Black Gate – Page 569 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The February Fantasy Magazine Rack

Saturday, February 18, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

A lot of exciting changes in the magazine industry this month. Let’s start with the bad news: Warren Lapine’s Fantastic Stories of the Imagination closed up shop. The Good News? We added two brand new magazines to our tracking list: Obadiah Baird’s sharply designed The Audient Void, and the stellar first issue of Occult Detective Quarterly, edited by Sam Gafford and John Linwood Grant.

Fans of vintage magazines had lots of fun material to choose from this month. Rich Horton looked at the June and July 1962 issues of Fantastic, and Nick Ozment riffs off Knights of the Dinner Table from 2008, asking the burning question “Who Would Win? John McClane and James Bond versus a Tribe of D&D Goblins.” In addition to all that, Tangent Online announced their highly-anticipated 2016 Recommended Reading List, Fletcher Vredenburgh reviewed a trio of magazines in his January Short Story Roundup, and Michael Penkas started a brand new magazine review column for us, kicking off with reviews of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, the January issue of Nightmare, and the most recent issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our late January Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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New Treasures: Pathfinder Tales: Through The Gate in the Sea by Howard Andrew Jones

Friday, February 17, 2017 John ONeill Comments 8 comments

Howard Andrew Jones’ fourth Pathfinder Tales novel, Through the Gate in the Sea, will be released in trade paperback by Tor Books next week. I made the long journey to his wind-swept writing tower to get the skinny for Black Gate readers. Here’s what he told me, in tiny script written on yak hide, lowered down on a long rope.

I love the lizardman. Everyone’s favorite lizardman Jekka is a point-of-view character this time. And there’s a pirate captain, Ensara. He’s not as bad as he thinks he is, but he’s not as good as you’d like him to be. He gets caught in the middle of things, and he has to choose between helping Mirian and Jekka, and staying with his crew. He’s down on his luck, and gets hired by a sorceress to hunt down Mirian and get these magical artifacts. I really enjoyed writing Ensara’s chapters.

It’s got a little bit of a hard boiled tone. While I was writing it, I was reading a lot of Chandler and Ricard Stark and Wade Miller. It’s got the usual journeying through weird places. If I’m reading a fantasy novel, give me interesting people in interesting places! There’s a chance to find an lost city through a magical portal in the middle of the ocean, and if they do, Jekka and his people will have a place to live.

But the devil-worshiping empire of Cheliax hasn’t forgotten its defeat at Mirian’s hands. On the other side of the portal are all these powerful artifacts. And an ancient, undead child-king wants the one that’s kept the lost lizardfolk city safe for centuries.

Whatever, man. You had me at Lizardman POV character. Through The Gate in the Sea will be published by Tor Books on February 21, 2017. It is 352 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.

It’s A Group Effort

Friday, February 17, 2017 Violette Malan Comments 5 comments

stargate_sg-1 I think we can all remember a time when, with the possible exception of soap operas, TV shows had one lead character. Even when it was a sitcom, and the lead character was married, there was still only one lead. Often these shows were easy to spot because they identified the character in the title of the show. I Love Lucy. The Dick van Dyke Show. The Rifleman.

The first show I remember having an ensemble cast is Hill Street Blues (1981-1987). It was also the first show I remember having ongoing narratives that spanned episodes, something else we see a lot of today. It was closely followed by St. Elsewhere (1982-1988). More recently, sort of between then and now, we’ve got The West Wing, Sports Night (thank you Aaron Sorkin) and the CSI and NCIS franchises. Though we could argue that in these last two shows what we have is an anchor character, in the person of the better known actor, surrounded by the rest of the ensemble.

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Goth Chick News Interviews: Deadgar Winter and Dark Coffin Classics

Thursday, February 16, 2017 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

When Black Gate photog Chris Z isn’t too busy surfing the net for combat kilts and more camera equipment (both for attracting gender-specific attention at our many trade shows), he is a veritable font of potential GCN subject matters. Granted, much of it is questionable at best or at worse, flat out rejected by the “big cheese” John O (re: Zombeavers which got us both reprimanded before I had even typed the first paragraph).

Still, on occasion he hits pay dirt, which Chris Z did in spades when he suggested I check out a cable access show called Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics, hosted by Deadgar Winter.

I did. And though I am still trying to find just the right words to describe what I saw, what I can tell you is that I found my new binge while I wait for season 2 of Stranger Things.

