Black Gate – Page 543 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

I’ve Got You Covered

Friday, April 28, 2017 Violette Malan Comments 22 comments

In my last post I took a look at SF cover art, and how the fashion in covers changes over the decades. As with fashion in clothing or hairstyles, you can make a pretty accurate guess about time periods and genres just from a book’s cover. Whether you’re influenced in your purchases by that cover is a personal thing. In the spirit of leaving no stone unturned, today I’m looking at Fantasy cover art.

Since I’m a writer and not an art critic, I avoided discussing the work of any particular SF artist – I was looking at how covers change, not how an artist evolves. However, I don’t think we can talk about Fantasy cover art without at least a brief look at Frank Frazetta. In a way, his covers are the perfect example of what I’m talking about. When you look at a Frazetta cover, you know what time period, and what genre you’re looking at.

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Goth Chick News: Ellen Ripley Relives Her Tortured Past

Thursday, April 27, 2017 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

Consider for a moment your adult self, with all your current knowledge, experience and (theoretic) ability to know better, magically transported back in time to relive the trials and tribulations of your incredibly awkward and potentially misspent youth.

Would you do it?

Personally that’s a great big “no” with several colorful swear words preceding it. But this is the exact personal hell soon to be faced by Sigourney Weaver.

Sort of.

Ridley Scott isn’t ruling out a young Ellen Ripley entering the storyline in one of his planned Alien: Covenant sequels, via the magic of CGI de-aging.

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So You Want to Be a Movie Star – Really?

Thursday, April 27, 2017 Thomas Parker Comments 5 comments

Joan Crawford

So you want to be a movie star? Big house, swimming pool, fancy cars, lavish parties, gala premiers, fawning flunkies, fame, fortune, the envy and adulation of millions — all the accoutrements, privileges, and perquisites of a luxurious lifestyle undreamt of by lesser mortals? It’s quite a life, I hear.

But of course, there’s always the flip side (everything has a flip side), when the years start to mount up and more and more choice parts go to fresh young things with a little more rubber on their radials, and the waiting time between films grows longer… and longer… and you, a big talent, a serious thespian, a major star, finally find yourself slinking onto the sound stage to take up your role in a low-budget exploitation movie. You can’t even salvage a little dignity by hiding somewhere in the middle of the credits, can’t pretend that you’re doing a campy cameo as a favor for an old friend. Nope — honey, you’re the headliner, the main attraction, that’s your name up there in big, bold print, right up there for everyone to see on the posters of Strait-Jacket… and Berserk!… and… please, God, no… Trog.

Yup. It’s a hell of a life, being a movie star. Just ask Joan Crawford.

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Uncover the Secret History of Lichport in The Undertaken Trilogy by Ari Berk

Thursday, April 27, 2017 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

I love it when a book I’m interested in turns into a trilogy when I’m not looking. (It happens waaay more often than you think.) Most recently it happened with Ari Berk’s Death Watch, which I wrote about back in 2013, and which morphed into The Undertaken Trilogy when I ducked into the kitchen to make a sandwich.

I know, books pop up all the time in this industry, and God knows it seems unusual when a popular book doesn’t turn into a trilogy. But still, I was only in the kitchen for ten minutes, I swear.

Anyway, there used to be one novel featuring the adventures of Silas Umber, teenage undertaker in the crumbling seaside town of Lichport, and now there are three. Not sure how it happened, but I’m glad it did.

Death Watch (560 pages, $17.99 hardcover/$9.99 paperback/$8.99 digital, November 15, 2011)
Mistle Child (368 pages, $17.99 hardcover/$9.99 paperback/$8.99 digital, February 12, 2013)
Lych Way (336 pages, $17.99 hardcover/$12.99 paperback/$9.99 digital, February 25, 2014)

Publishers Weekly calls the opening volume “A thought-provoking gothic fantasy [and] genuinely eerie tale… Berk’s setting is atmospheric and creepy.” And Holly Black says it “mines a rich vein of ghostly folklore with vivid prose, style and wit. A marvelous tapestry.” Here’s the description for Death Watch.

