Black Gate – Page 460 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Tuesday, February 13, 2018 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 11 comments

Bear with me for a bit. With the death of Ursula K. Le Guin a few weeks ago, I began thinking about her Earthsea books. They were among the earliest non-Tolkien fantasy books I read. I loved them as a kid, I’ve read them three or four times since, and have fond memories of them. I’ll be looking at the first, A Wizard of Earthsea, next time. Thinking about those books got me thinking about a series I actually read even more times and have even fonder memories of: Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain.

Beginning with The Book of Three (1964), Lloyd Alexander created what has to be one of the first genre-fantasy uses of Celtic mythology (yes, Alan Garner had turned to Celtic themes in his Alderly Edge books, but those books are set in contemporary Britain, not a secondary world). Specifically, he drew on that complex and complicated compendium of Welsh tales, the Mabinogion, for inspiration and names. In this book, the four that follow, and a later collection of short stories, Alexander reworked the idiosyncratic legends into something any modern reader of fantasy would recognize immediately. Gone are the stories of women made from flowers, a human prince trading places with the god of the afterlife, and a king who is gigantic enough to wade to Ireland, and instead, a much more straightforward of a boy learning about the perils and responsibilities of heroism. Considering his intended audience was elementary school readers, it makes perfect sense to simplify, and to introduce a greater degree of coherence. I also imagine many young readers, like I was, were intrigued enough by Alexander’s books to track down the real legends.

In addition to being one of the earliest glosses on Celtic themes, The Book of Three is one of the first times Tolkien’s dark lord trope seeped into the genre. Instead of being a fairly benign lord of the afterlife as he is in the Mabinogion, Arawn is reconfigured as a mostly standard issue dark lord. The original’s mythic paradise, Annwn, is reconstructed here as a dread realm. Rereading The Book of Three for the first time in at least ten years, I was quite happy that I still enjoyed it, but seeing it with older eyes exposed gears and wires I hadn’t paid a mind to before.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Maureen F. McHugh’s “Ancestor Money”

Tuesday, February 13, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 0 Comment

Maureen F. McHugh was born on February 13, 1959. She published her first story, “All in a Day’s Work,” in Twilight Zone using the pseudonym Michael Galloglach, the only story published using that name.

McHugh won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1993 for her debut novel China Mountain Zhang, which also won the Locus Poll for Best First Novel and the Lambda Award. In 1999, it also received the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. She won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1996 for “The Lincoln Train,” which also won that year’s Locus Poll. Her collection After the Apocalypse: Stories received the Shirley Jackson Award.

“Ancestor Money” was first published in the October 1, 2003 issue of Sci Fiction, edited by Ellen Datlow. It appeared in the following year’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Edition and was included in McHugh’s collection Mothers & Other Monsters: Stories. Diane Severson read the story for PodCastle PC036 in 2008 and it was against reprinted in Peter S. Beagle’s anthology The Secret History of Fantasy. Its most recent appearance was in Paula Guran’s Ghosts: Recent Hauntings. McHugh received a Nebula nomination for “Ancestor Voices.”

In “Ancestor Money,” Rachel Ball died at the age of 35 and has been existing in the afterlife for seven decades, content in her secluded world, occasionally seeing the spirit of her husband’s uncle, Speed, until Speed delivers a letter to her. The letter, which informs her that her granddaughter, Amelia Shaugnessy, has made an offering in Rachel’s memory and she can claim it by visiting a temple in Hong Kong, pulls Rachel from her idyllic afterlife.

Rachel travels from the Heaven she knows to the strange Heaven of San-qing, the afterlife for Hong Kong. Along the way, she has a constant sense of unease as she is pulled further and further from her natural place and understanding of the world. McHugh describes Rachel’s journey, which involves a mundane seeming airplane, with a sense of unease that mirrors what Rachel is experiencing as she leaves her heavenly version of Kentucky.

…

Read More Read More

Tell Me A Story: Levar Burton Reads

Monday, February 12, 2018 Elizabeth Cady Comments 3 comments

Admit it. You are singing this song in your head right now. And possibly craving fruit loops.

I’m a child of the 80s. And 90s. I’m technically a member of a little sliver generation in between Gen X and the Millennials, and even that depends on who wrote the chart you’re looking at. But the point is, Levar Burton was a pivotal figure in my childhood. First through “Reading Rainbow”, the long running and highly acclaimed literacy program for children on PBS, and then via “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. I still remember the first season of Reading Rainbow: it premiered in 1983, and I was an avid watcher. When “The Next Generation” premiered four years later, I was just at an age to appreciate it. So when I heard that Burton was launching a new podcast series for adults via Stitcher, I was quick to subscribe.

It has been an outstanding addition to my podcast feed.

