Black Gate – Page 644 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Magic, Intrigue, Adventure, and a Bit of Piracy: The Shades of Magic Trilogy by V. E. Schwab

Saturday, September 3, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The second book in V. E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy, A Gathering of Shadows, made her a New York Times bestselling author. It has become one of the most acclaimed and popular fantasy series in recent memory. Booklist says it’s “Full of magic, intrigue, adventure, deception, a bit of piracy,” and NPR called it “Compulsively readable.” The Wall Street Journal labeled it “a multiple split-screen adventure, with an engaging hero/heroine pair,” and Steven Brust says “is as twisty-turny, dark, and gorgeous as the (multiple) Londons it winds through — I loved it!”

When the second volume was released earlier this year, I called it the “concluding volume” in a 2-book series. Whoops. That’s the publishing biz for you. I hope I don’t get in trouble soon for calling it a trilogy.

The series follows the adventures of Kell, a magician, ambassador, and smuggler who travels between parallel Londons, carrying royal correspondence. When a thief named Delilah Bard robs him, and then saves him from a nasty fate, the two find themselves on the run, jumping between worlds. In A Gathering of Shadows, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events… as strange things begin to emerge from Black London, the place of which no one speaks.

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New Treasures: The Gentleman, by Forrest Leo

Friday, September 2, 2016 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Well, we’re heading into fall (at least, for those readers in the Northern Hemisphere), and that’s reading season. Time to snuggle down with a good book or three, as the weather turns foul outside. My choice for Labor Day weekend is the debut novel by Forrest Leo, a Monty Pythonesque fantasy about a poet who accidentally sells his wife to the devil — then assembles a band of adventurers to rescue her. BookRiot labels it “a delight,” and Locus calls it “Wonderfully demented and comical… as if Tom Holt and Oscar Wilde got together and decided to do up a steampunk novelty… a robust, riotous romp.”

When Lionel Savage, a popular poet in Victorian London, learns from his butler that they’re broke, he marries the beautiful Vivien Lancaster for her money, only to find that his muse has abandoned him.

Distraught and contemplating suicide, Savage accidentally conjures the Devil — the polite “Gentleman” of the title — who appears at one of the society parties Savage abhors. The two hit it off: the Devil talks about his home, where he employs Dante as a gardener; Savage lends him a volume of Tennyson. But when the party’s over and Vivien has disappeared, the poet concludes in horror that he must have inadvertently sold his wife to the dark lord.

Newly in love with Vivian, Savage plans a rescue mission to Hell that includes Simmons, the butler; Tompkins, the bookseller; Ashley Lancaster, swashbuckling Buddhist; Will Kensington, inventor of a flying machine; and Savage’s spirited kid sister, Lizzie, freshly booted from boarding school for a “dalliance.” Throughout, his cousin’s quibbling footnotes to the text push the story into comedy nirvana.

Lionel and his friends encounter trapdoors, duels, anarchist-fearing bobbies, the social pressure of not knowing enough about art history, and the poisonous wit of his poetical archenemy. Fresh, action-packed and very, very funny, The Gentleman is a giddy farce that recalls the masterful confections of P.G. Wodehouse and Hergé’s beautifully detailed Tintin adventures.

The Gentleman was published by Penguin Press on August 16, 2016. It is 304 pages, priced at $26 on hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Joe Bonadonna Reports on Weird Tales

Friday, September 2, 2016 John ONeill Comments 14 comments

Back in May I wrote a brief post asking “Is Weird Tales Dead… Again?”

Since then there’s been no shortage of rumors, grumblings, and premature death announcements… but not a lot of facts. But this week, Black Gate roving reporter Joe Bonadonna checks in with the latest news.

In spite some talk concerning the possible demise of Weird Tales, I’m happy to report that it is still alive and well. I spoke with editor Marvin Kaye and he told me plans are in the works for the future. They had some financial issues, but all is well. The publisher plans to do an “unthemed” issue, followed by a “Halloween Edition” before all else.

I am hoping that the planned “Sword and Sorcery Special Edition” will follow after that. I was not given any specific timeline for the publication of these issues, but let’s hope they’ll all see the light of day within a short amount of time, without too much time-lag between issues. I keep checking Weird Tales websites for updates, but so far haven’t been able to learn anything. Let’s all hope for the best, and I’ll try to keep you all in the loop when and if I learn anything more.

