A Glimpse of the Secret Pervert Republic: The Best American Noir of the Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler

A Glimpse of the Secret Pervert Republic: The Best American Noir of the Century, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler

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The Best American Noir of the Century small The Best American Noir of the Century back-small

I’ve recently been enjoying the massive 2011 anthology The Best American Noir of the Century, which isn’t science fiction or fantasy, but which does showcase a lot of highly regarded SF and fantasy writers, including Charles Beaumont, Cornell Woolrich, Harlan Ellison, David Morrell, and others.

The first question I had when I set set eyes on this book was “Which century are they talking about?” Turns out it’s neither the 20th nor the 21st… it’s the last hundred years, give or take. The book includes 39 stories arranged chronologically by publication date, starting with Tod Robbins “Spurs,” which first appeared in Munsey’s Magazine in February 1923, and ending with Lorenzo Carcaterra’s “Missing the Morning Bus,” from Penzler’s 2007 anthology of poker stories, Dead Man’s Hand.

Penzler gives a nice overview of the history of noir fiction in his Foreword, but it’s Ellroy’s introduction, in which he claims that American noir describes “the demography of a Secret Pervert Republic” that I found especially entertaining. Here’s a few snippets.

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July/August Interzone Now on Sale

July/August Interzone Now on Sale

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Interzone 271-smallThe July/August issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine has new fiction by Julie C. Day, Tim Casson, Michael Reid, Eliot Fintushel, Chris Barnham, and Andy Dudak, plus David Langford’s Ansible Link, film reviews by Nick Lowe; book reviews, and columns by Jonathan McCalmont and Nina Allan. Here’s Robert L Turner III, writing at Tangent Online.

Michael Reid’s “If Your Powers Fail you in a City Under Tin” is set in a future where magic has returned to the world after the God Beast tore a hole into this dimension. Jun, a portalist with control problems and a haunted past, starts to panic when his lover, Riel, disappears while fighting for the UN. As a week passes without word, Jun finally discovers how to control his abilities and makes an attempt to rescue Riel…

Eliot Fintushel creates a world in which people are partnered by genetic match in “Chubba Luna.” Sweeney, the protagonist, lives in a chaotic world where society has almost broken down and due to NPJ, Non-Punitive Justice, there are few consequences for any actions. He, Mo, Sheila Mo’s paired partner, and the Bartender gather together to argue, drink and decide what to do with their lives and partners…

“When I Close my Eyes” by Chris Barnham is the story of the first manned expedition to Titan. Darlo, one of the team, becomes trapped in an ice cave and has to make his way out while dealing with visions of his dead wife. When he discovers that there is life on the moon and that it seems to dislike his light he has to rely on faith in his hallucinations to save him. The story, an explorer facing a hostile environment is a common one, but Barnham does a good job of mixing the psychological elements to add depth to the piece…

Professor Turner’s complete review is here.

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The Poison Apple: An Interview with Author Jennifer Brozek

The Poison Apple: An Interview with Author Jennifer Brozek

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Jennifer Brozek, photo by M. Dutta

Jennifer Brozek is a 2x Bram Stoker Award Nominee, most recently for Last Days of Salton Academy.

Your specialty seems to be YA.

Yes, it has turned into that, but that wasn’t always the case. In the past, I did a lot of tie-in fiction for Shadowrun (cyberpunk with magic) and Battletech, which was Young Adult, but Shadowrun was not. I’ve had the most acclaim for my YA work, and every YA novel I’ve written has been nominated or has actually won an award.

This seems to be a success formula for you.

I’ve discovered that and tend to write for age twelve to seventeen. Many adults like my work, too, and I think a lot of it is because I never talk down to teenagers. If they don’t understand something, they have Google. They can look up something they don’t understand.

