The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

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The God in the Bowl-small

The top articles at Black Gate in July and August were both features on Conan, and last month Bob Byrne managed to nab the top slot with his look at a strange mash-up of police procedural and sword & sorcery, the Conan tale “The God in the Bowl.” Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in the pages of Weird Tales in 1932; 85 years later, he’s still the most popular character among our readers. That’s durability.

The second most popular article at Back Gate in September wasn’t about Conan, but it did feature a sinister cosmic entity also created in Weird Tales, this time in H.P. Lovecraft 1928 story “The Call of Cthulhu” — our report on the latest Call of Cthulhu solo module, Alone Against the Flames. At #3 was Elizabeth Crowen’s interview with popular cosplay photographer Bruce Heinsius. Fletcher Vredenburgh placed two articles in the Top Ten last month; the first was his review of Roger Zelazny’s 1983 novel Dilvish, the Damned, which placed at #4. Rounding out the Top Five was an article on famous book hoarders, “What do George Lucas, Michael Jackson, and Harry Houdini Have in Common?”

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Weird Sea Adventures: A Review of the Archipelago Kickstarter Reward Magazine

Weird Sea Adventures: A Review of the Archipelago Kickstarter Reward Magazine

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First there was the Weird Tale, which hit the mark. Then there was the Weird Western, which hit the mark for many, but not all. Now there is the Weird Sea…

The advent of Archipelago came to my attention on Black Gate via Brandon Crilly’s post post earlier this year, which included some cool art and a teaser story – “The Ur-Ring” by Charlotte Ashley.

As a longstanding fan of maritime literature, specifically the Richard Bolitho stories by Alexander Kent (pseudonym of Douglas Reeman) and C.S. Forrester’s Hornblower stories, my ears figuratively pricked up when I saw Brandon’s article. Maritime adventure combined with fantasy… what more could one ask? Hmm, a Cylon Base Star perhaps, but we won’t go there…

For those who haven’t read Brandon’s original post, the basic premise of Archipelago is that of a Shared World, where people from earth’s 17th century have come across various ocean based portals to another world. To quote the Kickstarter:

Four hundred years ago, when control of the world came to depend on naval power as never before, a courageous few set off on journeys of discovery and conquest that would alter the fates of nations in ways no-one could imagine.

But once they’d sailed the seven seas, what if they found another?

ARCHIPELAGO is a historical fantasy serial with multiple new episodes appearing every month. Imagine a blend of Moby Dick, Pirates of the Caribbean, Master & Commander and Game of Thrones — with Lovecraftian monsters lurking beneath the surface!

Looking at the Archipelago Kickstarter it became evident that they did not require a massive contribution, more just seed funding to get their project going. The rewards were interesting, insofar as one could — as was a common practice way back in the British military establishment — purchase a commission. The difference being that instead of buying a rank in the navy, one could purchase a custom mention in a future story, which I thought was pretty cool. As they state it:

Archipelago isn’t just about storytelling, though. Readers will have the opportunity to influence events as the adventure develops, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes devastating.

I was hooked and proceeded to participate in the Kickstarter.

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Ghosts, Strange Science, and Trains That Vanish: The Tales of Arthur Conan Doyle

Ghosts, Strange Science, and Trains That Vanish: The Tales of Arthur Conan Doyle

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Tales of Twilight and the Unseen Arthur Conan Doyle-small Tales of Terror and Mystery Arthur Conan Doyle-small Tales of Long Ago Arthur Conan Doyle-small Tales of Adventures and Medical Life Arthur Conan Doyle-small

We bow to no one in our appreciation of Arthur Conan Doyle here at Black Gate. Bob Byrne’s long-running Monday column The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes explored all facets of the career of his most famous creation, and over the years William Patrick Maynard, Mark Rigney, Ryan Harvey and other folks have written here about Doyle’s work and its many adaptations.

But Doyle made many contributions to the fantasy, detective and horror genres during his long career, and over the decades his work has been reprinted in numerous anthologies like Horrors in Hiding (1973), Famous Fantastic Mysteries (1991), Ancient Egyptian Supernatural Tales (2016), and many others. From 2014-2015 British publisher Alma Classics gathered dozens of his tales into four collections, all of which are still available, and all of which are worth tracking down.

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Julian May, July 10, 1931 — October 17, 2017

Julian May, July 10, 1931 — October 17, 2017

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Julian MayJulian May, fan and bestselling science fiction writer, died this week at her home in Bellevue, Washington.

Julian May was active in US fandom in the 40s and early 50. She published her first story, “Dune Roller,” in the December 1951 Astounding; it was filmed as The Cremators in 1972. She was the first woman to chair a Worldcon, with the Tenth World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in 1952. The next year she married T.E. Dikty, co-editor (with Everett F. Bleiler) of The Best Science Fiction Stories, the first Year’s Best SF anthology. Over the next few decades she wrote 250 books, chiefly non-fiction books for young readers and adults, including A Gazeteer of the Hyborian World of Conan (1977, under the name Lee N Falconer).

