The Wonders of Fairwood Press

The Wonders of Fairwood Press

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I first met Patrick Swenson, publisher and editorial mastermind at Fairwood Press, back in the late 90s. I think it might have been James Van Pelt who introduced us, after I wrote a review of Patrick’s magazine, TaleBones. I helped Patrick negotiate with a squatter who was sitting on the address he wanted for his website (unsuccessfully, as I recall.) At the time, Fairwood Press was a small press underdog, with only a handful of titles to its name, but a fast-growing reputation.

Fastforward about 17 years, to Worldcon in 2016. I was walking through the sprawling dealer’s room when I spotted Patrick sitting behind a table groaning under the weight of dozens and dozens of eye-catching science fiction and fantasy books, from some of the biggest names in the industry — including Robert Silverberg, Michael Bishop, Jay Lake, Carrie Vaughn, Devon Monk, Tom Piccirilli, Tina Connolly, James Van Pelt, and many others. Could this possibly be the same Fairwood Press?

Yes, as it turned out.

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Old Dark House Double Feature IV: Two Haunted Honeymoons

Old Dark House Double Feature IV: Two Haunted Honeymoons

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For this Old Dark House Double Feature I’ve chosen two films that are unrelated except for the fact that they share a title — Haunted Honeymoon. You might rightly make the argument that the earlier of these movies is more of a standard whodunit than an old dark house movie, but the coincidence was too good for me to pass up.

Haunted Honeymoon
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1940)
Directed by Arthur B. Woods
Screenplay by Monckton Hoffe, Angus MacPhail, and Harold Goldman
Starring Robert Montgomery and Constance Cummings

Dorothy Sayers isn’t really a household name nowadays but she was a rather well-known mystery writer during the so-called Golden Age of mysteries, which lasted for a few decades, starting more or less in the Twenties. Busman’s Honeymoon, the source for this movie, first saw the light of day as a play, in 1936. A year later Sayers converted it to a novel and a few years after that it made its way to the big screen. Over on this side of Atlantic the movie was given the name Haunted Honeymoon, since few of us Yanks probably known what a busman’s holiday is (a holiday where you spend doing the same kind of thing that you usually do for your job, says Merriam-Webster).

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Future Treasures: The Wall of Storms, Book II of The Dandelion Dynasty, by Ken Liu

Future Treasures: The Wall of Storms, Book II of The Dandelion Dynasty, by Ken Liu

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The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu’s debut novel, was nominated for the Nebula Award, and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. It was also one of four launch titles for Saga Press, and it helped make that fledgling publisher one of the most respected publishing houses in the genre.

Next week Saga release The Wall of Storms, the second volume in what’s now being called The Dandelion Dynasty. It arrives in hardcover on October 4th. Here’s the description.

In the much-anticipated sequel to the “magnificent fantasy epic” (NPR) Grace of Kings, Emperor Kuni Garu is faced with the invasion of an invincible army in his kingdom and must quickly find a way to defeat the intruders.

Kuni Garu, now known as Emperor Ragin, runs the archipelago kingdom of Dara, but struggles to maintain progress while serving the demands of the people and his vision. Then an unexpected invading force from the Lyucu empire in the far distant west comes to the shores of Dara — and chaos results.

But Emperor Kuni cannot go and lead his kingdom against the threat himself with his recently healed empire fraying at the seams, so he sends the only people he trusts to be Dara’s savvy and cunning hopes against the invincible invaders: his children, now grown and ready to make their mark on history.

The Wall of Storms is 880 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Sam Weber. Read an interview with Ken, and an excerpt from the book, at io9.

Tabletop Terror: Pathfinder Edition

Tabletop Terror: Pathfinder Edition

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Pathfinder Occult AdventuresHumans hate to be frightened … except when we love it. There’s a small, sinister part of our brains that love terror and menace, not in real life so much as in our entertainment. This shows up regularly in our fiction and films, of course, as shelves are stocked with horror and thriller novels, as well as slasher flicks and suspenseful films and television series (some of which, I hear, even feature zombies).

Over this month leading up to Halloween, I’ll be focusing on how this horror element manifests itself in some great tabletop games which, among other things, can add immense fun to the Halloween holiday seas. (Am I the only one who celebrates all month long?)

