Black Gate – Page 567 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

January/February Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

Wednesday, February 8, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Steve Fahnestalk has been adding magazines to his review column at Amazing Stories, which I greatly appreciate. He’s an astute reader and a fine writer, and he has a talent for piquing your interest without giving away too much of the tale. Here he is on the sole novella in the January/February issue of F&SF.

In “Homecoming,” Rachel Pollack brings us her fourth, and longest, Jack Shade story in F&SF — the previous ones were published in 2012, 2013 and 2015. Jack Shade is a private investigator, occultist, and shaman; I can’t remember having read one before. When Jack gives his business card to someone and they return it with a request for help, Jack is bound to help them, through what he calls a “Guest,” but which sounds like a geas to me. A woman, Carole Acker, comes to Jack to tell him she feels as if part of her soul is missing, and she wants to hire him to help her. Because of the “Guest,” Jack is compelled to acquiesce, and begins tracing the missing part. Several times during the quest, Jack is told by those he encounters that he must stop; that he doesn’t know what he’s doing — but because of the Guest, he has to continue, and eventually brings Carole the missing part. It is then revealed that he shouldn’t have done that… the nay-sayers were right. Jack has three days to undo what he has done, or something extremely bad will happen. Pollack has created a world behind a world; in a New York that sounds just like our New York, there are shamans, night creatures and gangsters of this world and that one. Without being anything like Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series, this reminds me of that type of fiction. I enjoyed it. Rating: a solid ¤¤¤ plus.

Read Steve’s complete review of the issue (and The CW series Riverdale) here.

The cover of the January/February issue is by Charles Vess, illustrating Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s story, “Vinegar and Cinnamon.” Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Modular: Dungeon Delving Tips – Part I

Wednesday, February 8, 2017 Bob Byrne Comments 5 comments

I’m a big fan of Creighton Broadhurst and his Raging Swan Press. Along with Frog God Games, they make my favorite Pathfinder stuff. And Creighton’s blog is full of great ponderings for players, GMs and even game designers.

He often comes up with some neat lists on wide-ranging topics. One that I liked was his ‘25 Dungeon Delving Tips.’ We’re going to look at the first dozen this week, with the remainder coming in a follow-up post.

Each tip, along with some of Creighton’s commentary, is italicized (as is his brief intro below). My own comments follow underneath in plain text. So, have at it!

25 Dungeon Delving Tips (Part One)

Dungeon delving is a jolly dangerous business. Some adventurers are lucky. Others are stupid while many are unprepared. Thus, the bones of countless adventurers lie mouldering far from the warmth of the sun.

With that in mind, and in no particular order, here are… tips to make your dungeon delving just a little bit safer.

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Modular: How to Defeat an Ancient Red Dragon in D&D with a Low-Level Party

Wednesday, February 8, 2017 Nick Ozment Comments 5 comments

You’ve got a huge ancient red dragon that has flipped out. It’s on the rampage. You must stop it or the devastation will be severe and widespread. You have a couple dozen volunteers willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save hundreds or even thousands, but to what avail? What the hell can you do to defeat an ancient red dragon?

Actually, there is a way, even with low-level warriors. But it’ll take some coordination and three necessary components:

You need quite a few volunteers, both the ones who will be in front-line battle and others willing to distract and pre-occupy the dragon (probably by being slaughtered indiscriminately).

You need a new or modified spell. I don’t know if there is already a spell that specifically does something like what I’m about to describe floating around out there in one of the dozens of supplements, but it doesn’t seem like a big leap to make it work in the D&D schools of magic (probably wouldn’t rate more powerful than a fourth or fifth level spell tops). This spell is cast on an item and creates a delayed teleportation effect. Should the owner of that item ever die, the item will immediately pass into the hands of another person (determined at the time of the spell casting).