In 1976 May began attending SF conventions again, starting with Westercon 29 in Los Angeles. She wore an elaborate diamond-encrusted space suit to the costume party, and started sketching ideas for who might actually wear such a suit. In 1978 she began writing what became the Saga of Pliocene Exile, the tale of a group of refugees from the twenty-second century who flee six million years into Earth’s past, only to discover two alien species in deadly conflict with humans who’ve already arrived.

May demonstrated an immediate talent for ambitious SF series, and turned that 4-volume saga into essentially into an extensive prelude for Galactic Milieu sequence: Intervention (1987) Jack the Bodiless (1992), Diamond Mask (1994) and Magnificat (1996). Her other work includes three trilogies: Trillium (written with Andre Norton and Marion Zimmer Bradley, published 1990-97), The Rampart Worlds (1998-2001), and Boreal Moon (2003-06). The Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls her work “at times reminiscent of the Planetary-Romance Baroque of Roger Zelazny.”

May was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame at the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention in 2015. She died on October 17, 2017. She was 86 years old.

October Is Hammer Country: Twins of Evil (1971)

October Is Hammer Country: Twins of Evil (1971)

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twins_of_evil_posterI loitered in the early ‘60s for my first two Hammer movies of October. Now it’s time to shift to a different era in the fortunes of the British studio that redefined Gothic cinema: the sexy, violent, and financially troubled early 1970s. Hammer Film Productions didn’t make it out of the decade, releasing their last film in 1978, but this period of independent producers and escalating R-rated material left behind some enjoyable decadence. Twins of Evil is late-period Hammer sexploitation with a basic high concept: sexy twin vampire girls! But the film ends up far better than the exploitation lure would lead you to expect. A good portion of this success has to do with Peter Cushing delivering a top-tier career performance as basically an aging, less tolerant Solomon Kane.

By 1970, the close-knit Hammer family was scattering. The in-house producers had left, so chairman James Carreras turned to outside producers. A small company called Fantale Films, consisting of producers Michael Fine and Harry Styles and writer Tudor Gates, brought Hammer a proposal to film Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampire novella “Carmilla.” This led to a loose trilogy of films about the Karnstein clan: The Vampire Lovers and Lust for a Vampire (both 1970) and Twins of Evil. Filled with nudity and overt lesbianism — at least in the first movie — the Karnstein series was a hit for Hammer at a time when the studio struggled to keep up with changing tastes in horror.

Twins of Evil is nebulously a prequel to the first two Karnstein films, showing how Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas) became one of the undead when he raised the vampire of sixteenth-century Countess Mircalla (Katya Wyeth) from her tomb. The heart of the story, however, is the Brotherhood: a band of puritan crusaders under the leadership of the fanatic Gustav Weil (Peter Cushing). The Brotherhood executes suspected witches and devil worshippers across Karnstein’s domains, although they cannot touch the count himself.

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In 500 Words or Less: An Advance Review of the The Nine by Tracy Townsend

In 500 Words or Less: An Advance Review of the The Nine by Tracy Townsend

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The Nine Tracy Townsend-smallThe Nine (Thieves of Fate #1)
By Tracy Townsend
Pyr (400 pages, $17.99 paperback, $9.99 eBook, November 2017)

As an emerging author, I know that even once I land that coveted debut book deal, that’ll be the point when the real work begins. Completing a novel is one thing; afterward there’s the terrifying and unpredictable world of promoting the book and hoping that it does well enough that you can write a few more.

If my first novel is even half as good as Tracy Townsend’s The Nine, I will be well on my way.

Imagine a world where science and theology have been woven together, so that people believe not just in God, but in God the Experimenter, a rational entity controlling a world of Reason. Sort of like what the Enlightenment philosophes wanted – not to disprove God through science, but to show just how brilliant His world is by discovering more of its intricacies. Then imagine that God isn’t just observing His creation, but specifically testing nine individuals and recording everything they do, as a measure about whether His experimental world is a success. I’m not a religious person, but I’d be lying if I said that thought didn’t terrify me.

That’s the crux of The Nine, which explores a sort of steampunk world with just a hint of the magical, where people have electricity and gunpowder but tree- and ogre-like creatures coexist with humans (sort of) and people worry that magic might actually be real (until Reason proves otherwise!)

It’s an intricate and beautiful world that comes together slowly, but what really drew me in was the characters. For example, you have Anselm, the borderline cat burglar turned businessman and crime lord, who calls his lover Rare “kitten” in a way that’s almost a cliché – until he nicknames the young street urchin Rowena “cricket.” At first I thought he was following the same pattern of, well, lechery … but over time I realized Anselm was more honorable than I thought.

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Future Treasures: Ka by John Crowley

Future Treasures: Ka by John Crowley

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Ka John Crowley-smallMatthew David Surridge says John Crowley’s World Fantasy Award-winning Little, Big is “the best post-Tolkien novel of the fantastic I’ve read,” and Mark Rigney calls it “among the best and most endearing fantasy novels ever written… If there’s another book I’ve encountered in my adult life that calls louder to be re-read, and which reveals an even richer experience on doing so, I cannot imagine what it is.” Crowley’s thirteenth novel Ka, a fable about the first crow in history with a name of his own, arrives in hardcover from Saga Press next week.