To begin, I’d like to focus on some recent releases from one of my favorite RPG systems: Pathfinder RPG. While there has never been a shortage of monsters in the Pathfinder world of Golarion, over the last year they have had two major releases that really up the ante on the terror quotient, by introducing dynamic new game mechanics related to exploring these horrors. These manuals, together with their current Lovecraftian-themed horror Adventure Path series Strange Aeons [Paizo, Amazon], means that if you want to dive directly into a world full of terror and occult mysteries, you’ve got everything at your disposal to do so.

Occult Adventures

Released in August of 2015, Occult Adventures [Paizo, Amazon] formally introduces a psychic-based magical system into the Pathfinder RPG. These powers draw from the internal mental powers of the individual (or other individuals), rather than from the sources that fuel arcane or divine magic, and they provide a wealth of new approaches to magic to mix things up for people who have been playing wizards and clerics for several decades. In addition to six new psionics-based occult classes, and a variety of archetypes to offer psionic variations on existing classes, it introduces psychic magic, various new occult rules and mechanics, and occult-related equipment and magical items.

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A Long-Overdue Retrospective: The Best of Michael Moorcock

A Long-Overdue Retrospective: The Best of Michael Moorcock

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Tachyon Publications released The Best of Michael Moorcock, edited by John Davey and Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, back in 2009, and I finally bought a copy last month. I don’t know what took me so long.

Moorcock has an enormous back catalog of fantasy; so vast I’ll never be able to read even a fraction of it. But this book finally gives me the opportunity I’ve wanted for years: to sample the full range of Moorcock’s storytelling craft in one compact volume, with some of his most famous stories — including his famous 1968 Nebula Award winning novella “Behold the Man,” the Elric tale “A Portrait in Ivory,” and the Jerry Cornelius story “The Visible Men.”

The book received rave notices when it first appeared. Bookgasm says it “Serves as a superb introduction to the boundless imagination of this unique and fascinating author,” and The Guardian calls it “A long-overdue retrospective.” And Booklist says it’s “A wild, fascinating batch of stories fairly balancing the fantastic and the nearly ordinary, and showcasing Moorcock’s talent very well.”

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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September 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

September 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

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lightspeed-september-2016-smallIt’s the end of the month, and you know what that means. The complete contents of Lightspeed have now been posted online, awaiting your pleasure. Here’s Charles Payseur’s summary from Quick Sip Reviews.

The September issue of Lightspeed Magazine is all about crime and punishment. About people running from their pasts, running from authority, running from justice or injustice alike. In each of the stories there is a looming threat of some sanction. Police officers trying to maintain a status quo or a corrupt government trying to quash transparency or some nebulous force urging surrender or an actual crocodile waiting for the right moment to… These are stories that complicate crime and resistance, activism and revolution. And though they are unified by their focus on characters running from pursuit, from punishment, they show very different motivations and outcomes…

“Unauthorized Access” by An Owomoyela (10,700 words).  This is a rather fun story about activism and bureaucracy and corruption, all wrapped in a warm cyberpunk blanket… The world is a vibrant and rather different New York, filled with solar collectors and data and big government but also a grittier side, an Undercity that Aedo fears to tread and a whole lot in between. And I love Aedo as a character, trying to do the right thing while continually finding herself in the right place at the right time to do something… a tense and rather thrilling ride at times, and I would be excited to see if there’s more to come from this world and these character. A great story!

Read Charles’ complete review of the September issue here.

This month editor John Joseph Adams offers us original fantasy by Maria Dahvana Headley and Jaymee Goh, and fantasy reprints by Tim Pratt and Christopher Barzak, plus original science fiction by An Owomoyela and Sean Williams, along with SF reprints by Alec Nevala-Lee and Charlie Jane Anders.

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Word On The Street – Toronto

Word On The Street – Toronto

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mapIn September, Word on the Street takes place in major cities all over Canada, though not necessarily on the same day. In fact, if you live in Ontario, as I do, you could conceivably participate in both Ottawa’s and Toronto’s events.

I’m sure this kind of festival happens elsewhere, but the only other place I’ve experienced it is in Spain, for the Dia National del Libro

The purpose of the festival is to celebrate the written word. All kinds of businesses and associations attend to sell and give away books, magazines, comics, etc. At first glance, however, it might look as though all this is being done without much celebration of writers. If you have a look at the map, you’ll see that there were only two sections devoted directly to writers, the “Writers’ Block” and the “Genre Zone.”

