Black Gate – Page 557 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Tanar of Pellucidar

Saturday, February 25, 2017 Ryan Harvey Comments 6 comments

A long time has passed, both on the surface of the Earth’s sphere and within it. On the surface, it’s been almost fifteen years since Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the second of his inner world adventures, Pellucidar. During this time, ERB penned another ten Tarzan novels, a couple more Martian ones, and a few of his finest standalone tales. Burroughs incorporated himself and set up the offices of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. in a part of the San Fernando Valley soon to be named Tarzana. It seemed unlikely he would return to writing about Pellucidar after almost a decade and a half … but then he hatched a plan to give the Tarzan series a boost using the fuel of the Earth’s Core.

Our Saga: Beneath our feet lies a realm beyond the most vivid daydreams of the fantastic … Pellucidar. A subterranean world formed along the concave curve inside the earth’s crust, surrounding an eternally stationary sun that eliminates the concept of time. A land of savage humanoids, fierce beasts, and reptilian overlords, Pellucidar is the weird stage for adventurers from the topside layer — including a certain Lord Greystoke. The series consists of six novels, one which crosses over with the Tarzan series, plus a volume of linked novellas, published between 1914 and 1963.

Today’s Installment: Tanar of Pellucidar (1929)

Previous Installments: At the Earth’s Core (1914), Pellucidar (1915)

The Backstory

The gap between Pellucidar and Tanar of Pellucidar is fourteen years, the longest hiatus for any of ERB’s major series. Despite numerous pleas from readers, Burroughs apparently had no intention to explore Pellucidar further. But at the end of the 1920s, he devised a plan to jolt life back into the Tarzan books by sending the Lord of the Apes somewhere stranger than the usual lost jungle cities. He already had that “somewhere stranger” waiting to be used: Pellucidar was the perfect Tarzan destination vacation!

But first, Pellucidar needed a bit of a dusting-off to set it up for Lord Greystoke’s arrival, as well as to remind the reading public that the setting existed. Burroughs put into action a two-book plan, starting with a new standalone Pellucidar novel to lure readers into the upcoming Tarzan adventure.

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In 500 Words or Less: The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

Friday, February 24, 2017 Brandon Crilly Comments 1 comment

The Heroes
By Joe Abercrombie
Orbit (592 pages, $11.46 paperback, October 2011)

(This one is a little above 500 words because of an excerpt. Just roll with it.)

The last time I discussed Joe Abercrombie in this column, my disappointment in Best Served Cold earned a few comments from the community. (Side note: I love getting comments, so keep them coming.) You might be happy to learn that, as promised, I gave the next First Law book a chance. And I loved it.

The Heroes is everything that I appreciate from Abercrombie, including the bits that were missing from Best Served Cold. It has the same sort of darkness, openly focusing on the idea that there’s no such thing as a hero in any conflict, balanced with the rich humor that originally hooked me on Abercrombie’s work. The entire story is basically an epic battle staged over a series of days, but the action is never boring, and always does something to advance the story. What’s really interesting is several chapters where Abercrombie starts the POV on a character on one side of the conflict, who then dies at the hands of another character who takes over the POV, who then dies … and so on. Some of these characters are newly-introduced – but we’re made to care about them with a Tom Clancy-level of talent – and then suddenly a character we’re familiar with will appear, which doesn’t exactly bode well once you figure out what Abercrombie is doing.

One of my main issues with Best Served Cold was connected to characters – not an issue here. Caul Shivers, essentially a cardboard cut-out of another character previously, seems to have changed again, but this time it works. In a story where almost every character is a soldier, each one is distinct, which is not an easy task (I’ve tried). What’s especially delightful is the return of characters from the First Law trilogy, particularly mad wizard Bayaz, who continues to manipulate events; when a character doesn’t know him challenges his authority, I actually held my breath, waiting for Bayaz’s wrath. But the show-stealer for me was Bremer dan Gorst, who we last saw as the opponent of Jezal dan Luthar and later his protector when Jezal is crowned king. I’ve said before that Inquisitor Glokta from the First Law trilogy is possibly the most amusing character I’ve ever read … but damn if Gorst doesn’t come close. His criticisms of the people around him are exactly what you wish you could say to the worst people in your life, made funnier by the hopelessly pathetic existence that Gorst is trapped in.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #217 (January 19, 2017)

Friday, February 24, 2017 MichaelPenkas Comments 2 comments

Once again, Beneath Ceaseless Skies delivers a pair of stories that convey a genuine sense of wonder by exposing the reader to ideas and imagery that they never experienced before.

It starts with “Proteus Lost” by Tony Pi, a story about the perils of shapeshifting. So often, magic in fantasy is portrayed in recipe format. Mix these ingredients with those magic words and you get a spell. In this story, we get a genuine sense of the dangers involved in casting a spell on yourself. The “spells” involve a series of conjurations written in a spell book as a list of visual riddles. Get any one riddle wrong and you end up in the wrong shape and need to work your way back to the intermediate shape where you lost your way. Tony Pi pulls off the amazing trick of making two guys sitting in a room reciting spells feel suspenseful.

