Black Gate – Page 550 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Modular: The New Mongoose Traveller #1 — First Impressions

Thursday, April 6, 2017 M Harold Page Comments 2 comments

Traveller is 40 years old and there’s a new edition!

Jake squeezes between some crates.

Silence.

He exhales. It seems he’s evaded the Imperial black ops team. Now if he could just find his mates in the darkened warehouse. He pushes a little further between the crates. There in the space between the aisles is the alien weapon that started this whole mess.

Jake looks left and right then ghosts into the open. Breathing hard now, he reaches out and picks up the alien artefact. Despite its bulk, it’s surprisingly light and he hefts it higher than he intended.

Lights flash along its stock. It emits a, “Whirrrrrrrrr PING!”

Shadowy figures pop up around the dimly-lit warehouse. The air fills with bullets.

One slams into Jake, punches through his chest armour. Almost spent, it still smashes his rib cage.

Everything goes dark…

Yes, this is the new Mongoose Traveller, the latest incarnation of a roleplaying game so influential that the book and TV inspirations listed in its introduction all arguably owe something to early versions of the game.

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March/April 2017 Analog Now on Sale

Thursday, April 6, 2017 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

I’m getting used to Analog and Asimov’s new bimonthly publication schedule. For one thing, the magazines have added an additional 16 pages, which is a substantial bonus.

Here’s Analog editor Trevor Qachari on the impact of the change, and what we can look forward to in the March/April issue.

Effective immediately, with the very magazine you hold in your hands, Analog will be publishing only double issues — six of them per year. Right off the bat, you’ll see more novellas, longer book review columns, and more variety in the themes that thread through the stories. (For example, our next issue will have both the usual lighter April fare as well as a selection of time-travel pieces.)

The main advantage is that this format allows us to hold current subscription prices a bit longer. (You may have already noticed that this issue is 208 pages instead of our customary 192 for double issues; we worked hard to make sure that there wouldn’t be any loss of content.)

So, what kinds of things can you expect in this brave new world? Well, we have two novellas: “Nexus” by Michael F. Flynn, and John Alfred Taylor’s “Plaisir d’Amour”; “Sustainability Lab 101,” our fact article from Stanley Schmidt; and a trio of novelettes — “Europa’s Survivors” by Marianne J. Dyson; “Host” by Eneaz Brodski; and “The Human Way” by Tony Ballantyne — as well as almost a full “single” issue’s worth of short stories, some light-hearted, like “Ecuador vs. the Bug-Eyed Monsters” by Jay Werkheiser, and “Concerning the Devastation Wrought by the Nefarious Gray Comma and Its Ilk,” by Tim McDaniel; and some that involve a relative rarity in these pages: time travel. “Eli’s Coming,” by Catherine Wells; “Grandmaster” by Jay O’Connell; “Alexander’s Theory of Special Relativity” by Shane Halbach; “Time Heals” by James C. Glass; and “The Snatchers” by Edward P. McDermott — all struck a chord with me (for different reasons), and I bet at least some of them will for you, too.

The cover art this issue is by Tomislav Tikulin. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Vintage Treasures: Zimiamvia: A Trilogy by E.R. Eddison

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 John ONeill Comments 12 comments

Zimiamvia a Trilogy E R Eddison-back-small

There’s an awful lot of bestselling fantasy on the market these days, and sometimes it seems it’ll be around forever. But I know from hard experience that the vast majority of it will be gone in five years. It’s the rare fantasy indeed that remains in print for a decade — much less 20, 30, or 50 years.

E.R. Eddison’s Zimiamvia trilogy has been in print, off and on, for an astonishing eight decades, since the first volume appeared in 1935. J.R.R. Tolkien called Eddison “The greatest and most convincing writer of invented worlds that I have read,” and in the decades that followed his reputation has only grown among serious students of fantasy. The three volume in the trilogy are:

Mistress of Mistresses (1935)
A Fish Dinner in Memison (1941)
The Mezentian Gate (1958)

Eddison was also the author of the fantasy classic The Worm Ouroboros, to which the Zimiamvia trilogy is a loose sequel.

