Black Gate – Page 551 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Multiple Personalities of Omniscient 3rd Person: Spotlight on “Folksy Narrator/ Storyteller”

Monday, March 13, 2017 Tina Jens Comments 2 comments

This is part 10 in the Choosing Your Narrative Point of View Series.

This style is most often seen, within the fantasy genre, in fairytales, fables, and humorous fantasy by authors such as Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and others.

It is not unusual to see this technique used in other genres and subgenres, as well. It is characterized by a distinctive, often folksy, voice that clearly establishes an additional “character” in the narrative, who usually does not take part in the action. It is often, quite literally, a disembodied voice. This is true in Pratchett’s Discworld.

A good example of this is the oft-used introduction to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. The version shown here is from the opening paragraphs of The Fifth Elephant.

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Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 132, No. 1 & 2 (January/February 2017)

Monday, March 13, 2017 MichaelPenkas Comments 1 comment

So I got a late start on this year’s reading, which means that I’ve just finished the January/February issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. As with any collection of stories from a variety of writers, I liked some more than others.

Before we even start, check out the cover art by Charles Vess. A little girl is using her blue magic hand to befriend a rat and a cat. You hardly even notice that she’s not so much sitting on a bed as she’s squatting up against it. (Click the image to embiggen.)

And the cover image isn’t just a random design. It’s a scene from the first story of the issue, “Vinegar and Cinnamon” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Nothing too deep here. Just a young witch in training who accidentally turns her brother into a rat, then has to track him down and figure out how to change him back. The writer doesn’t take the predictable route of focusing on the young witch, instead keeping the point of view on her brother and how being a rat alters his perceptions and priorities.

“The Regression Test” by Wole Talabi presents a variation on the Turing Test, as a computer program is designed to simulate the thought processes of a scientific genius. While the scientists can verify how well the program recalls information, they have no way of judging how close the personality is to the original, so they invite the scientist’s daughter to ask the program questions. Of course, there’s more going on here than a simple question-and-answer session.

“A Gathering on Gravity’s Shore” by Gregor Hartmann continues the Franden series. Since I’ve never read any other stories with this character, it was a little rough to get the character and setting straight at first. It’s basically a garden party in which Franden flirts with a botanist and tries to draw out opinions on a pending civil war.

Next is the novelette, “Homecoming” by Rachel Pollack. Again, this was part of a series of stories featuring Jack Shade, a paranormal investigator cursed to take on the case of anyone holding one of his business cards. This time, the case involves retrieving a missing piece of a woman’s soul. Of course, things go bad and Jack eventually has to enlist some supernatural help to prevent the end of the world.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Talking About Poirot

Monday, March 13, 2017 Bob Byrne Comments 6 comments

I mentioned last week (which you know, enlightened reader, because you love this column. You probably bookmarked the link as a memoriam to me. Anyhoo…) that I discovered the Nero Wolfe books through the A&E television series starring Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton. I’d just never read any of the books, even though the series had been around for decades. And now it’s my favorite mystery series of them all (sorry Holmes and Pons).

Well, some thirty-ish years ago (maybe a little more), I read a couple of Agatha Christie books. I remember that one was definitely a Poirot. I didn’t care for them and that was that. So, while Christie (alongside The Bard) is reckoned to be the best-selling fiction author of all time, she was absent from my not inconsiderable mystery library.

Then, a few years ago, I began watching the Hercule Poirot television series starring David Suchet (here’s a trailer). And I really, really liked it. From 1989 through 2013, Suchet filmed 70 Poirot stories! So, I decided to give Christie’s writings a chance again. Well, Poirot, anyways: I’m not sure you could pay me to read Miss Marple. Thus, I bought Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories and had at it. As I write this, I’m on story 19 of 51.

First thing I noticed is how short these things are. Yes, I know they’re called ‘short stories,’ but while I haven’t tried counting words, most of them are between 8 and 16 pages long. And that’s on big ol’ 6” x 9” paper. Also, she was really cranking these out. A new Poirot was appearing almost weekly in The Sketch magazine.

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Assassins, Mad Robots, and an Alien Hunt: Rich Horton on The Man With Nine Lives and A Touch of Infinity by Harlan Ellison

Sunday, March 12, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Back in the early days of the print version of Black Gate, our first Managing Editor, Dave Truesdale, wanted to bring in some big names to the magazine. So I paid a fortune to get a big novella from Michael Moorcock in our first issue, and I got a phone call from Harlan Ellison, whom Dave had contacted to commission a story.

We were paying six cents a word for fiction at the time, but Dave had coached me that Harlan expected to get paid more than that. “His rate is 13 cents a word,” Dave told me.