Deadgar’s Dark Coffin Classics is about taking older, sometimes very cheesy classic horror and sci-fi films and reviewing them on an internet / cable access show. Throughout the movie, Deadgar and his “Dead Girls” will break in to comment about what you’re watching; imagine if Svengoulie and Elvira got together and partied on with Joel from MST3K…

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #216 (January 5, 2017)

Thursday, February 16, 2017 MichaelPenkas Comments 0 Comment

How did the crew at Beneath Ceaseless Skies choose to welcome the new year? With a pair of quiet yet powerful fantasy stories.

The first one, “Wooden Boxes Lined with the Tongues of Doves” by Claire Humphrey, starts with the old trope of a sorcerer’s apprentice, but quickly steers into an unexpected and disturbing direction. Claire Humphrey plays nicely with the unreliable narrator perspective as the horrifying conclusion becomes clear to the reader, even if it’s never explicitly stated.

“Think of Winter” by Eleanna Castroianni does a fair bit of world-building, despite the fact that we are never taken outside of the cathedral where the point-of-view character lives. While an initial reading suggests that there are only two characters in this story, the magic cards provide commentary in the form of stilted haiku that elevate them to a character in their own right. Congratulations to Ms. Castroianni on her first published story; she’s off to a great start.

The cover art, “The Sacred Flames” by Jinxu Du, doesn’t connect to either story, but does give a nice “entering a world of grand adventure” feel.

Sure, you can check out both stories (as well as a podcast of “Wooden Boxes Lined with the Tongues of Doves”) for free at www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/issues/issue-216, 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 #215.

Making Lovecraft Look Quaint: Swift to Chase by Laird Barron

Thursday, February 16, 2017 James McGlothlin Comments 4 comments

Laird Barron is, to my mind, head-and-shoulders above any other horror writer around today. Besides being terrifying, his stories exhibit a real gift for expressing the existential angst of classic cosmic horror, that genre that was perfected so well by the late H. P. Lovecraft. But Barron has so excelled in crafting this sort of tale that calling him Lovecraftian is seemingly rather quaint. For Barron knows how to uniquely weave together seemingly disparate strands in very original ways that bring the horror reader to that wonderful seesaw state of being overwhelmed by the horrific, while also finding aesthetic joy in it.

Swift to Chase is Barron’s fourth collection and is often called, by the author himself, his Alaska book. Barron originally hails from the 49th state, and many of his past stories take place in the American northwest, especially the state of Washington. Though this new book focuses upon Alaska, in many ways this real-life setting strongly echoes elements in Barron’s prior collections.

Many (if not all) of Barron’s stories appear to take place in the same sandbox, the same fictional universe. Barron, like the late Lovecraft, often includes recurring regions, locations, and characters in many of his stories. Those familiar with Barron’s previous stories will notice many familiar hints in Swift to Chase. But this is the first Barron collection where there is a definite theme throughout the stories (with perhaps one exception). What is this theme? Besides focusing upon Alaska as a setting, many of these stories hearken to the horror movie genre often called “slasher pics.”

I have to admit that I abhor and avoid most horror movies, especially slasher films. However, like many teens in the 1980s, I grew up on them and so I’m familiar with the overly used tropes and formula killings of those flicks. Anybody remember the rules of surviving a horror movie from Wes Craven’s 1996 movie Scream?

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GDW Co-Founder and Game Designer Loren Wiseman Has Died

Thursday, February 16, 2017 John ONeill Comments 9 comments

Just a few of the classic SF games pubished by GDW

I heard from my friend Jolly Blackburn that gaming pioneer Loren Wiseman died yesterday.

Wiseman was a name well known to old-time gamers. With Frank Chadwick, Rich Banner, and Marc Miller, he co-founded legendary publisher Game Designers’ Workshop in 1973. GDW published some of the greatest SF and fantasy boardgames and RPGs ever made, including Traveller, Twlight 2000, Space 1889, Gary Gygax’s Dangerous Journeys, Imperium, Fifth Frontier War, Mayday, Azhanti High Lightning, Dark Nebula, and countless others (Wayne’s Books has a nice summary of the Traveller Universe board games, and there’s a compete list of GDW’s gaming output at Wikipedia).

Many tributes have been pouring it on Facebook and other places — including one from Jolly, who credits Wiseman with giving him his start in the gaming industry. In addition to his lengthy list of credits as a game designer and publisher, Wiseman was also editor of the Journal of the Travellers Aid Society and Challenge magazines. After GDW closed in 1995 he joined Steve Jackson Games, where he became the Traveller Line Editor. He received the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Adventure (for Twilight: 2000 Going Home) and was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in 2003.

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Off to a Writing Retreat in Cairo

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 Sean McLachlan Comments 1 comment

On the left is the anthropoid coffin of Wenmontu, of the 22nd or
23rd dynasty (944-716 BC). To the right is the coffin of Mesiset,
late 22nd to early 25th dynasty (c. 750 BC). These are in the
archaeological museum of Bologna, which has an excellent
Etruscan collection I wrote about in a previous post.
Photo copyright Sean McLachlan.