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New Treasures: Department Zero by Paul Crilley

Tuesday, February 7, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I don’t know much about this Paul Crilley fellow. He’s a South African writer who’s written a previous series for Pyr, the steampunk Tweed & Nightingale Adventures, a Daredevil prose novel, several YA titles, and much of the Bioware game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

His newest novel, Department Zero, is a beast of a different stripe, however. It’s the tale of a single dad who works cleaning up crime scenes… and who accidentally stumbles upon universe-hopping gates that connect a hidden multiverse of alternate realities. There he meets Havelock Graves, the top cop in the Interstitial Crime Department…. and discovers that a sinister cult is planning nothing less than to awaken Cthulhu from his slumber in the Dreamlands. (That’s another thing Harry discovers: “Everything H.P. Lovecraft wrote is true, Like, everything.”)

As you can probably tell, the book is not entirely serious. Publishers Weekly says it’s “Fast-paced and fun… The humor is on point… Lovecraft fans might have a lot of fun with this one.” Yeah, I bet I might. Department Zero was published by Pyr on January 24, 2017. It is 301 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cool cover art is by Patrick Arrasmith. Click the images above for bigger versions.

Check Out the Tangent Online 2016 Recommended Reading List

Tuesday, February 7, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

We’re approaching awards season, which means that there will be more and more Recommended Reading lists out there for novels, anthologies, collections, genre non-fiction, and much more. But for my money, the most useful list in the genre is the annual Tangent Online Recommended Reading List.

What’s makes Tangent‘s list so special? For one thing, it’s massive — 19 reviewers contributed to it, combing dozens and dozens of magazines and original anthologies to produce a comprehensive list of the top short stories, novelettes, and novellas of the year. And Tangent‘s editor, the tireless Dave Truesdale, has organized the list into one, two, and three star selections, and copiously illustrated the list with magazine and book covers — with live links to publishing websites. It’s a really terrific resource for anyone interested in learning what’s going on in short fiction markets, and I guarantee you’ll make some new discoveries. I cover over 40 magazines every month for Black Gate, and I still managed to find a few new ones. Thanks Tangent!

Here’s a handy set of links to all of their recent lists, including this year’s:

Tangent Online 2016 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2015 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2014 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2013 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2012 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2011 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2010 Recommended Reading List

A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison

Tuesday, February 7, 2017 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 0 Comment

Nine years, another novel, and ten short stories after the publication of The Pastel City (read last week’s piece on that here), M. John Harrison returned to the world of the city of Viriconium in A Storm of Wings (1980). Its title taken from a line in the previous book, A Storm of Wings largely recycles the plot of the that novel as well. Once again, alien forces are threatening the city of Virconium and only a ragtag band of heroes has a chance of staving off destruction. Other than setting and basic similarity of narratives, this second novel in the series exists on a whole different plane of storytelling, both in style and intent.

A new religion has risen up in and around the city of Viriconium, the Brotherhood of the Locust. Its origins are a mystery and its teachings appear to have arrived from beyond mortal thoughts.

Who knows exactly where it began, or how? For as much as a century (or as little as a decade: estimates vary) before it made its appearance on the streets, a small group or cabal somehwere in the city had propagated its fundamental tenet — that the appearance of “reality” is quite false, a counterfeit or artefact of the human senses.

This creed stands at the nucleus of A Storm of Wings, both the story on the page, and at what Harrison has to say about fiction. As the “world” of Viriconium comes under attack from a force that twists and alters its “reality,” we are, page by page, reminded any stability the “land” has comes from its creator and can be wiped away with a tap of the backspace key.

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Lawrence Ellsworth’s New Translation of Dumas’ The Red Sphinx

Monday, February 6, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Lawrence Ellsworth (known to gaming fans as Lawrence Schick, creator of White Plume Mountain, and the lead writer for The Elder Scrolls Online), has written many popular articles for Black Gate over the years, including one of our top posts of 2015, “The “Known World” D&D Setting: A Secret History,” and more recently his fabulous Silent Screen Swashbucklers series.

