Black Gate – Page 466 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

GOING BIG! Super Sized Marvel Treasury Editions

Sunday, January 28, 2018 Nick Ozment Comments 12 comments

Ex-size-ior! Few things give me an exhilarating rush of childhood more than a Marvel Treasury Edition.

I see one and suddenly I’m five years old again, sprawled on the shag carpet by the bedroom door when I’m supposed to be asleep, that ginormous comic book spread out in front of me like a Life Magazine, surreptitiously turning the newsprint pages and delving into the four-color wonders of Spider-Man fighting a guy with a stegosaurus head or the Avengers flying across the sky to do battle with various nemeses or Conan hewing villains to rescue a curvaceous damsel.

Popular in the 1970s, Treasury Editions were mostly just reprints on Super Growth Hormone. They were, in a way, precursors to graphic novels: Each edition collected three or four comics from a series, sometimes with some new material thrown in.

Measuring 10” by 13”, they were striking. Part of the appeal to a younger reader would be the pictures are all bigger and more easily digested. I remember “reading” them before I could really read.

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Birthday Reviews: Parke Godwin’s “The Night You Could Hear Forever”

Sunday, January 28, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

Parke Godwin was born on January 28, 1929 and died on June 19, 2013. He received the World Fantasy Award in 1982 for his novella The Fire When It Comes. Godwin published the Arthurian novels Firelord, Beloved Exile, and The Last Rainbow as well as the Robin Hood novels Sherwood and Robin and the King. His Snake Oil series was a religious satire. He co-wrote the novels The Masters of Solitude and Wintermind with Marvin Kaye.

“The Night You Could Hear Forever” has only appeared in its original publication, the September/October 1992 issue of Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine, edited by Dean Wesley Smith.

“The Night You Could Hear Forever” isn’t really a science fiction story, except in the way it describes the way people use technology. Its viewpoint character is located in Truckee, California and when he can’t sleep at night, he signs onto his ham radio equipment.

On the night Godwin describes, the atmospheric conditions are perfect and he is able to connect with other ham operators located in New Jersey, Utah, and Mississippi, each of whom are known to each other on the radio, but not in person, and only by the names of their states. In many ways, their relationship mirrors many relationships people now have online. Although the characters all have very different political views and backgrounds, they are able to remain friends, even as they disagree.

Unlike the online medium, using their voices allows them to get additional context and humanizes them. As they discuss the problems with the state of the country, they are joined by a new voice, from Maryland, who has not joined their nightly rap sessions, although Utah thinks the voice is familiar. Today’s world is mirrored in this story, although the technology has changed tremendously. The internet, however, causes anonymity without the sound of voices and inflection, so the friendship Godwin’s characters have managed to build despite their differences seems rarer in the modern era.

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Future Treasures: Pride & Prometheus by John Kessel

Saturday, January 27, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Pride and Prometheus John Kessel-back-small

John Kessel seems to be back.

He produced a string of well-regarded novels a few decades ago: Freedom Beach (1985, with James Patrick Kelly), Good News from Outer Space (1989) and Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997). Then he pretty much gave up on novels, switching to short fiction and producing five fiction collections between 1992 and 2012.

He returned in style last year with The Moon and the Other, his first novel in 20 years. Library Journal called it “Speculative fiction at its finest… impossible to put down,” and the Chicago Tribune labeled it “One of the year’s most intelligent and provocative novels.”

His fifth novel Pride & Prometheus, arriving in hardcover next month, blends Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein as Mary Bennet falls for the enigmatic Victor Frankenstein and befriends his monstrous Creature.

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When Science Fiction Sucks: Rich Horton on Alien Sea, by John Rackham and C.O.D. Mars, by E. C. Tubb

Saturday, January 27, 2018 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Black Gate has some very prolific reviewers. Ryan Harvey has produced 290 articles for us, Matthew David Surridge 330, and Sue Granqust has written exactly 400. But the most prolific reviewer in our small community is doubtless Rich Horton who, in addition to his duties here, writes a regular monthly column for Locus, contributes short fiction reviews to places like Tangent Online, and maintains his own blog, Strange at Ecbatan. Not long ago Rich posted his 100th Ace Double Review at his blog, covering the forgotten novels Alien Sea by John Rackham and C.O.D. Mars by E. C. Tubb, published in 1968.