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Goth Chick News: John Carpenter Rocks Out

Goth Chick News: John Carpenter Rocks Out

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Though when we last encountered John Carpenter at the 2015 Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago, Black Gate photog Chris Z and I quietly wondered if the legendary horror master might be on his proverbial last legs. He didn’t look at all well when he finally appeared an hour late for his press call and after all, he is approaching his 70th birthday, which in Hollywood years is approximately 150.

However, recent events seem to indicate Carpenter may have been the temporary victim of an overindulgence of Chicago nightlife – on that day at least. Because though he may no longer be making feature-length films, his music career is giving fans quite a lot to enjoy.

As you well know, Carpenter scored most of his iconic movies. But earlier this year he released a second stand-alone, studio album entitled Lost Themes 2, a follow up to the 2015 Lost Themes, and this week we got to feast our eyeballs on the music video associated with the track “Utopian Façade.”

Arguably, the video which runs just over three minutes could be a Carpenter short which takes you into a virtual reality world populated by gnarly monsters and one very peculiar heroine who is sporting the contact lens I want for Christmas. Plus the man himself makes a cameo.

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Nathan Long Spills the Beans on The Bard’s Tale IV

Nathan Long Spills the Beans on The Bard’s Tale IV

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Nathan Long, lead writer on inXile’s upcoming Bard’s Tale IV, posted a major update on the game’s Kickstarter page last night, alongside the above gameplay clip.

This clip is meant to illustrate the tone that we are looking to capture for our environments and creatures in The Bard’s Tale IV – a captivating and expansive landscape for you to explore, and a menagerie of creatures inspired by myth and Celtic folklore. We’ve also been feverishly working on the combat system and have made some amazing progress, but we don’t want to show our hand on it quite yet…

Right from the beginning, we made the decision that BTIV would be a game of free exploration. You’d be able to go in any direction you chose, ignore the main story to do side quests if that’s what tickled your fancy, or just noodle around and find cool stuff. We therefore made Skara Brae and the land it resides in, Caith, big places with lots of space and lots of story, scenery and secrets to get lost in. Skara Brae is a city now, with multiple levels of sewers, catacombs, and crypts below it, while the lands that surround it are vast and varied, with broad fields, haunted villages, deep forests, treacherous fens, and looming mountains, all riddled with caves, ruins, dungeons, and hidden places, all ripe for exploration.

inXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera team is scheduled for release early next year; The Bard’s Tale IV will arrive sometime after that. They’ve recently announced their next game Wasteland 3, follow-on to the acclaimed Wasteland 2, will be launching a crowdfunding campaign on Fig on October 5th, 2016. Nathan Long is the author of Jane Carver of Waar, and has written extensively in the Warhammer universe, most notably his Black Hearts, Ulrika the Vampire, and Gotrek & Felix novels. Read Bill Ward’s two-part Black Gate interview with him here and here, and enjoy Nathan’s complete update here.

Series Architecture: The Same But Different in EC Tubb’s Dumarest

Series Architecture: The Same But Different in EC Tubb’s Dumarest

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Oddly compelling…

EC Tubb’s Dumarest serial is oddly compelling… so oddly compelling that, if you like the first book, you end up slowly chugging through the series.

For those who’ve just tuned in, this is an incredibly long mid-20th century low Space Opera serial that influenced the roleplaying game Traveller. Note, series not serial: though there is forward momentum, each book is standalone — it’s more Deep Space Nine than Babylon 5. Also note the low. This isn’t exactly Conan in Space, but the Cimmerian would not be out of place.

So, Dumarest wanders a Grapes of Wrath galaxy — think how we met Rey in The Force Awakens — in search of Earth while pursued by the fanatical Cyclan, cyborg monks with no emotions other than the hunger for power and pride in their intellect.

It’s very much The Fugitive does Space Western. There are exceptions, and Tubb often kicks off with a short story before settling down the real meat. However, in almost every episode, Dumarest is the archetypal Drifter who becomes involved in gothic goings on in one of the local great houses, usually because that house faces some external threat.

(The houses are usually Gormenghast-style piles crammed with extended family and fuelled by dwindling fortunes. However, from time to time he swaps in military unit, spaceship, expedition, clan or band, with similar effect.)

This happens so consistently, that the books should be too formulaic to keep coming back to.

But we do. Each novel is the same but different.

How did — does — he do it?

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