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Mastabas: Early Tombs of Ancient Egypt

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 Sean McLachlan Comments 0 Comment

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Interior of the mastaba of Meresankh III. The row of
statues shows the queen and female members of her family

Not everyone gets a pyramid when they die.

As nice as it would be for everyone to get their own massive stone monument that lasts for all time, it’s really expensive and the one percenters want to have something of their own that makes them feel special.

So for those of us who don’t get to rule over Ancient Egypt with an iron fist, but aren’t so poor that we’re stuck in a shallow pit in the desert, there’s the mastaba, a home away home where we can spend the afterlife.

Mastabas were rectangular buildings made of mud brick or stone containing a few rooms and a burial chamber beneath it reached via a vertical shaft. They were wonderfully decorated on the inside and had a place for making offerings to the dead.

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March/April 2017 Uncanny Magazine Now on Sale

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

One thing I dislike about the current crop of digital magazines is their near-exclusive focus on shorter fiction. Are the print mags our only source of novellas these days? No wonder the Best Novella category for this year’s Hugo nominations is thoroughly dominated by Tor.com.

So it was great to see a long novella by Sarah Pinsker in the current issue of Uncanny. Here’s what Charles Payseur had to say about “And Then There Were (N-One)” at Quick Sip Reviews.

Okay wow, this is a rather strange novella that at first glance fills me with all sorts of hesitations. It’s a bit of a meta-piece, after all, casting the author as not just the character in the story, and not just the main character, but pretty much every character in the story, in a cross-dimensional convention of Sarah Pinskers.

For all this could be an adventure in navel-gazing, though, I find it instead to be a deep and complex look at possibility and the pull of diverging realities, the hurt of loss and the wondering what could make it better, wondering what if the loss had never happened to begin with. Oh, and it’s a murder mystery and [SPOILERS] the murder weapon is a Nebula Award. So it’s also a lot of fun…

Read Charles’ complete review here

The March/April issue of Uncanny includes all–new short fiction by JY Yang, by Stephen Graham Jones, Beth Cato, S. Qiouyi Lu, and Sarah Pinsker, and a reprint by Kameron Hurley, plus nonfiction by Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Sam J. Miller, Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, Paul Booth, Dawn Xiana Moo, and Shveta Thakrar, plus poetry, interviews, and an editorial. All of the content became available for purchase as an eBook (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) on March 7, 2017.

Here’s the complete fiction contents

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Evil Wizards, Robot Guardians, and the Maze of the Minotaur: Rich Horton on The Reign of Wizardry by Jack Williamson

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Jack Williamson’s novel The Reign of Wizardry was originally published in three installments in the grand old pulp magazine Unknown, beginning in the March 1940 issue (above left, cover by M. Isip). Its first complete appearance was as a 1964 Lancer paperback (middle), with a cover by none other than Frank Frazetta. It’s been reprinted nearly a dozen times since, including a 1981 paperback edition from Sphere in the UK (right, artist uncredited), and most recently in the 2008 Haffner Press collection Gateway to Paradise.

Jack Williamson was a SFWA Grand Master. His first story appeared in Amazing Stories in 1928 when he was 20 years old and, in a remarkable career than spanned nearly eight decades, he was still winning major awards in his 90s, including a Hugo and a Nebula for his novella “The Ultimate Earth” (Analog, December 2000). He died in 2006, at the age of 98.

The Reign of Wizardry enjoyed multiple editions over the decades, and last year it was nominated for a Retro Hugo for Best Novel of 1941 (it lost out to A.E. van Vogt’s Slan). Recently Rich Horton gave it a warts-and-all review at his website Strange at Ecbatan.