I started these on the wonderful old Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written back in the early 2000s. I retain an interest in Ace Doubles for an intersection of reasons… the feeling that they give room for an awkward story length (25,000 to 45,000 words, say); the fact that they provided space for new writers to get published; the sometimes goofy subject matter; the fact that they could be a home for unpretentious adventure SF; and their uncommon format. But it must also be said that a lot of the stories published as Ace Doubles were downright crappy. And indeed this review, the 100th, perhaps appropriately features a couple of awfully weak short novels.

Even though the novels sucked, Rich gives it his all, as always. Here’s his thoughts on two bad science fiction novels by John Rackham and E.C. Tubb.

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The Animated Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters Mostly Does Its Job

Saturday, January 27, 2018 Ryan Harvey Comments 1 comment

Go-ji-ra — a strange word with mythic resonance when it rolls off the tongue of native Japanese speakers. But it’s a tough sell as the English title of a 1950s monster movie. For the sake of global audiences, the Foreign Sales Department of Toho Studios gave their 1954 movie and its monster a Romanized name: Godzilla. It makes sense as a transliteration: the katakana character shi (シ) in Gojira (ゴジラ) can be Romanized as -dzi-, and the “R” sound in -ra (ラ) slides into an “L.” By happy accident — or sly intention — Toho baptized their behemoth with the word God at its front, hinting at a creature greater than life, dominant in a way no mere monster could be.

The highest compliment I can give to the new animated film, Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (currently streaming on Netflix), is that it explores and explodes the “God” in Godzilla. Other movies in the series have emphasized the monster’s inscrutability and deity-like unstoppability. The first mention of Godzilla in the 1954 original comes from an old fisherman who speaks of a legendary beast that has kept his island in fear for centuries. Planet of the Monsters pushes this god(zilla)hood into the spotlight. Godzilla has literally conquered Earth, driving the scraps of humanity into exile in space, then transforming and ruling the planet’s ecosystem unchallenged for twenty thousand years. This is Godzilla Earth, where the monster is both creator and destroyer.

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Birthday Reviews: K.D. Wentworth’s “Her Fair and Unpolluted Flesh”

Saturday, January 27, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 1 comment

K.D. (Kathy Diane) Wentworth was born on January 27, 1951 and died on April 18, 2012. Wentworth was nominated for the Nebula Award four times, for the short stories “Burning Bright,” “Tall One,” and “Born Again” and for the novelette “Kaleidoscope.” Wentworth published two novels in the Heyoka Blackeagle series and two novels in the House of Moons Chronicles. She also co-wrote two of the novels in the Jao Empire series in collaboration with Eric Flint and two stand-alone novels.

“Her Fair and Unpolluted Flesh” was published in Treachery and Treason, edited by Laura Anne Gilman for Roc in 2000. It has never been reprinted.

K.D. Wentworth creates a religion which based on the holy scripture of the play Hamlet in “Her Fair and Unpolluted Flesh.” Based on what Father Benedicto and Father Frederick say, the religion is extremely misogynistic, claiming that women are soulless and have no reason to learn to read or do anything useful.

Set in a nunnery of ophelias, the women are trained to follow in her tragic footsteps to honor the glory that was the character of Hamlet. One of the sisters is to be selected to participate in a ritualistic drowning and is placed into the care of the young, and unsure Father Frederick.

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New Treasures: The Queen of All Crows by Rod Duncan

Friday, January 26, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Rod Duncan is the author of The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire trilogy, a supernatural mystery series featuring Elizabeth Barnabus, who lives a double life as herself and as her brother, a private detective. The first volume, The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter (2014) was a finalist for the 2014 Phillip K. Dick Award. We covered The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter here, and the entire series here.

His newest, The Queen of All Crows, is the start of a brand new series, The Map of Unknown Things. Only Elizabeth Barnabus can stop the world from descending into endless war in this new saga set in the world of the Gas-Lit Empire. It seems an odd mix of steampunk, supernatural mystery, and intellectual property thriller, but I like it.

The Queen of All Crows was published by Angry Robot on January 2, 2018. It is 348 pages, priced at $9.99 in trade paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Will Staehle. Get more details at the Angry Robot website.