Next up is “Requiem for the Unchained” by Cae Hawksmoor. I’ll be honest and say that I found the premise of this story to be rather confusing. At its heart, it’s about a captain taking a ship on a dangerous mission rather than losing it. There are old themes here about the old way of doing things being replaced by new ways and a genuinely compelling concept of a sea of ghosts. But the story seemed to have a lot of build-up before the action that didn’t clearly explain what exactly was being done. A smarter reader will probably think I’m just a slow learner, but that was my take on it.

As usual, you can read both stories (as well as a podcast recording and archived story) for free at www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-217, but these publications only survive through financial support. So why not drop ninety-nine cents and actually pay for it?

We last covered Beneath Ceaseless Skies with issue #216.

The Best of a Master Fantasist: The Zoran Zivkovic Collection

Friday, February 24, 2017 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Serbian master fantasist Zoran Zivkovic has an enviable international reputation. His novels include The Writer (1998), Impossible Encounters (2000), and The Ghostwriter (2009), and his mosaic novel The Library won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella in 2003.

But his appearances in English here in the US has been spotty. Which is one of the reasons I was so delighted to see Cadmus Press publish The Zoran Zivkovic Collection, four gorgeous volumes of his best work, translated into English:

Impossible Stories I — 422 pages, $34, November 10, 2016 (Includes “Time Gifts,” “Impossible Encounters,” “Seven Touches of Music,” “The Library,” and “Steps through the Mist”)
Impossible Stories II — 428 pages, $34, Dec 10, 2016 (Contains the collections Four Stories Till the End, Twelve Collections, The Bridge, Amarcord, and Miss Tamara, the Reade)
The Papyrus Trilogy — 608 pages, $41, August 1, 2016 (The cases of Dejan Lucik. Includes three novels: The Last Book, The Grand Manuscript, and The Compendium of the Dead)
The Five Wonders of the Danube — 198 pages, $26, August 1, 2016

All four are hardcovers featuring striking cover art by Japanese artist Youchan Ito. On his website the author calls them “the first four volumes of The Zoran Živković Collection,” which implies there will be more. The publisher claims all four volumes “will be available in hardcover, trade paperback, and electronic editions,” but for now the hardcover editions are the only ones I can find.

Goth Chick News: A Fan Girl Meltdown Over Amazon’s Good Omens

Thursday, February 23, 2017 Sue Granquist Comments 1 comment

I can say with certainty that I almost never get worked up over film adaptations of books, with good reason; they rarely live up to their source material.

But today I make an exception.

I might actually squee… Well probably not, but still.

Amazon Studios recently announced a six-part adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel Good Omens which will debut in 2018.

Insert small squee here.

I first picked up the book Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch in an airport bookstore in 2006. I then proceeded to laugh out loud on my flight from San Jose to Chicago, and laughing out loud at a book is something I haven’t done since my first reading of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Later I picked up of the audio version which I listened to in the car and nearly drove off the road. Finally, in January of 2015 I acquired the BBC Radio 4 dramatization, performed with a full cast and fell in love all over again.

There is no better cure for a bad day then listening to a few chapters of Good Omens.

But what is just so darn amusing about the story?

For me it has all the elements — demons, angels, witches, the Antichrist — all wrapped in a story that boldly showcases the absurdity of it all in the most biting and British of ways.

The book is set “today” but the show will be set in 2018 and in both, the world is on the brink of an apocalypse. But follies ensue when Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a demon, aren’t all that enthusiastic about the end of the world, having grown quite comfortable with their lives on earth. Also, they may have misplaced the Antichrist. And he may just be an ordinary boy who wants to stay in his small town with his gang of friends.

I’m snickering just typing that.

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Tea and Sympathy with the Paranormal: An interview with Steampunk Goddess Gail Carriger

Thursday, February 23, 2017 Elizabeth Crowens Comments 2 comments

Photo by Vanessa Applegate

Gail Carriger has published several series of best-selling and award-winning novels starting with her Parasol Protectorate Series.

Gail, you have developed what the publishing industry considers as a distinctive brand. Not only have you capitalized on the subgenre of Steampunk, but you’ve also added a distinguishing paranormal twist with many of your major characters being Preternaturals, Werewolves or Vampires. What inspired you to carve out this niche for yourself?

From my perspective, I felt that the real momentum of social media happened around 2007. I knew that to be a published author I’d have to choose to have a social media presence. So, I poked my nose about to see what some of my favorite authors were doing — who was doing a good job of it and who wasn’t — and made pretty thoughtful choices form the get-go about everything from how my website was designed as to how I would appear on social media, as well as my public image. That might sound a bit manipulative, but I’m one of those evil authors that are a bit Machiavellian — that all I’m doing as an author is playing with your emotions.

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Nightmare, Issue 53 (February 2017)

Thursday, February 23, 2017 MichaelPenkas Comments 4 comments

Quiet horror is a genre that’s a hard sell these days. It’s rarely cinematic, so that you don’t see a lot of film adaptations. And it can be something of an acquired taste. Thankfully, there are some high-profile markets that will take a risk on this sub-genre and, as the February issue of Nightmare demonstrates, those risks can yield darkly wondrous rewards.

