best Fantasy 4 the following year and in 2005, Butler included it in the second edition of her story collection Bloodchild and Other Stories. It was reprinted by Marleen S. Barr in Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction’s Newest New Wave Trajectory, published by Ohio State University Press and finally in Peter S. Beagle’s anthology The Secret History of Fantasy.

One of the questions theologians argue with regard to God’s nature is why an omnipotent and benevolent God would permit evil in the world. In “The Book of Martha,” Octavia E. Butler explores that question in a dialogue between Martha, an African-American writer, and God, who has summoned her to allow Martha to make a single change to humanity in an attempt to improve it.

Among the givens of Butler’s world is that God is insistent that humans have free will. Because of this, God’s omniscience doesn’t exist. When Martha asks God to help her model behavior based on her change, he can advise based on experience (and possibly earlier similar experiments), but God claims not to know the consequences for sure.

The discussion not only explores the law of unintended consequences, but also takes on what qualities a leader should have. Martha was chosen for the job not only because of her life experiences, but also because she cares about people and is worried that she might inadvertently cause harm. When Martha raised the question of creating a Utopiean society, the conversation turns to deconstructing what a Utopia would actually entail.

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Goth Chick News Reviews Stephen King’s The Outsider

Thursday, June 21, 2018 Sue Granquist Comments 2 comments

If it seems like I’ve been talking about Stephen King a lot lately, you’re right. King has experienced a significant renaissance over the last few years, not only cranking out quite a lot of fresh new stories but seeing his work both old and new getting treatments for the large and small screen.

The Book Hub recently tallied up all the King tales about to be part of your entertainment lineup.

Movies

It: Part 2
Revival
Pet Sematary
Firestarter
Hearts in Atlantis
My Pretty Pony
Doctor Sleep
Drunken Fireworks (based on the short story from The Bazaar of Bad Dreams)
The Talisman
The Stand

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Traveller Resources Without Dice #1: The Travel Survival Guide by Lloyd Figgins

Thursday, June 21, 2018 M Harold Page Comments 3 comments

“That moment when you realise some of the people you follow on Twitter are Traveller characters…”

We’d been chatting about buying a second hand (deactivated) Bren Gun. (I once nearly impulse bought one, but ended up saving the money to spend on swords and armour like most if the other responsible adults I knew.) This led to a consensus that fair fights are bad. Then @wandering_andy tweeted:

30 years, mostly in the crappier parts of the world has developed what I would like to be my new family motto;
‘If you find yourself in a fair fight, you got your strategy wrong’

Not as catchy as the current one I guess… but more realistic

Intrigued, I clicked through to his profile and found:

Listening – Watching – Advising. Covert Intelligence, Security Adviser to UHNWI & Trainer

Yep, from that and his tweets, he’s a British veteran turned security contractor. Up until this point I’d mostly been interacting with gamers and writers who only play at this sort of thing. Hence my tweet.

That moment when you realise some of the people you follow on Twitter are Traveller characters…

Guess what Andy tweeted back?

Free Trader Beowulf…

Why didn’t I use that as my twitter name!!!

A tingle went down my spine. Marc Miller’s immortal text:

This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone… Mayday, Mayday… we are under attack… main drive is gone… turret number one not responding… Mayday… losing cabin pressure fast… calling anyone… please help… This is Free Trader Beowulf… Mayday….

Somebody out there who had rolled the dice was now walking the walk. A very odd feeling.

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Robots! Spies! The Toronto Star on the Best New Science Fiction Books

Thursday, June 21, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Gate-Crashers-Patrick-S-Tomlinson-medium

Last Friday the Toronto Star selected the Best New Science Fiction Books of the summer, and it’s an auspicious list: four new novels by Todd McAulty, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Peng Shepherd, and Hannu Rajaniemi. At the top of the list is The Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty, released Tuesday by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

SF fans rejoice! Your summer beach reading has arrived. Todd McAulty’s debut novel is a massive, fast-paced, action-packed epic… with robots!

Lots of robots. In the year 2083 the world’s geopolitical order has been shaken up by the rise of sentient machines, with many countries now being ruled by godlike sovereign AIs, and robots of all different shapes, sizes and functionality rubbing shoulders in the streets with humans.

Canadian tech entrepreneur Barry Simcoe is visiting Chicago, which is now part of an occupied zone governed by a Venezuelan-led consortium of powers, when he gets sucked into a complicated web of plots and counterplots that lead all the way to the top of the global machine hierarchy, with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance.