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Black Gate on the List for the 2017 REH Foundation Awards

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 Bob Byrne Comments 4 comments

Well, the Preliminary List. There may well not be a more respected organization in Robert E. Howard circles than that of the REH Foundation. Black Gate and a few of its bloggers were on the final 2016 Awards ballot. Last week, the Foundation released the preliminary list for the 2017 Awards. It will be winnowed down to a final ballot soon.

Typing ‘Robert E. Howard’ or ‘Conan’ in the BG search engine (or just clicking on the Conan Category at left) will definitely establish that we love Howard and his works here at Black Gate. And several Black Gaters, including the site itself, are in the running for the 2017 final ballot. I’ll also point out that many of the nominees contributed to our ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series: some of the best Howard scholars came to Black Gate to share their thoughts. The Black Gate contingent:

The Cimmerian—Outstanding Achievement, Essay (Online)

(Essays must have made their first public published appearance in the previous calendar year and be substantive scholarly essays on the life and/or work of REH. Short blog posts, speeches, reviews, trip reports, and other minor works do not count.)

ADAMS, FRED – “Esau Cairn – A Man Outside His Epoch” – Black Gate
BYRNE, BOB – “Steve Harrison: REH’s Private Detective” – REH: Two Gun Raconteur Blog
JONES, HOWARD ANDREW – “The Ne’re-do-well Hero of “Gates of Empire” – REH: Two Gun Raconteur Blog
MAYNARD, WILLIAM PATRICK – “Steve Harrison Reconsidered” – REH: Two Gun Raconteur Blog

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Announcing the 2017 Hugo Award Nominees

Wednesday, April 5, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Worldcon 75, the 75th World Science Fiction Convention, has announced the finalists for the Hugo Awards and for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and we’re delighted to share them with you here. May we have the envelope please!

Best Novel

All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor)
A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager)
The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
Death’s End, Cixin Liu (Tor)
Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer (Tor)

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Evil Specters, Ghost Clans, and a Zombie in the Basement: The Haunted Mystery Novels by Chris Grabenstein

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The books that pretty much introduced me to reading — and to creepy tales of Screaming Clocks, Whispering Mummies, Haunted Mirrors, and all the delicious trappings of horror — were the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators novels by Robert Arthur. Man, they were great. Three resourceful teens with a chauffeur who drove them around, and a secret hideout in an old junkyard… who could resist? I was sold after my very first one, The Mystery of the Green Ghost.

I’ve had a spot spot for middle grade horror-thrillers ever since. So I was very pleased to stumble upon bestselling author Chis Grabenstein’s Haunted Mystery series showcasing the intrepid Zack, a sixth grader with the uncanny ability to talk to ghosts, and his stepmother Judy, who writes children’s books. The series features a malevolent spirit inhabiting a tree, a horde of evil specters, a ruthless hit man hunting lost treasure, a voodoo savvy ghost seeking a new body, a soul-sucking zombie in the basement, and a ghost clan out to ruin Halloween. I wish these had been around when I was in the sixth grade…. but I’m still happy to have them now.

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New Treasures: Phantom Pains, Book II of The Arcadia Project by Mishell Baker

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Mishell Baker’s Borderline — the tale of a cynical, disabled film director recruited into a secret organization that oversees relations between Hollywood and Fairyland — was nominated for a Nebula Award last year, a major achievement for a debut novel. Library Journal says it “Takes gritty urban fantasy in a new direction,” and Publishers Weekly called it “masterly urban fantasy storytelling…[a] beautifully written story that is one part mystery, one part fantasy, and wholly engrossing.” The sequel, Phantom Pains, the second volume of The Arcadia Project and one of the most anticipated novels of the year, arrived last month from Saga Press.

Four months ago, Millie left the Arcadia Project after losing her partner Teo to the lethal magic of an Unseelie fey countess. Now, in a final visit to the scene of the crime, Millie and her former boss Caryl encounter Teo’s tormented ghost. But there’s one problem: according to Caryl, ghosts don’t exist.