…

Read More Read More

Incendiary Conspiracy Theory Suggests Possible Collusion Between She-Ra: Princess of Power and Hordak

Monday, February 12, 2018 Nick Ozment Comments 2 comments

The 1985 cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power was a spin-off of He Man and the Masters of the Universe aimed at young girls. It ran for 2 seasons, 93 episodes, and was canceled in 1986. Both series were produced by Filmation in conjunction with toymaker Mattel.

WHAT FOLLOWS IS AN OFFSCREEN CONVERSATION FROM A SECRET RECORDING OF SOME OF THE SUPPORTING CAST.

This is a partial transcript of video obtained from the memory files of one of Hordak’s captured Hover Robot spies. It has never been declassified or released on Etheria or Eternia, and we are publishing the audio transcript here at Black Gate at great personal risk, like the brave souls in the movie The Post. You’re welcome, people of planet Earth!

FLUTTERINA: “Well, since we’re dishing gossip, lemme tell you guys — totally off the record — lemme tell you what bothers me about this whole She-Ra charade. I saw her lift a whole lake once.”

LOO-KEE: “Huh?”

FLUTTERINA: “A whole lake. With the bedrock beneath it — like a bowl, ‘cuz you can’t just lift a body of water — and toss it like a mile through the air. A lake. That puts her at what power level? Like a hundred He-Mans? So why doesn’t she just stamp out The Horde?”

KOWL: [flaps his ear-wings and hovers excitedly] “Yeah! Every time she ‘defeats’ Hordak, she just lets him slip away. Sometimes she sees him off with a shake of her finger and a ‘Don’t you ever get up to this sort of mischief again’!”

FLUTTERINA: “It is kind of demented, isn’t it? Like she just likes toying with him, dragging out a cruel game for her own perverse pleasure.”

…

Read More Read More

Time Travel to the Most Dramatic Incidents in History: Invictus by Ryan Graudin

Monday, February 12, 2018 Elizabeth Galewski Comments 0 Comment

Farway McCarthy’s mother is one of the most famous time travelers ever to record the past. Since she disappeared when he was a child, never returning from an expedition to ancient Egypt, his only hope of finding her again is by following in her footsteps and becoming a field agent for the Corps of Central Time Travelers himself. He’s his class’s valedictorian going into the final exam, so this dream lies within his grasp. There’s just one more simulation to ace.

But then the unthinkable happens. He fails.

Somebody must have rigged the simulation. He didn’t get nearly close enough to the actress playing Marie Antoinette for her to notice him. Plus, she had the gall to wink at him in that knowing way as the hologram of Versailles vanished around him and the warehouse reappeared. He’d been set up.

Far pleads his case to the Headmaster to no avail. Just like that, he’s expelled from the Academy instead of graduating. If someone from the past could guess you’re a visitor from the future, you’ve got no business being a Recorder. Such carelessness could undermine the whole fabric of time.

Far leaves his exam knowing he’ll never get the chance to time travel. Trapped in the present, he’ll never find his mother. He’ll never even get the chance to look.

“Subject Seven has been successfully redirected,” an anonymous memo informs the reader as Far faces his bleak new future.

That’s when a mysterious handwritten note invites Far to meet with a black-market trader. The Corps of Central Time Travelers aren’t the only ones who own time machines, it turns out. Far can captain one (the Invictus) by accepting the trader’s extortionate terms, which, of course, he does.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Cry Your Way Home by Damien Angelica Walters

Monday, February 12, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Damien Angelica Walters is the author of the novels Ink (2012) and Paper Tigers (2016), and the 2015 collection Sing Me Your Scars. She was an Associate Editor of John Klima’s excellent Electric Velocipede magazine, and her short fiction has been published in Black Static, Apex Magazine, The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu, Autumn Cthulhu, The Madness of Dr. Caligari, Eternal Frankenstein, Paula Guran’s The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Her short fiction has been nominated multiple times for a Bram Stoker Award – including just last month.

Her second collection, Cry Your Way Home, arrived from Apex Publications earlier this month. It contains 17 tales of horror wrapped up in a handsome trade paperback with a gorgeous cover by Marcela Bolívar. Check it out — or if you like, try some of Damien’s online fiction in recent venues like Nightmare, The Dark, and Apex Magazine.

Cry Your Way Home was published by Apex Publications on January 2, 2018. It is 240 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, and $4.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Marcela Bolívar. See the complete table of contents here.

Birthday Reviews: Terry Bisson’s “Scout’s Honor”

Monday, February 12, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 0 Comment

Cover by John Picacio

Terry Bisson was born on February 12, 1942. In addition to writing his only original novels and short stories, including Fire on the Mountain, Voyage to the Red Planet, and The Pickup Artist, Bisson has written several media tie-in novels and completed Walter Miller, Jr.’s Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman.

