Pulp fiction is back — in print, online, in ebooks, and on iPads. Tough guys, tough women, tough prose, action and more action, blood and thunder, heroes and villains presented unapologetically as heroes and villains. And why not? Why not have as much blood and thunder as we can handle right now, given that the last time we saw this much imaginative raw prose in the hands of readers, we were in the hard times of the early 1930s? Fans…
Charles R. Saunders, author of the legendary Imaro books, has weighed in on Howard Andrew Jones’s first novel: What, then, is so special about The Desert of Souls? Well, just about everything. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the Middle East during the initial bloom of Islam’s ascendance, Howard brings to life the storied past of places such as Baghdad, Basra, Mosul… To this tapestry of history, Howard adds several threads of sorcery… The protagonists and the patron become involved…
As a new year begins, the Internet explodes with lists covering the previous year. I have a January tradition on my website of listing all the books I read during the last twelve months, with some commentary appended. This year I am expanding that commentary and depositing it here on Black Gate. This is not a list of “My Favorite Books” I read in 2010. These are the books I found most “Interesting.” Which can mean “Stupid but Memorable.” I’ve…
I got a reminder from Lulu.com this morning that the window for placing Holiday orders in time for Christmas is closing. Thanks Lulu! Plus, they sent me the handy coupon at right. It’s good for 20% off any order (up to a total of $100 savings) until Dec 31, 2010. I hope I don’t get in trouble for sharing it. Probably not. But if anybody locks you in a small room and shines a bright light in your face and…
Charles Saunders has posted a terrific short story over at the blog section of his website — the sort of story that would not have been out of place in a classic issue of Weird Tales. ‘Luendi’ is in four, rather short, parts, and gives us the fate of one Piet van Brug, a man that embodies all the vilest characteristics of imperialism. Colonial Africa in 1890 is the setting, or more precisely an unexplored section of the interior beyond…
A final onceover of Black Gate 12 has kept me from finishing up the lengthy sword-and-sorcery examination I’ve been conducting in my recent essays. I hope to get back to it next week. In the meantime, here’s a nifty recent essay from Charles Saunders on the origin of his sword-and-sorcery character, Imaro: And here’s a sneak peek* at the blurbs from the Table of Contents in Black Gate 12. Writing those blurbs is a fun perk to the magazine, and…
The man is back! Charles R. Saunders rocked Sword-and-Sorcery in the ’70s and ’80s with his African fantasy hero Imaro, a compelling character who tore through the pages of numerous magazines and whose exploits were ultimately collected in three volumes from DAW. Over the last few years two of those were generously updated and republished by Nightshade Books, causing fans of Saunders’ unforgettable heroes to rejoice at the return of one of the masters of the field. Now, via Brother…
By Bill Ward Copyright © 2008 by New Epoch Press. All rights Reserved. Dossouye Charles R. Saunders Sword & Soul Media, 198 pages, April 2008, 19.95 Newcomer Sword & Soul Media aims to prove that three times really is the charm with its planned release of the as-yet-unpublished concluding volumes of Charles R. Saunders’ superb Imaro series, finally completing an epic that began twenty years and two publishers ago. But Imaro is not the only fantasy hero of Saunders’ who…
By Ryan Harvey Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. Location, location, location…that might have been Clark Ashton Smith’s motto for fantasy writing. Where most continuing fantasy sagas center on the adventures of specific heroes, such as Conan, Tarzan, and Imaro, Smith elevated milieu over character. Smith’s dark ironies and bleak fates made continuing characters unlikely, and his writing style cleaved more to the sensations a setting could evoke than the deeds of the people within it. The…
By Jill Elaine Hughes Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. David C. Smith, now a professional scientific manuscript editor living near Chicago, published nearly twenty novels of pulp fantasy in the 1970s and early 1980s, including several volumes in the acclaimed Red Sonja series. Smith’s novels — now mostly out of print but still widely available on the secondhand book market — represent a bygone era in science fiction/adventure fantasy writing and publishing. With the recent mainstream…