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Hobo Fights: A Chat with Image Comics’ Rock Candy Mountain Creator Kyle Starks

Hobo Fights: A Chat with Image Comics’ Rock Candy Mountain Creator Kyle Starks

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Rock Candy Mountain Volume One-small

Image Comics is soon releasing the first trade paperback of Kyle Starks’ Rock Candy Mountain, collecting issues 1-4. The original solicitation runs as follows:

Eisner-nominated comic creator Kyle Starks would like to invite you to enter the magical world of hobos. The world’s toughest hobo is searching through post-WW2 America for the mythological Rock Candy Mountain, and he’s going to have to fight his way to get there. Lots of hobo fights. So many hobo fights. A new action-comedy series full of high action, epic stakes, magic, friendship, trains, punching, kicking, joking, a ton of hobo nonsense, and the Literal Devil. Yeah. The Literal Devil.

Who could turn down a description like that? I had a chance to catch up with Kyle for an e-mail interview about this fiesta of fisticuffs and the hobo code of honor.

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Future Treasures: The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman

Future Treasures: The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman

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The New Voices of Fantasy-smallAside from the usual crop of Best of the Year books, I’ve been disappointed with this year’s reprint anthologies. So I’m intrigued and hopeful about The New Voices of Fantasy, a very promising reprint anthology with a Table of Contents that reads like a Who’s Who of the best new voices in the genre — including Amal El-Mohtar, Sofia Samatar, Sarah Pinsker, Max Gladstone, Hannu Rajaniemi, Maria Dahvana Headley, Ursula Vernon, and many others. Kirkus Reviews calls it “Stellar… proves not only that fantasy is alive and well, but that it will be for years to come.”

The contents include Alyssa Wong’s Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” Ursula Vernon’s Nebula Award winner “Jackalope Wives,” and Usman T. Malik’s British Fantasy Award Award winner “The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn.” It also contains an original story by Eugene Fischer. Here’s the description.

What would you do if a tornado wanted you to be its Valentine? Or if a haunted spacesuit banged on your door? When is the ideal time to turn into a tiger? Would you post a supernatural portal on Craigslist?

In these nineteen stories, the enfants terribles of fantasy have arrived. The New Voices of Fantasy captures some of the fastest-rising talents of the last five years, including Sofia Samatar, Maria Dahvana Headley, Max Gladstone, Alyssa Wong, Usman T. Malik, Brooke Bolander, E. Lily Yu, Ben Loory, Ursula Vernon, and more. Their tales were hand-picked by the legendary Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) and genre expert Jacob Weisman (The Treasury of the Fantastic).

So go ahead and join the Communist revolution of the honeybees. The new kids got your back.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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How Did That Get Published?

How Did That Get Published?

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OdysseyPopeLast time out I talked about how the experience of reading has changed, from listening to the storytellers in the market square, to downloading a book onto your e-reader of choice. Publishing has also gone through some sea changes, though its practical history really only begins with Gutenberg. Before that, as I mentioned in the earlier post, there was more copying than publishing going on.

It wasn’t until professional printers were ubiquitous, however, that what we now think of as publishing really got started. Nowadays people tend to divide the publishing world into “traditional” publishing, with people like DAW, Ace, and Tor, etc. and “self-publishing” where you pay for your books to be printed, or for an e-book to be created (or do it yourself if you have the skills) or you take advantage of the kind of e-publishing that a business like Amazon offers. The point being that you take on all the risk and all the expense yourself.

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Goth Chick News: The Illuminati Are Coming for Us via Outback Steakhouse

Goth Chick News: The Illuminati Are Coming for Us via Outback Steakhouse

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Outback Steakhouse

I have somewhat of a love / hate relationship with conspiracy theories. Love them for the creative ways some people manage to find patterns in chaos, and hate them because those same people hear hoof beats outside a window and immediately think it’s a zebra – no matter what.

Occam’s Razor… that’s all I’m saying.

But I must admit, I love this latest theory which has been burning up the Internet since late last week; that the Illuminati, or maybe Satan’s minions are working against humanity, or at least laundering money, through Outback Steakhouse.

It started with one observant Twitter user who, for whatever reason, mapped the Outback Steakhouses first in his vicinity, then in other major cities and noticed a somewhat disturbing pattern in the restaurants’ locations.

