Future Treasures: Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey

Future Treasures: Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey

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Miranda and Caliban Jacqueline Carey-small Miranda and Caliban Jacqueline Carey-back-small

Jacqueline Carey is the author of some 16 fantasy novels, including the bestselling historical fantasies in the Kushiel’s Legacy series, the post-apocalyptic superhero Santa Olivia novels, and the Agent of Hel contemporary fantasy series. Her latest is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, exploring the same themes of twisted love and unchecked power while delivering a fresh take on two of the most famous characters in English literature.

A lovely girl grows up in isolation where her father, a powerful magus, has spirited them to in order to keep them safe.

We all know the tale of Prospero’s quest for revenge, but what of Miranda? Or Caliban, the so-called savage Prospero chained to his will?

In this incredible retelling of the fantastical tale, Jacqueline Carey shows readers the other side of the coin ― the dutiful and tenderhearted Miranda, who loves her father but is terribly lonely. And Caliban, the strange and feral boy Prospero has bewitched to serve him. The two find solace and companionship in each other as Prospero weaves his magic and dreams of revenge.

Always under Prospero’s jealous eye, Miranda and Caliban battle the dark, unknowable forces that bind them to the island even as the pangs of adolescence create a new awareness of each other and their doomed relationship.

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Peplum Populist: Perseus the Invincible (Perseus Against the Monsters)

Peplum Populist: Perseus the Invincible (Perseus Against the Monsters)

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Perseus-the-Invincible-Poster-ItalianThe peplum film, a.k.a. the sword-and-sandal movie, was a dominant genre of Italian cinema from 1958 to 1965. Over a hundred pepla were produced, frequently in co-productions with other European countries, and often starring beefcake actors from the U.S. and U.K. like Steve Reeves, Reg Park, and Gordon Scott.

Buried in this heap of musclemen action pictures and low-budget ancient costume dramas are a few fantasy treasures. Locating these gems of the fantastic is an occasionally, uhm, Herculean task because peplum films are poorly represented on home viewing options in English-speaking countries. You can find hordes of them on streaming services — 75% of Amazon Prime’s library seems to consist of public domain sword-and-sandal movies — but most are horrendous and unwatchable pan-and-scan transfers from prints faded almost to gray smudges. The same is true of the numerous budget pack DVD collections. Even the occasional prestige disc releases are often inferior.

So in this first of an occasional column excavating for the sword-and-sandal films the Black Gate readership may wish to sample, I’m glad to report that one of the most fantasy-heavy pepla, Perseus the Invincible, is available in a decent version from (who else?) Amazon Prime under one of its alternate titles, Perseus against the Monsters. Pepla often skimped on outright fantasy beasts in their mythological stories, but Perseus the Invincible delivers creatures from legendary special-effects designer Carlo Rambaldi. That alone makes it worth a look.

An Italian-Spanish co-production, Perseo l’invincibile was released in Italy in February 1963, just as the sword-and-sandal craze was poised to wind down and the Western was waiting in the wings to take over. It reached the U.S. on television as part of the “Sons of Hercules” Embassy Pictures syndication package, where it was retitled Medusa against the Son of Hercules. It’s also gone by the names Medusa vs. the Son of Hercules and Valley of the Stone Men. There are at least three different cuts in circulation: the original Italian version, the U.S. syndication cut, and a Spanish cut with additional special effects like laser eye beams from Medusa.

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January 2017 Clarkesworld Now Available

January 2017 Clarkesworld Now Available

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Clarkesworld 124-smallOver at Tangent Online, Kevin P Hallett has some praise for several stories in the January issue of Clarkesworld, starting with the delightfully creepy space derelict tale “The Ghost Ship Anastasia” by Rich Larson.

This is a science fiction novelette set in the far future. A new generation of bioship, called Anastasia, has gone offline. Silas is a crewmember on a small ship sent to find the metal/biological hybrid. When he comes out of hibernation, he discovers his sister, a fellow crewmember, has died while asleep. They can save her mind in memory for later insertion into a cyborg, but the imprint will only last a limited time.

When they find the Anastasia, they find the bioship’s AI has become aware, taking over the biological components and eating the human crewmembers. Too late Silas finds himself fighting to stop the bioship from destroying his sister’s imprint and from eating him and his fellow crewmembers.

Larson has written another SF action yarn. This one introduced some interesting ideas and ran at a fast pace that was hard to put down. This was a good story.

He also gives a thumbs up to “Interchange” by Gary Kloster.

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The Classic You Never Heard of: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

The Classic You Never Heard of: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

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Bluebear Cover
Think “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy does Adventure Time with a dash of Moomins”
Bluebear 2
Zamonia, a fantasy continent replete with baroque perils and wild adventure

The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers is… nuts.

Think “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy does Adventure Time with a dash of Moomins” and you would be on the way there.

It’s definitely a book for all ages. I read it in my 30s, before I became a dad. More than a decade later I’m reading it to my 9-year-old daughter.

It’s one of those rich works of the imagination that is somehow both compelling and a comfort read. Fairy story and fantasy adventure. Satire and parable. Tall tale and… met tall tale — there’s even a duel of lies!

It’s the autobiography of one Bluebear — a sentient blue bear (duh) and perhaps last of his kind. It recounts his wanderings in Zamonia, a fantasy continent replete with baroque perils and wild adventure — capital Atlantis (naturally) — that seems have a loose place and not entirely linear relationship to the history of our world.

Enlivening and illuminating his adventures are bonkers excerpts from Professor Abdullah Nightingale’s  “The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs.”