A Crow alone is no Crow.

Dar Oakley — the first Crow in all of history with a name of his own — was born two thousand years ago. When a man learns his language, Dar finally gets the chance to tell his story. He begins his tale as a young man, and how he went down to the human underworld and got hold of the immortality meant for humans, long before Julius Caesar came into the Celtic lands; how he sailed West to America with the Irish monks searching for the Paradise of the Saints; and how he continuously went down into the land of the dead and returned. Through his adventures in Ka, the realm of Crows, and around the world, he found secrets that could change the humans’ entire way of life — and now may be the time to finally reveal them.

Our previous coverage of John Crowley includes:

In Praise of Little, Big by Mark Rigney
John Crowley’s Aegypt Cycle, Books One and Two by Mark Rigney
The Deep

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr will be published by Saga Press on October 24, 2017. It is 442 pages, priced at $28.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Melody Newcomb.

Goth Chick News: Mars Sneaks Bite Size Horror Into Our Trick-or-Treat Bags…

Goth Chick News: Mars Sneaks Bite Size Horror Into Our Trick-or-Treat Bags…

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Mars Bite Sized Horror

Tricks for unsuspecting viewers and a delicious treat for us horror fans.

If you’ve watched various Fox networks over the past couple of weeks you may have been visited by strange and chilling advertising just in time for Halloween. Mars candy brands (M&Ms and Skittles to name a couple) have collaborated to give up-and-coming horror directors the opportunity to make disturbing short films — which have been running in their entirety during Fox commercial breaks.

Four “Bite Size Horror” flicks (they are all two minutes long) have rolled out so far. The one that’s gotten the most attention is Floor 9.5, presented by Skittles, written by Simon Allen and directed by Toby Meakins. (Allen and Meakins previously worked together on the Vimeo staff pick horror shorts Breathe and LOT254.) Floor 9.5 ran during a Yankees-Indians playoff game on FS1, and judging by the Twitter reactions, it clearly freaked people out.

Actually, it kind of freaked me out…

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ElizaBeth Gilligan, August 16, 1962 – October 9, 2017

ElizaBeth Gilligan, August 16, 1962 – October 9, 2017

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Magic's Silken Snare-small The Silken Shroud-small Soverign-Silk-ElizaBeth-Gilligan-small

Back in 2002 I included ElizaBeth Gilligan’s third published story, “Iron Joan,” in Black Gate 3, and I was very pleased to do so. It was a terrific tale, about a proud princess who flees an abusive father, and builds a home in a tiny coastal village…. until the day her father comes looking for her. It was one of the most popular stories in the issue, and became the first BG story to make the preliminary Nebula ballot.

ElizaBeth’s first novel, Magic’s Silken Snare (DAW, 2003), was the first novel in the Silken Magic trilogy. The Silken Shroud (DAW, 2004) followed a year later, and the third, Sovereign Silk, finally arrived this past June. Locus called the opening novel “Excellent… alternate Renaissance Italy is the setting for this opulent tale of court intrigue and dark magics…. engaging characters in a well-realized world.”

ElizaBeth died of cancer on October 9, 2017. Her career spanned nearly three decades, beginning with the short story “Confessions of a Bimbette in Space” (Amazing Experiences, 1990). She wrote a regular column for Midnight Zoo in the 1990s, and was the secretary of SFWA from 2002 – 2003. More recently, she edited the anthology Alterna-Teas for Sky Warrior in 2016.

She was 55 years old. Read the complete story “Iron Joan” here.

New Treasures: The Bone Mother by David Demchuk

New Treasures: The Bone Mother by David Demchuk

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The Bone Mother-smallI haven’t paid enough attention to Canadian publisher ChiZine recently. A significant oversight, as they do superb work. They focus on “Dark Genre Fiction,” both novels and collections, which they produce in exquisitely designed trade paperbacks. A fine recent example is David Demchuk’s debut The Bone Mother, the first horror novel to be nominated for one of Canada’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Scotiabank Giller Award. Publishers Weekly said “Demchuk gracefully pieces together a dark and shining mosaic of a story with unforgettable imagery and elegant, evocative prose. These stories read like beautiful and brutal nightmares, sharply disquieting, and are made all the more terrifying by the history in which they’re grounded.” Here’s the description.

Three neighboring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind — and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary — they tell their stories and confront their destinies:

  • The Rusalka, the beautiful vengeful water spirit who lives in lakes and ponds and lures men and children to their deaths;
  • The Vovkulaka, who changes from her human form into that of a wolf and hides with her kind deep in the densest forests;
  • The Strigoi, a revenant who feasts on blood and twists the minds of those who love, serve and shelter him;
  • The Dvoynik, an apparition that impersonates its victim and draws him into a web of evil in order to free itself;
  • And the Bone Mother, a skeletal crone with iron teeth who lurks in her house in the heart of the woods, and cooks and eats those who fail her vexing challenges.

Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens, and seers — and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall — will chill your marrow and tear at your heart.

The Bone Mother was published by ChiZine Publications on July 18, 2017. It is 300 pages, priced at $17.99 in trade paperback and $7.99 in digital format. Our previous ChiZine coverage is here.