Millie has a new life, a stressful job, and no time to get pulled back into the Project, but she agrees to tell her side of the ghost story to the agents from the Project’s National Headquarters. During her visit though, tragedy strikes when one of the agents is gruesomely murdered in a way only Caryl could have achieved. Millie knows Caryl is innocent, but the only way to save her from the Project’s severe, off-the-books justice is to find the mysterious culprits that can only be seen when they want to be seen. Millie must solve the mystery not only to save Caryl, but also to foil an insidious, arcane terrorist plot that would leave two worlds in ruins.

Phantom Pains was published by Saga Press on March 21, 2017. It is 416 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover photo is by Jill Watcher.

Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin by Erika M. Szabo and Joe Bonadonna

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 3 comments

And now for something completely different: Only two weeks into my sci-fi excursion, I’m sidetracked by Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin, a new young adult fantasy from Black Gate’s own Joe Bonadonna and Erika M. Szabo. Although written for readers a couple of decades my junior, I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Somewhere in space and time, across from Halloween, is the world of Creepy Hollow. It used to be protected from evil by the Trinity of Wishmothers. Now, though, they are dead, and their ghosts have been trapped by Hobart T. Hobgoblin in a pitch-black pumpkin. The wicked Hobart (and his sidekick, Ebenezer Rex, the Tasmanian Devil) is now free to work evil on the land.

On Halloween, twelve-year-old Nikki Sweet and her eleven-year-old cousin, Jack Brady, find a black pumpkin. Their immediate reaction is to bring it home and turn it into a jack-o’-lantern. Just as they prepare to fetch a knife, their grandmother’s silver skeleton wind chime, Mr. Bonejingles, warns them not to do it.

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Weirdbook 34 Now Available

Monday, April 3, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Weirdbook editor Douglas Draa shares some good news in his editorial in the latest issue.

It’s hard to believe that we started this endeavor over a year ago. If you look closely, you might just spot a trend:

2015: One Issue
2016: Two Issues
2017: Four issues and one themed annual!!

That’s correct, Weirdbook has gone quarterly this year! As a thank-you to all the readers who made this possible, we will be putting out a themed “2017 Annual” special issue this October. Just in time for Halloween! I hope themed Weirdbook Annuals will become a yearly tradition that everyone looks forward to. This year’s theme will be “Witches.”

Good news indeed! Weirdbook — alongside Skelos, Cirsova, and Grimdark — is leading the recent Weird Fantasy wave, developing talented new writers in its pages and providing a center for this thriving new genre. It’s great to see it thriving, and I’m looking forward to that themed Halloween issue.

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The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett

Monday, April 3, 2017 MichaelPenkas Comments 2 comments

A lot of the reviews of this collection compare Jon Padgett to Thomas Ligotti, which is fair, since Jon Padgett has been the long-time moderator of the Thomas Ligotti fansite, ligotti.net, and one of the stories takes its title directly from a Ligotti story. But the big question that potential new readers will likely have when reading those reviews is “Who the hell is Thomas Ligotti?”

So. Thomas Ligotti himself has been called a successor to H.P. Lovecraft (yeah, the Cthulhu guy), but that’s not really accurate. Where Lovecraft dealt with the horrors of the unknowable, Ligotti deals more with the horrors of pointlessness. Where Lovecraft’s stories would end with the protagonists killed or driven mad by eldritch horrors, Ligotti’s stories were more likely to end with those protagonists actually joining forces with the darkness. Pick up Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, Noctuary, and Teatro Grotesco for some truly next generation horror.

Basically, Thomas Ligotti’s horror fiction differs from anything else you’ve read because he places his philosophy front and center in these stories. And while that philosophy (which is sort of nihilistic, but not exactly) won’t resonate with a lot of readers, he has developed a dedicated fan base over the last thirty-five years. One of those fans is Jon Padgett.* And Ligotti’s horror philosophy lives on in the debut collection of stories from this author.

It begins with “The Mindfulness of Horror Practice,” which is more of a thought experiment than a story. Basically, the author walks you through an exercise to place you in the right frame of mind to read the remainder of his collection. It’s quite telling that the collection DOES NOT end with a second primer detailing how to get yourself OUT of this state of mind.

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