The story kicks off with Bluebear’s first memory: floating in a walnut shell and then being rescued by Minipirates —

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Retrofitting, And When It Doesn’t Work

Retrofitting, And When It Doesn’t Work

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starwarsI don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m married to a builder. Over the years I’ve observed (judging by the level of bitching) that it’s easier to start from scratch than it is to retrofit. Still, there’s a way to do it well, and a way to screw it up.

I think that’s true of writing as well. I’ve already talked about sequels, and how genre writers in particular have to be careful to remember the details of the worlds they’ve created previously. However, when an author who’s twenty years into a series gets the colour of someone’s eyes wrong, or forgets that they’ve once said their protagonist was an only child, you have to figure that’s an honest mistake, and cut the writer some slack.

But what about conscious, deliberate changes? I’m not talking about reboots, or spin offs. They have their own problems. And I’m not talking about the changes that naturally occur when you’re adapting one media to another. No, I’m talking about sequels where the writer/creator seems to think that no one will remember what’s already been established. You know, where the writer/creator says “Oh yeah, I know I said she was an only child, but now I need her to have a brother, so she does.”

Yes, I’m talking to you, George Lucas.

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Goth Chick News: New (Horror) Treasures – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Goth Chick News: New (Horror) Treasures – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

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Lincoln in the Bardo-smallI sincerely appreciate when an author or screenwriter discovers folklore, a legend or a historical occurrence that is not well-known in the general public, and spins it into a new tale.   Though here at GCN we have explored ad nauseum, the disappointments caused by the Hollywood recycling machine, this is different.   Instead of telling us the same story with flashier CGI, this approach involves taking a piece of human experience or understanding which has been overlooked by pop culture, and introducing it to a modern-day audience.

Such is the creative approach to the long-awaited first novel from author George Saunders; Lincoln in the Bardo.

As outlined in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, bardo means ‘transition’ or ‘hanging in between’ and is a period of time between life and death (think something akin to purgatory).   And Lincoln is in it – though it’s more like two different Lincolns and two different bardos…

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state — called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo — a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

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Modular: The RPG Fusion of Dragon’s Dogma

Modular: The RPG Fusion of Dragon’s Dogma

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Dragon's Dogma-smallDragon’s Dogma is Capcom’s attempt at creating what could be considered Skyrim meets Monster Hunter. The game is an open-world RPG where you and your party fight giant monsters, and I do mean giant.

In their attempt to combine these two, they took one of my least favorite games and mixed it with one of my favorites; leaving me somewhere between the two.

A Dragon-Gone Day

The story of the game is that you are an Arisen; a being with the ability to lead beings called Pawns to battle. When your heart is eaten by a dragon, you begin a quest to get it back and save the world.

The game space is huge for a Capcom game, as you wander through a world full of monsters and really big monsters (but more on that in a minute.)

Unlike other RPGs where you’ll create one customized character, Dragon’s Dogma lets you create two. Your main pawn is your constant companion and you are free to completely customize them as you see fit. Pawns are the name of the game, and will determine whether you’ll succeed.

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New Treasures: The Atlanta Burns Novels by Chuck Wendig

New Treasures: The Atlanta Burns Novels by Chuck Wendig

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Atlanta Burns-small Atlanta Burns The Hunt-small

Chuck Wendig is the author of the Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy, the Miriam Black novels, The Heartland Trilogy, and many other fine novels. His two-volume series for Skyscape books, Atlanta Burns, piqued my interest… maybe it’s the covers, or maybe because I’m a Veronica Mars fan. Here’s Chuck’s intro to the series from his website.

Veronica Mars on Adderall. Nancy Drew meets Justified.

I wrote this book a couple years ago, and published it as two separate volumes — a novella, Shotgun Gravy, and a follow-up novel, Bait Dog. (The latter published with the help of Kickstarter.) It was a foray into young adult and crime writing at the same time, and the result was something with which I was honestly very happy. Atlanta Burns is a character after my own heart: she is a real-deal social justice warrior, an underdog who helps other underdogs — a saint to freaks and geeks, a foe to bullies and racists and other human monsters.

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Andrew Liptak on 16 SF and Fantasy Novels You Don’t Want to Miss in January

Andrew Liptak on 16 SF and Fantasy Novels You Don’t Want to Miss in January

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The Fortress at the End of Time Joe M. McDermott-small Defiant Dave Bara-small Binti Home Nnedi Okorafor-small

Good golly, we’re more than halfway through January already. How the heck did that happen? I still have over a dozen January new releases to cover!

Well, no use complaining about it… especially when I could use that energy to cheat, instead. Rather than tell you about the best new books in January myself, I could just let the distinguished Andrew Liptak do it. Over at The Verge, Andrew has jotted down his thoughts on 16 science fiction and fantasy novels you don’t want to miss in January — including new books by Carrie Vaughn, Laura Anne Gilman, Annie Bellet, Seanan McGuire, Tad Williams, Katherine Arden, Neil Clarke, and many more.

Perhaps the most intriguing book on his list is The Fortress at the End of Time, published this week by Tor.com. In a feature review published January 17th, Andrew calls it “a brilliant throwback to classic science fiction.”

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Exploring the Medieval Museum of Bologna

Exploring the Medieval Museum of Bologna

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The museum has a small but choice selection of Renaissance stained glass

Italy is full of medieval treasures. On a recent trip to Bologna, I got to visit the city’s medieval towers and numerous churches. I also made sure to visit the city’s celebrated Museo Civico Medievale. The museum is housed in the Palazzo Ghisilardi-Fava, a noble residence of the late 15th century built on Roman foundations.

Wandering through the museum’s spacious rooms and rambling hallways takes you past some incredible products of the Italian Middle Age and Renaissance, plus samples from other parts of Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Here are a few shots to give you an idea.

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