Even more than the fascinating and fully realized world it presents, what makes The Robots of Gotham such a great ride is its sheer narrative drive. Every page has the fierce readability of early Neal Stephenson, which is as high praise as it gets. Enjoy the summer.

Read the first chapter of The Robots of Gotham at The Portalist, and see the complete list of Best New Science Fiction Books here.

Birthday Reviews: Cleve Cartmill’s “Huge Beast”

Thursday, June 21, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

Cleve Cartmill was born on June 21, 1908 and died on February 11, 1964. Cartmill also used the name Michael Corbin, when he had two stories appearing in the same issue of Unknown Worlds in 1943.

He is perhaps best known for his story “Deadline,” which appeared in the March 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The story was discussed at Los Alamos, where Edward Teller noted that Cartmill had described aspects of their research in detail. The discussion led to an FBI investigation into Cartmill, Campbell, and some other science fiction authors. Cartmill is said to have had a low opinion of the story, himself.

“Huge Beast” was originally published in the Summer 1950 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. They included the story in The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1952, when the magazine was only three years old. In 1953, the story was translated and published in the first issue of the French magazine Fiction.

Loren Prater is working in his lab when a small creature suddenly materializes in front of him. At first taken for an animal, the alien quickly announces that he is a golen from a distant planet who has sought out Prater as the only person who can help his race avoid extinction.

The golen is an adorable creature and Prater can’t but help to reach out and scratch the creature’s ears. The golen, in return, is not only able to teleport (wirtle), but it can also share almost holographic imagery with Prater, showing the scientist the golen home world as the golen explains their ecological disaster. The golen’s story of the invading Hugh Beasts doesn’t quite add up and Prater realizes that the golen is trying to gain Prater’s assistance to annihilate mankind. The story then comes down to whether Prater can outwit the golen or if the golen can trick Prater into helping it.

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A Bit of the Roman Empire in my Pocket

Wednesday, June 20, 2018 Sean McLachlan Comments 0 Comment

As a writer, sometimes I get my inspiration in strange ways.

Going to art galleries is one. For some reason, enjoying fine art that isn’t writing fires up my writing. I also like to collect odd and interesting objects, although they have to be cheap because, you know, I’m a writer.

One of my favorites is this Roman coin that I snagged for 10 euros ($11.50) at a local coin shop. It was so cheap because the coin is in pretty bad condition. I didn’t care, because it’s cool to keep a piece of the empire in my pocket.

For a year I wasn’t able to identify it, but then at a party in Oxford I lucked out. I was showing it off and one of the people there knew a former numismatist for the British Museum. We took a couple of shots of it and sent it to her. An hour later I learned it was a coin of Magnentius, a usurper who ruled in the Western Roman Empire from AD 350-353.

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Black Gate Book Club, Downbelow Station, Third Discussion

Wednesday, June 20, 2018 Adrian Simmons Comments 6 comments

Welcome to the second round of discussion on C.J. Cherryh’s classic 1981 novel Downbelow Station. New to the program? Check out the first and second rounds. We lose Chris on this one, perhaps a casualty of a bad Jump from the Beyond. Fletcher and myself carry the standard of the Black Gate Book Club as best we can!

Adrian S.

Third round! And it is appropriate that I just started book 3 of DbS. I’m on page 190, so I have surpassed my previous record of 169.

What can I say at this point? Well, my guess that conspicuously-absent Admiral Mazian was, in fact, behind the destruction of several company/neutral stations has borne out to be true! I guess the big game is to try to force the Union to take control of these damaged stations and spread themselves too thin? And to put all their resources at a station called Viking—the only 100% working station in Union space, I guess? And to attack/destroy/cripple it and thus break the Union.

Of course, Union seems to be playing the same trick — forcing the refugees all to Downbelow Station, which has now become the one 100% working station in Company space.

So that’s what the power-players are doing, and everyone else is just running around between their feet.

I like how Cherryh illuminates parts of the plot, then occludes other parts. The sudden retreat of Mazian’s fleet from the Viking attack — was it due to Ambassador Ayer’s orders, or some other factor?

But again, I have to say that Jon Lukas, who does the right things for the wrong reasons, is still coming off as one of the only active people in the book. Honestly, how hard is it to get on the goddam PA system and say “Yes, the fleet is coming, no we are not all gonna die, keep calm and carry on.” Hard enough that only Jon Lucas can do it and keep Downbelow Station from tearing itself apart in a panic!

Satin, the Downer now working on Downbelow Station, is also active in that she is following her vision-quest thing regardless of what the older Downers and the Lukas-men and everyone else thinks.

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