I was trying to launch a nationally-distributed magazine with my own money (and money I’d begged from friends and family), and paying that kind of money was not in my meager budget. But I grit my teeth and told Dave to go ahead and make the offer. I’d make up the difference with cuts elsewhere, I figured. Harlan agreed, and we were in business.

It’s a long way between an agreement and a completed story, however. Shortly after we made Harlan the offer, he sold a story to Hemispheres, the inflight magazine of United Airlines. They paid Harlan more than 13 cents a word — a lot more. When Harlan called it was to tell me, in considerable detail, just how much he’d been paid for that story.

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Oz’s Bag of Holding, TV Edition: Ash vs Evil Dead, Barney Miller, Parks & Recreation: What do these Sitcoms Have in Common?

Sunday, March 12, 2017 Nick Ozment Comments 2 comments

Answer: They’re all in my bag of holding. I will now draw them out and discuss them.

Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation (2009-2015) has no reason to be mentioned on a site devoted to fantasy, but I’ll rationalize my inclusion of it here by pointing out that the character Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) is a legit connoisseur of science fiction and fantasy, frequently making allusions and drawing analogies to Star Wars or Star Trek or The Lord of the Rings that fly over his colleagues’ heads. We’ve all been there, surrounded by coworkers (or classmates, or family members) who do not share our outside interests and passions. (Then we found the Internet. And, if we were really fortunate: conventions.)

In one episode, coworkers encourage Ben to take a break for a day, to cut loose and totally indulge himself at the mall. While they’re getting facials and manicures, he purchases and dresses up in a Dark Knight costume.

The refreshing thing about Ben is that he is not written as the stereotypical sitcom caricature of a nerd. He is somewhat socially awkward but smart and sharp, on top of things. He’s actually a more “normal,” down-to-earth, audience-POV person, surrounded as he is by flamboyant and eccentric characters. He is respected and, in one case, adored (he becomes the love interest of Amy Poehler’s lead character Leslie Knope).

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Where The Road meets Mad Max: Peter Newman’s The Vagrant Trilogy

Sunday, March 12, 2017 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

In his SF Signal review Nick Sharps called Peter Newman’s The Vagrant “Dark Dystopian Fantasy at Its Very Best,” saying:

The premise of The Vagrant is simple enough. Accompanied by a baby and a goat, a nameless mute must cross demon-infested wastelands to deliver a magical sword to the Shining City, last bastion of hope. The mute is hunted by multiple factions and it is difficult to distinguish friend from foe in the ruins of a world tainted by evil… Beneath the grit and grime of The Vagrant there is no shortage of beauty. It’s part fantasy and part science fiction. There are demons and knights but the demons enhance their followers with necrotech and the knights ride floating castles and caterpillar tanks. All of the shiny technology of the past has fallen to rust and disuse in the wake of the demonic incursion. The taint of the demons brings mutation and famine. The Vagrant has a sort of The Road meets Mad Max meets The Children of Men vibe…

It wouldn’t feel appropriate to classify The Vagrant as grimdark fantasy. The elements of the subgenre are all present: the setting is dystopian, life is harsh and brief, the bad guys are bad and the good guys are few and far between. Newman’s demons and the change they affect on the world and its inhabitants remind me of the forces of Chaos from Warhammer 40,000 — the very property that inspired the term grimdark. The Vagrant is bleak, depressive, and violent and yet… The Vagrant surpassed all my expectations.

The sequel, The Malice, finally arrived in trade paperback from Harper Voyager this week, and the third and final book, The Seven, is scheduled to appear in October.

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Modern Mythology: A Conversation with Author Scott Oden

Saturday, March 11, 2017 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

I really enjoyed the last audio show from Dream Tower Media, a lively conversation with Black Gate blogger Ryan Harvey on Edgar Rice Burroughs and his enduring works. So I was very pleased to see Robert Zoltan and his co-host Edgar the Raven return last month with a brand new episode of their Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast, a conversation with author Scott Oden (Memnon, The Lion of Cairo) that delves deep into the history and writing of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Once again, calling this a podcast doesn’t do it justice, as it’s really a professionally-produced radio show set in the dimension-hopping Dream Tower (with a talking raven). It opens with a trip to Middle Earth, a visit from a lost Nazgûl, and mis-dialing Sauron on a palantir. But the show eventually settles into a fascinating discussion on the life and work of Tolkien, with some lengthy asides to delve into Robert’s theories on the origins of the creative drive (and the evils of world-building).

Scott makes a terrific subject, sharing his story of hammering out three chapters of a Conan novel before turning to history as a source. And his tale of how writing — producing his first novel, Men of Bronze, with a razor-blade sitting next to him — literally saved his life, is riveting stuff. His new novel, A Gathering of Ravens, is coming from Thomas Dunne Books in June.