In addition to his renowned gaming work, Lawrence is also a popular author and translator in his own right. His most recent release is a brand new translation of a nearly forgotten novel by the great Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. (That’s Lawrence above, showing off both his new book and his dashing wardrobe.)

The Red Sphinx, a sequel to The Three Musketeers that picks up where that book ended, is a massive 837-page tome that Michael Dirda calls “As fresh as ever… excellent, compulsively readable” in the Washington Post. It was published in hardcover by Pegasus Books on January 3.

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Lock ‘n Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy

Monday, February 6, 2017 Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones Comments 5 comments

Lock ‘n Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy was one of my favorite purchases last year. I loved it so much that I made sure it was something I played on my birthday (my son enjoyed it too).

I’ve held off reviewing the game, though, because shortly after it arrived on my doorstep last year it went out of print. With a reprint due at the end of the first quarter of 2017, likely in March, and because those who place pre-orders receive a substantial discount, I thought it high time to alert Black Gate readers to the game, and the entire Lock ‘n Load Tactical series. (If this little intro is enough to convince you the game’s worth a look, feel free to skip all my prose and drop right down to the end where there’s a link to order a demo copy of the game.)

Overview

Lock ‘n Load Tactical is a revision and representation of Mark Walker’s excellent Lock ‘n Load system. The new publisher has clarified, re-organized, and revised the rules, printed them in full color with additional examples, and eliminated the need for purchases of unrelated games to play certain settings. For example, you might once have needed to own several modules before you could play some of the Lock ‘n Load World War II games. That’s no longer necessary — Lock n’ Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy is complete unto itself.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Thoughts on The Sussex Vampire

Monday, February 6, 2017 Bob Byrne Comments 3 comments

Sumatra

It seems somewhat curious that we find three references to Sumatra in the Canon. Two of those are to unrecorded cases, which makes matters even more intriguing. Sumatra is the sixth largest island in the world and a part of Indonesia. Indonesia was ruled by the Dutch for over three hundred years, including the entirety of Sherlock Holmes’ career (Japan occupied Indonesia during World War II and the country gained autonomy after that). I have visited Indonesia twice, as my wife was born and raised there.

In “The Sussex Vampire,” Holmes mentions the Matilda Briggs, “a ship associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” In “The Dying Detective,” Culverton Smith was a planter who lived in Sumatra. We are also told at the beginning of “The Reigate Squires” that Holmes was on the verge of collapse after foiling the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis, which involved the Netherland-Sumatra company.

Three references to people or things with Sumatran ties. Could tea somehow be related? Indonesia was one of the world’s leading tea producers until World War II. The region of Sumatra was the second-largest tea producing region in Indonesia. Was the death of Culverton Smith’s nephew somehow associated with the activities of Baron Maupertius, for whom Culverton Smith worked or was otherwise associated?

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Fantastic, June and July 1962: A Pair of Retro-Reviews

Sunday, February 5, 2017 Rich Horton Comments 7 comments


Cover by George Barr	Cover by Emsh

Another pair of Cele Goldsmith-edited issues of Fantastic, featuring a Poul Anderson serial. And an interesting letter on the subject of Mervyn Peake by Michael Moorcock.

The editorials, by Norman Lobsenz, consider a Russian project to increase silk production by selecting for male silkworms, and a theory that the physical constants may not be constant. The covers are by George Barr (quite good) and Ed Emshwiller (not his best). Interiors are by Leo Summers, Dan Adkins, Emshwiller, and George Schelling.

The letter column was quite irregular in Fantastic, but it’s present in the July issue, for something of a special occasion, perhaps. Michael Moorcock, then a very young writer (his first story, in collaboration with Barrington Bayley, appeared in New Worlds in 1959, and his first solo work in 1961 in Science Fantasy), had read comments about Mervyn Peake and his Gormenghast books in Fantastic earlier that year, and he wrote to mention that Peake (whom he knew well) was seriously ill and unlikely to write another Titus Groan book.

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