In 500 Words or Less: From a Certain Point of View (Del Rey Books)

Friday, January 26, 2018 Brandon Crilly Comments 4 comments

From a Certain Point of View
By Various Authors
Del Rey (400 pages, $35.00 hardcover, $14.99 eBook, October 2017)

I’m a massive Star Wars fan and grew up loving the Expanded Universe novels. My first exposures to writing greatness were people like Timothy Zahn, Christie Golden, and Kevin J. Anderson. When Disney announced that the Expanded Universe wasn’t canon anymore, I was pissed like a lot of people, and as much as I’ve enjoyed the new films, I couldn’t bring myself to read any of the new fiction.

Is that petty and stupid? Probably, especially when you consider the caliber of writers who are being brought on to write the new EU. And that if I’m ever at a career level to be offered a spot in that canon, I’ll probably take the deal.

So I finally shook off my old-timey stubbornness and bought a copy of the new anthology From a Certain Point of View. Big surprise: I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, there are some amazing stories here. “Master and Apprentice” by Claudia Gray shows the ghost of Qui-Gon Jinn visiting Obi-Wan Kenobi before he takes Luke to Mos Eisley, and it’s touching and tragic because Qui-Gon knows what’s about to happen to his former apprentice. Wil Wheaton reminds us about the sacrifices of the average rebel in “Laina,” and Nnedi Okorafor brings us into the mind of the Death Star’s dianoga in “The Baptist.” There’s a great combination of writers, including a few Star Wars veterans (Christie Golden among them) and the likes of Ben Blacker, Mur Lafferty, Chuck Wendig, and more.

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Birthday Reviews: Philip José Farmer’s “The Rise Gotten”

Friday, January 26, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 1 comment

Cover by Keith Howell and Charles Berlin

Philip José Farmer was born on January 26, 1918 (Happy Centennial, Phil!) and died on February 25, 2009. In 1953, he received one of the inaugural Hugo Awards for Best New Author or Artist (a forerunner to the John W. Campbell, Jr. Award). He would win the Hugo again in 1968 for his novella “Riders of the Purple Wage” and in 1972 for his novel To Your Scattered Bodies Go. Farmer was the Guest of Honor at Baycon, the 1968 Worldcon in Oakland.

His lifetime achievement awards include the World Fantasy Award and the SFWA Grand Master Award, both awarded in 2001. In 2003, he received the Forry Award and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award. Farmer was known for expanding the science fiction field to include frank portrayals of sex with his novel The Lovers (Ballantine, 1961, expanded from the 1952 novella of the same title).

His story “The Rise Gotten” was written for an anthology Robert Bloch planned, but never published. The story saws its first publication in 2006 in the collection Pearls from Peoria, which collected previously published and unpublished works by Farmer.

“The Rise Gotten” is the story of a long-married couple who have fallen out of love, and merely survive in each other’s presence. Roger Baird’s impotence is a major sticking point for his wife, Rey, who either ignores him or denigrates him. Roger is just as happy ignoring his wife, whose alcoholic stupors make her less attractive to him even if he weren’t suffering impotence.

Their relationship, while sad, is completely mundane. Roger retreats to his study to get away from his wife and her sister’s drinking binge and turns his attention to the newspapers, which he reads and finds just as much horror as in the magazines, like Weird Tales, which form his pleasure reading. After his sister-in-law leaves and his wife suggests a cure for his impotence that worked for her brother-in-law, the story takes a decidedly dark turn. While part of the power of Farmer’s story comes from its ending, most of it comes from the sudden switch from a very mundane tale to Roger’s reaction to his years of humiliation by his wife.

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Goth Chick News: Oscars Smoscars – Pass Me a Stoker Any Day…

Thursday, January 25, 2018 Sue Granquist Comments 6 comments

Gather round friends – it’s once again time to don the footie pajamas, pour a steaming hot-toddy and hunker down until spring with the most awesome reading list of the year: namely the annual nominees for the coolest award ever.

The Bram Stoker Awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot from the active members of the Horror Writers Association (HWA).

Several members of the HWA including Dean Koontz, were originally reluctant to endorse such writing awards, fearing it would incite competitiveness rather than friendly admiration. The HWA therefore went to great lengths to avoid mean-spirited competition by specifically seeking out new or overlooked writers and works, and officially issuing awards not based on “best of the year” criteria but for “superior achievement,” which allows for ties.

Which is lovely and all, but I believe I would not be above doing something mean-spirited if not downright evil to get my hands on the award itself, which is a haunted house whose front door opens to reveal the category and winner.

Take that, Oscar…

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