We begin with “The Garbage Doll” by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Dolls are always a creepy and the story is tinged with a sense of regret that comes with age. The dreamlike narrative style might be off-putting to some, but if you read it just before bedtime, you may find yourself wondering where the story ends and your own dreams begin.

“The Dying Season” by Lynda E. Rucker combines the “town with a secret” trope with the “gaslit wife” trope to form an unsettling narrative, where both the reader and the protagonist never quite know what’s going on, even if both agree that getting the hell out of that town is the best course of action.

“Youth Will be Served” by Andrew Fox is another “town with a secret” story, although this secret is only known by a handful of people. Taken as a story about the horrors of growing old, gentrification, or just the sacrifices we’re willing to make for others (and how those sacrifices often benefit us as well), this is a great slow-burn horror/mystery piece.

Once again, Nightmare chooses to save the best for last with “Word Doll” by Jeffrey Ford. Again, dolls are always creepy, but here the author really digs into the concept of dolls and what it means to play with them. There are no simple animated killer toys in this one, but rather something less tangible (and thus more difficult to fight). Unlike so many dark fantasy stories, the “mythology” built up in this story is utterly fascinating.

As with all Nightmare issues, you can certainly read all of the stories online for free, but these publications only survive with financial support, so it’s really better if you drop $2.99 for a copy at www.nightmare-magazine.com/issues/feb-2017-issue-53.

We last covered Nightmare magazine with issue 52.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 31 Now Available

Thursday, February 23, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

From far-distant nether dimensions of imagination, editorial overlords have transmitted another fabulous issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly to our mundane plane of existence. Teams of blind scribes in the Himalayas, listening intently to the vibrations of the snow butterflies of Nepal, have transcribed the text with eager hands. And once again, the world owes them a great debt. (And maybe a case of beer. From a mico-brewery, not the cheap stuff.)

The latest issue includes stories by Dennis Mombauer, Aidan Doyle, Raphael Ordoñez, and HFQ editor James Rowe. Here’s the complete TOC, with fiction links.

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Modular: James Sutter Fields Some Starfinder RPG Questions

Wednesday, February 22, 2017 Andrew Zimmerman Jones Comments 3 comments

Paizo Publishing is a major force in the fantasy gaming industry, having taken the core mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons edition 3.5 and transforming it into the Pathfinder RPG, an impressive stand-alone game system in its own right. Beyond the core tabletop roleplaying game, Pathfinder has also diversified out into the Pathfinder Tales series of novels, the various versions of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (including a digital edition), audio dramas, comic books, and ever-expanding other platforms and formats.

But ultimately the Pathfinder game is set in a fantasy adventure world, and retains the feel of the Dungeons & Dragons adventures from which it was derived.

Last fall, Paizo announced a new game system that would take them into the distant future with their Starfinder RPG, and would set a far more distinctive course. This is a game that will take the basic Pathfinder mechanics, but translate them into a far future space opera style of setting.

Last fall at GenCon, I spoke with the Creative Director of Starfinder, long-time Black Gate friend James L. Sutter. In addition to being the author of a couple of great Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, James is also the author of the recent Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The First World, Realm of the Fey (Amazon, Paizo), a supplement that explores a portion of the Pathfinder setting that I have long been hoping would get some additional attention.

Between our GenCon discussion and subsequent information, such as a great GameInformer interview, we got new information about the new classes and races, the backward compatibility with Pathfinder, and some hints about what to expect from starship combat. Everything about this game is looking and sounding great.

Toward the end of January, I ran into James again at the Detroit convention ConFusion, and asked him if I could buy him a beer and riddle him with some additional questions.

He said no.

Instead, he asked if I could e-mail him the questions, because he was heavily booked over the weekend. Below is our exchange, which I hope sheds some some new light on what to expect from the Starfinder RPG, due out from Paizo this August (and available for preorder now).

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New Treasures: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

Wednesday, February 22, 2017 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

It’s great to be plugged into the industry, so I can hear what editors and publicists think are going to be the big books each season. And it’s incredibly helpful to be involved with a network of bloggers and reviewers who give me their take on the same thing.

But nothing beats hearing from readers — and what I’m hearing from readers is that John Darnielle’s modern horror novel Universal Harvester is the book that’s currently keeping them up at night. It’s available now in hardcover Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Jeremy works at the Video Hut in Nevada, Iowa. It’s a small town in the center of the state ― the first a in Nevada pronounced ay. This is the late 1990s, and even if the Hollywood Video in Ames poses an existential threat to Video Hut, there are still regular customers, a rush in the late afternoon. It’s good enough for Jeremy: it’s a job, quiet and predictable, and it gets him out of the house, where he lives with his dad and where they both try to avoid missing Mom, who died six years ago in a car wreck.

But when a local schoolteacher comes in to return her copy of Targets ― an old movie, starring Boris Karloff, one Jeremy himself had ordered for the store ― she has an odd complaint: “There’s something on it,” she says, but doesn’t elaborate. Two days later, a different customer returns a different tape, a new release, and says it’s not defective, exactly, but altered: “There’s another movie on this tape.”

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