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A Tale of Two Covers: The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley

Tuesday, April 25, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Andrew Michael Hurley self-published his first collection Cages and Other Stories (2006), and released his second, The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Other Stories (2008) through tiny Lime Tree Press. However, those days are over. His debut novel Loney, released in the UK in trade paperback by John Murray last year (cover above left) won the Costa First Novel Award, was listed as a Best Book of the Year by the London Times and Daily Mail, ranked a Best Summer Book by Publishers Weekly, won Best Book of the Year in the British Book Industry Awards, and was a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller.

It was published in the US by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt last May with a new cover (above right), and the buzz on this side of the pond was just as stellar. The New York Times Book Review said “The terrors of this novel feel timeless… There are abominations here, and miracles.” Jeff VanderMeer called it “Stunning,” and Stephen King said, “It’s not just good, it’s great. An amazing piece of fiction.”

Here’s the description.

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New Treasures: Gilded Cage by Vic James

Tuesday, April 25, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

If you’re like me, you’re always on the lookout for an exciting new fantasy series with fresh ideas, and Vic James’ debut Gilded Cage looks like it will fit the bill nicely. It’s the opening volume in a new series set in a modern England where magically gifted aristocrats rule and commoners are forced to serve them. Kirkus Reviews says it “Conjures up the specters of Les Misérables and Downton Abbey… an intriguing new fantasy series,” and Aliette de Bodard calls it ““A dark and intriguing vision of an alternate, magic-drenched Britain… kept me up long into the night.”

NOT ALL ARE FREE. NOT ALL ARE EQUAL. NOT ALL WILL BE SAVED.

Our world belongs to the Equals — aristocrats with magical gifts — and all commoners must serve them for ten years. But behind the gates of England’s grandest estate lies a power that could break the world.

A girl thirsts for love and knowledge.

Abi is a servant to England’s most powerful family, but her spirit is free. So when she falls for one of their noble-born sons, Abi faces a terrible choice. Uncovering the family’s secrets might win her liberty — but will her heart pay the price?

A boy dreams of revolution.

Abi’s brother, Luke, is enslaved in a brutal factory town. Far from his family and cruelly oppressed, he makes friends whose ideals could cost him everything. Now Luke has discovered there may be a power even greater than magic: revolution.

And an aristocrat will remake the world with his dark gifts.

He is a shadow in the glittering world of the Equals, with mysterious powers no one else understands. But will he liberate — or destroy?

Gilded Cage was published by Del Rey on February 14, 2017. It is 368 pages, priced at $20.00 in hardcover and $10.99 for the digital edition.

March Short Story Roundup

Tuesday, April 25, 2017 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 0 Comment

It’s roundup time again, folks. This past March we were treated to two stories from Curtis Ellett’s Swords and Sorcery Magazine and a trio from Adrian Collins’ Grimdark Magazine. Some I liked, some not so much. Without further jib jab, I’ll start the reviews.

Swords and Sorcery #62 opens with “The Sword Over the River Thar” by Bryan Dyke. It’s a thoughtful and introspective tale of a reluctant soldier looking back over his childhood and his own wartime experiences. There are many fine moments in the story, some quite moving. Unfortunately, the story suffers from moments of weak prose, including an overreliance on the word portal. References to such disparate elements as hoplites, barons, elves, and the distinctly Anglo-Saxon-sounding placename Norwich, make the setting feel ramshackle. I hope to be of service by pointing these things out. This is Dyke’s first published story and there is far more than the germ of a good story on display here. I hope to read more by him in future.

In the past, most recently in December’s roundup, I have been harsh towards the stories of Jeffrey Scott Sims. I have found them to be in possession of solid plots wrapped in clunky, faux-archaic prose. So I was surprised when I found myself quite enjoying his new story, “A Sojurn in Crost.” Bereft of supplies, stranded in enemy territory, “Lord Morca, wizard and warrior of ancient Dyrezan” and his battle-tiger, Treenya, are making their way to the coast and safety when they come across the town of Crost. There’s little mystery to what’s going on in this quite familiar story, but Sims spins his yarn with enough conviction to overcome any staleness. Sims’ style remains similar to that of his previous tales of Dyrezan but is deployed with more control and concision.

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