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Playing Child Friendly OneDice Fantasy on the Edge of the World

Playing Child Friendly OneDice Fantasy on the Edge of the World

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255 OneDice Fantasy
Vaguely renaissance setting that recalls Warhammer Fantasy RPG

Isle of Harris, Scottish Hebrides.

Still bleeding from the last trap, the wounded warrior positions himself against the wall on the hinge side of the door, leans out and turns the handle.

SLAM!

The door swings open with surprising force and whacks him like a fly swat.

And outside the window, the dark clouds sweep in from the Atlantic. Rain rattles on the glass.

OneDice Fantasy
Nerd Outreach on the Isle of Harris

Yes, we’re playing OneDice Fantasy on the Isle of Harris, practically the  edge of the world. Step out the door and swim the wrong direction and the next stop is the USA. (Go take a look at where we stayed.)

Around the table are my wife and both kids — 13 and 8 –, plus the drummer from my old rock and roll band, his wife — a novice player — and their two kids, 11 and 8.  It’s their son’s Fighter who just took several points of damage from an old school dungeon. His little sister, meanwhile, is having fun being an elf.

It’s more adults than I’ve ever GM’d at one go, and actually more people. However, the rules are easy to run so I’m surviving.

Skeletal ferryman aside, it’s not quite Nerd Outreach Beyond the Styx. Our hosts were already keen players of co-op games like Forbidden Island and Warhammer figures have already invaded the table in the lounge.  That’s why I brought a selection of OneDice books with me on holiday… that and the chance to actually read them in depth.

The OneDice engine is like Fate, but more simulationist and using only  1D6…

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Urban Fantasies and Robot Westerns: The Novels of C. Robert Cargill

Urban Fantasies and Robot Westerns: The Novels of C. Robert Cargill

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Dreams and Shadows Robert Cargill-small Queen of the Dark Things-small Sea of Rust-small

In the wider world, C. Robert Cargill is probably best known for his Nebula-nominated script for the movie version of Doctor Strange, and for the uber-creepy Sinister (brrrr). But around these parts, he’s known for his pair of novels about the Austin wizard Colby: his debut Dreams and Shadows (2013) and the sequel Queen of the Dark Things (2014). In her Tor.com review, Emily Nordling said, “Dark, comedic, and unsettling, Dreams and Shadows is everything an urban fantasy sets out to be.” I bought both books last year and put them near the top of my to-be-read pile.

But now along comes his third novel, Sea of Rust, a robot western set in a post-apocalyptic landscape in which humans have been wiped out in a machine uprising. This doesn’t just one threaten to replace his previous two in my TBR pile; it’s likely it will move right to the top. It arrives in hardcover from Harper Voyager on September 5.

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Researching the Habits of Highly Prolific Authors (and I could use your help!)

Researching the Habits of Highly Prolific Authors (and I could use your help!)

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Maxwell Grant writes the Shadow-small

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote an article here on Black Gate about the habits of prolific authors. The research I did for that post sparked an interest in me that’s only grown. Now I’m working on a book-length study of how some of the great writers of the 20th century managed to write hundreds of books, most of them while hammering away on manual typewriters. There are lots of books on increasing your word count, but none, as far as I know, focus on the actual methods of the most productive writers.

I’ve set myself some limitations. First, to be given a chapter in the book, the writer must have written at least 300 books. They must also have enough biographical material that I can gain insights into their work methods. Also, they must be dead so that I can look at their careers as a whole, they must have been active in the 20th century so their work is more applicable to the modern era, and they must have written in either of the two languages I am comfortable reading — English or Spanish.

At the moment I have the following list: Isaac Asimov, Walter Brown Gibson, Corín Tellado, Marcial Lafuente Estefanía, Lauran Bosworth Paine, Ursula Bloom, Enid Mary Blyton, Barbara Cartland, and John Creasey. Some writers who don’t quite fit the bill but who have something worth quoting are given passing mention. Frank Gruber is a good example. His book The Pulp Jungle is essential reading for anyone who wants to know the inner workings of a true wordsmith.

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