I’m stepping out of the blogosphere for the next couple of weeks to do a writing retreat in Cairo. As Black Gate regulars know, I usually go to Tangier, but now that my Tangier novel is out, I’m changing location to work on a new project.

It’s a neo-pulp adventure novel tentatively titled The Masked Man of Cairo: The Case of the Purloined Pyramid and follows the adventures of a disfigured World War One veteran turned antiquities dealer who gets tangled up in the machinations of the Thule Society in 1919. And yes, a pyramid really was stolen from Giza! Well, sort of.

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Nightmare, Issue 52 (January 2017)

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 MichaelPenkas Comments 4 comments

The first Nightmare issue of 2017 opens with a cover by Adobe Stock artist annamei titled, “Conceptual illustration of broken doll with buttons.” Sadly, no creepy dolls in this issue, but there are plenty of other staples of the horror genre on display.

It starts with “Loneliness Is in Your Blood” by Cadwell Turnbull, a different sort of vampire tale. The author not only twists expectations by choosing a non-European vampire legend as a springboard, but also uses a second person perspective with surprising effectiveness.

The subverted expectations continue with “The H8TE” by Lilliam Rivera. While she borrows lightly from the zombie tropes that we all know by heart, the story speaks much more to the fears of children of addicts than the fears about the apocalypse. My favorite zombie stories (of which there are precious few) have been the ones that show how society would likely continue to function just fine if the dead began to walk, essentially showing off how we can accustom ourselves to any horrible situation.

Passing into the second half of the issue, we have “Redcap” by Carrie Vaughn, which initially comes off as another of those dark fairy tale stories that you’ve already read a hundred times. But as it progresses, you realize that the author is talking about more than mythic symbols of puberty or some other college thesis fodder. “Redcap” is a horror story that directly discusses the nature of horror and, in a roundabout way, why we read horror stories or watch horror movies in the first place.

“Redcap” sets a pretty high bar for this issue, and yet the editors save the best for last with “Blood Mangoes” by Ashok Banker. Set in a dystopian environment that just happens to be a real place that exists in the modern world, “Blood Mangoes” follows the old-school horror formula of “being careful what you wish for” to a resolution that will satisfy both gross-out horror fans and admirers of the quiet horror style. A tough balance that’s pulled off beautifully.

If you want to check out this issue, head to www.nightmare-magazine.com/issues/jan-2017-issue-52. And while you CAN read all of these stories online for free, these magazines only survive with financial support. So why not drop $2.99 for the issue and ensure that this amazing series continues for years to come?

See more detail on the issue here. We last covered Nightmare with issue 51.

Future Treasures: Game of Shadows by Erika Lewis

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Erika Lewis is a TV producer whose first genre work, The 49th Key, appeared in Heavy Metal magazine; her webcomic Firebrand was launched last month at Webtoons. Apparently she has a lot more in the pipeline, however — her debut novel, featuring a young man plagued by the ability to see ghosts, arrives this month. Stan Lee calls it a “riveting page turner,” and R.A. Salvatore calls it “a wonderful adventure.” Game of Shadows, the opening volume in a new series, will be published in hardcover by Tor Books on February 28.

Thousands of years ago in Ireland, an ancient race fought a world-changing battle ― and lost. Their land overrun, the Celtic gods and goddesses fled, while the mythical races and magical druids sailed to an uncharted continent, cloaked so mankind could never find it. This new homeland was named Tara.

In modern day Los Angeles, Ethan Makkai struggles with an overprotective mother who never lets him out of her sight, and a terrifying secret: he can see ghosts. Desperate for a taste of freedom, he leaves his apartment by himself for the first time ― only to find his life changed forever. After being attacked by dive-bombing birds, he races home to find the place trashed and his mother gone.

With the help of a captain from Tara who has been secretly watching the Makkais for a long time, Ethan sets out to save his mother; a journey that leads him to the hidden lands, and straight into the arms of a vicious sorcerer who will stop at nothing until he controls Tara.With new-found allies including Christian, the cousin he never knew he had, and Lily, the sword-slinging healer who’d rather fight than mend bones, Ethan travels an arduous road ― dodging imprisonment, battling beasts he thought only existed in nightmares, and accepting help from the beings he’s always sought to avoid: ghosts. This L.A. teen must garner strength from his gift and embrace his destiny if he’s going to save his mother, the fearless girl he’s fallen for, and all the people of Tara.

Game of Shadows will be published by Tor Books on February 28, 2017. It is 400 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Larry Rostant.