He has won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice, for “Bears Discover Fire” and for “macs.” Both stories also won the Locus Poll. “Bears Discover Fire” also received the Hugo Award for Best Short Story and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. “macs” received the Grand Prix l’Imaginaire and the Xatafi-Cyberdark Awards for translations. In 1993, Bisson received the Phoenix Award from DeepSouthCon.

“Scout’s Honor” was first purchased by Ellen Datlow for the online ‘zine Sci Fiction, where it appeared in the January 28, 2004 issue. It was reprinted the next year in both the Hartwell/Cramer and the Dozois Year’s Best anthologies. Bisson included the story in his collection Greetings and the story was translated into Italian in 2008. It was short-listed for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

…

Read More Read More

Unbound Worlds on the Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of February 2018

Sunday, February 11, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I used to take pride in keeping tabs on the releases from all the major publishers. Nowadays I’m happy if I can putter over to the bookstore once a month. What brought on this tide of sloth? The fact that so many others do it vastly better than I do.

Take Matt Staggs at Unbound Worlds for example. His recent article on the Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of February 2018 includes no less than 33 titles, from Myke Cole, R.A. Salvatore, Laura Bickle, Jon Sprunk, W. Michael Gear, Jo Walton, Kelly Barnhill, William C. Dietz, John Kessel, Karin Tidbeck, Gini Koch, and many others. That’s more than a book a day! If you need more guidance than that in a short month like February, God help you.

Here’s a few of the highlights from Matt’s list, starting with the debut novel from Jasmine Gower, set in an alternative Chicago during Prohibition where magic, not alcohol, is the banned substance.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: Flotsam by RJ Theodore

Sunday, February 11, 2018 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

I’m not familiar with Parvus Press, and that looks like an oversight on my part. Their first book, Scott Warren’s Vick’s Vultures, the opening volume in the Union Earth Privateers space opera series, arrived in October 2016; it was followed by two releases in 2017. According to their website they have a total of five releases planned for 2018:

Parvus Press LLC was founded in 2016 by two lifelong friends, Colin Coyle and Eric Ryles. John Adamus joined us shortly thereafter as Managing Editor because a publisher without an editor is like a world without dogs. You can live with it, but why? We are a publisher of speculative fiction, passionate about great stories, and committed to publishing the next generation of great creative minds. Parvus has sold over 10,000 copies of our titles to date and will release four novels and one amazing anthology of short fiction in 2018 for your reading pleasure. We are headquartered in Northern Virginia and look forward to meeting you all soon!

Their first title of the year, Flotsam, is the opening novel in the Peridot Shift trilogy by RJ Theodore. I received a copy in the mail a few weeks ago, with this friendly note from Colin tucked inside:

Enclosed, you will find Flotsam, our fourth release. It’s a wonderful blend of space opera and steampunk bound together with a dash of magic. It’s a great read for anyone who appreciates bold characters and adventure. I hope you’ll consider giving Flotsam a read.

The entire Parvus Press line-up looks exciting, and I’m very much looking forward to diving into the world of Flotsam. It arrives in on March 27. It is 402 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback and $6.99 for the digital version. The beautiful cover is by Julie Dillon. Sign up to read Chapter One here, and get all the details at the Parvus Press website.

Birthday Reviews: Daniel F. Galouye’s “Sitting Duck”

Sunday, February 11, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

Daniel F. Galouye was born on February 11, 1920 and died on September 7, 1976. His debut novel Dark Universe was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1962. In 2007, Galouye was recognized with the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award.

Galouye’s stories have been collected in The Last Leap and Other Stories of the Super-Mind and Project Barrier. At least five collections of his works have been published in German translation over the years. Galouye published a total of five novels during his career, and numerous short stories beginning in 1952 and ending in 1970. His novel Simulacron-3 was adapted into the film The Thirteenth Floor in 1999. He also published under the pseudonym Louis G. Daniels.

“Sitting Duck” was published in the July 1959 issue of If, edited by Horace L. Gold. It was reprinted in the 1965 anthology The 6 Fingers of Time and Other Stories and a second time in Things from Outer Space, edited by Hank Davis, in 2016.

Ray Kirkland is a reporter in a world where something strange is happening, although nobody knows what it is. It impacts Kirkland directly when his wife suggests they take a look at a house that has suddenly appeared on a plot of land they were considering buying. Something about the house (4 kitchen, , 1½ bedrooms) seems off to him, but when he tries to investigate his editor suggests it is just a marketing ploy and tries to turn his attention another way.

Coincident to all this, Kirkland’s father-in-law is preparing for duck hunting season by building decoys and setting up duck blinds. The juxtaposition of the two threads allows the reader to see that the strange occurrences Kirkland is investigating are simply decoys created by an alien race.

…

Read More Read More