Check out J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Modern Mythology: A Conversation with Author Scott Oden, and all the episodes of the Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast, here.

Future Treasures: The Return by Joseph Helmreich

Saturday, March 11, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Here’s a fun little science fiction mystery thriller about a scientist who returns after a very public alien abduction… or does he? What does it mean when the man at the center of an unexplained celestial event denies it ever happened?

The Return is a the first novel from Joseph Helmreich, a script reader for the Weinstein Company and an alternative folk singer. It arrives in hardcover from Thomas Dunne next week.

During a live television broadcast on the night of a lunar eclipse, renowned astrophysicist Andrew Leland is suddenly lifted into the sky by a giant spacecraft and taken away for all to see. Six years later, he turns up, wandering in a South American desert, denying ever having been abducted and disappearing from the public eye.

Meanwhile, he inspires legions of cultish devotees, including a young physics graduate student named Shawn Ferris who is obsessed with finding out what really happened to him. When Shawn finally tracks Leland down, he discovers that he’s been on the run for years, continuously hunted by a secret organization that has pursued him across multiple continents, determined to force him into revealing what he knows.

Shawn soon joins Leland on the run. Though Leland is at first reluctant to reveal anything, Shawn will soon learn the truth about his abduction, the real reason for his return, and will find himself caught up in a global conspiracy that puts more than just one planet in danger.

Equal parts science-fiction and globe-hopping thriller, Joseph Helmreich’s The Return will appeal to fans of both, and to anyone who has ever wondered… what’s out there?

The Return will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on March 14, 2017. It is 248 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by David Curtis.

A Jaunt Through Clark Ashton Smith’s Collected Fantasies—Vol. 1: The End of the Story

Saturday, March 11, 2017 Ryan Harvey Comments 8 comments

I’ve read the complete works of Clark Ashton Smith. And I’ve been known to write at length about them, or to chat with journalists on the topic. There’s nothing unusual about this, since Smith ranks among my favorite five or so authors of all time.

But only recently did I decide to undertake reading his fantasy stories in the original order he wrote them. I can thank Night Shade Books’ five volume series, The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, for making this an easier task than it would’ve been only a few years ago. When the series started to appear in 2007, the hardcover volumes went out of print rapidly. Even a hardcore fan like myself couldn’t justify a purchase of one of the high-priced used copies.

However, as of 2016, all five of The Collected Fantasies are now available in inexpensive trade paperbacks that can be purchased through online retailers with a few clicks. The texts for these volumes have been meticulously prepared (no simple feat considering the revisions and alternate versions published in the past) and offered in the chronological order of composition.

I’m taking a stroll through these editions to read the stories as they were imagined and committed to paper. Instead of regaling you with further long essays, I’m going to take on the role of sightseer, bringing back notes and a slideshow presentation about the best — and the rest — of each volume.

By the way, if you are new to Clark Ashton Smith, the Night Shade editions aren’t the best way to start out. They’re aimed at the collector and long-time connoisseur. I recommend the Penguin Classics collection The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies as a better Smith introduction. If you like the heady journey, there’s much more to explore in the dark fathoms below…

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In 500 Words or Less: Angels of Our Better Beasts by Jerome Stueart

Friday, March 10, 2017 Brandon Crilly Comments 2 comments

Angels of Our Better Beasts
By Jerome Stueart
ChiZine Publications (300 pages, $16.99 paperback/$9.99 digital, December 2016)

As part of my Short Fiction Spotlight for 2016, I discussed the collection Angels of Our Better Beasts by author Jerome Stueart – specifically his short story “Why the Poets Were Banned from the City,” which focuses on the emotional turmoil of a father who has lost his daughter, and blames the writers who have been exiled for the safety of everyone else in the big city. As I mentioned previously, it’s an emotionally charged story that balances a great premise with a realistic, human situation – which is arguably what every SF writer should strive for.

Stueart’s entire collection is like that: fabulous ideas and even more fabulous characters. I got my first taste of this at World Fantasy 2016, hearing Stueart read from “Lemmings in the Third Year,” where a scientist transported to a world of intelligent animals tries to teach the Scientific Method to a group of lemmings. It’s a hilarious story, as the lemmings have grown accustomed to one of their group being regularly eaten by a neighboring owl, and the scientist’s exasperation reminded me of some days in the classroom where people just aren’t getting it.

And while a lot of the stories in Better Beasts are funny – like “Bondsmen,” where the previous incarnations of 007 try to desperately help the current holder of their legacy – there are an equal number of poignant and heartfelt stories. “Brazos,” for example, focuses on a farmer negotiating for his daughter’s hand with a god, maintaining the tension throughout the entire story as this simple human throws down with an entity who could smite him with a single gesture.

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