As for new submissions, they are overstocked with fiction. No need to submit. That is all.

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

Andre Norton: Are Her Men Really Women?

Friday, September 2, 2016 Violette Malan Comments 0 Comment

It’s been my experience that Andre Norton is extremely popular among women of my generation, those who grew up reading SF when there were few women writing, and even fewer female protagonists. When I was looking at Norton’s Witch World last time, I found myself wondering whether this popularity was due to how Norton feminized her male protagonists, making them easier for female readers to relate to.

By feminizing, I mean that Norton gives her male protagonists the same kind of “otherness” that is normally associated with the female. Women have long been defined by how they aren’t men, and similarly Norton’s male protagonists are almost always defined by how they’re not the standard socially/politically accepted norm.

Even the positive qualities they may have are somehow the very things that set them apart, and define them as “other.” These are invariably qualities that the standard norm don’t wish to have, even though they’re demonstrably useful.

In Star Rangers Kartr, although a member of the Patrol, is a second class citizen, as are all of the Ranger class of combatants. In fact, he’s excluded from the class of regular Patrol in a number of ways. Even though he’s human, he’s from a frontier world, and is therefore a “barbarian”; he’s a “sensitive” in that he has certain mental abilities which can include telepathy – and it’s significant that this valuable ability is either distrusted by those who believe in its existence, or simply denied by those who don’t. Lastly, he’s a “bemmy lover”* in that he doesn’t join in excluding his nonhuman comrades from social or political status.

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Goth Chick News: What a Beautiful Time to Be Obsessed with LEGOs

Thursday, September 1, 2016 Sue Granquist Comments 1 comment

Come on admit it – you still love to occasionally get your Lego fix.

In a world full of VR and 3D anime games, and Pokemon Go (insert eye roll here) – the Danish idea from 1932 of making little colored bricks that snap together not only still holds up with the kiddies, but has gained full on cult-status with the grownups. And to their credit, Lego has continued to evolve to meet the needs of these adults sporting expendable incomes and a bad case of nostalgia.

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Heavy Metal Lyrics, Sword & Sorcery Fantasy and Video Games: A Cultural Synergy by Dr. Fred Adams

Thursday, September 1, 2016 Bob Byrne Comments 3 comments

Last year, Dr Fred C. Adams, Ph.D., joined our parade of writers in the Discovering Robert E. Howard series with an entry on Esau Cairn, REH’s classic science fiction character. Dr. Adams is back for another guest post here at Black Gate. Put on your headphones and go!

The parallel (and almost simultaneous) ascensions of heavy metal music, video game technology (which later migrated to personal computers), and sword and sorcery fantasy to mass popularity from the early 1970s forward are not coincidental. Rather, they are synergistic. All three draw from the late 20^th century youth culture’s fatalism and nihilism, honed to a fine edge in the fin de siècle era of the 1990s.

Consider the aesthetic of the Ur-arcade-video game of the 1980s, Space Invaders: ranks of grotesque aliens march across the screen as space ships fly overhead firing missiles. You, represented by a screen icon, scuttle back and forth, trapped in a small area firing and dodging missiles while trying to destroy the oncoming ranks of invaders before they reach you and symbolically stomp you into the earth.

The more you destroy, the more ranks appear, starting closer and advancing more quickly. You can forestall death for a time, but the denouement is inevitable. You will lose; the programming foreordains that you will die no matter how well or how long you fight. Other games of the era, like Missile Command, and Asteroids followed suit.

An occasional arcade game like Dragonquest allowed victory, but most reduced play to a life-and-death struggle the player will never win. The kill tally represents the only satisfaction—how many of them do I take with me? As the Time Traveler of Wells’ famous novel says of fighting an impossible number of Morlocks in the darkened forest, “I will make them pay for their meat.”

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What No Man’s Sky Can Learn from SFF Worldbuilding

Thursday, September 1, 2016 Carlos Hernandez Comments 5 comments

If you follow video games, you likely have heard the hype surrounding No Man’s Sky, the space exploration game with a decided pulp science fiction aesthetic that promises a universe with a whopping 18 quintillion procedurally generated planets to discover.

If there’s one thing in this game you’ll never be short of, it’s alien, picturesque vistas

Years of anticipation culminated in the game’s release on August 9, and on that day I, along with legions of frothing gamers, lit up my Playstation, grabbed the nearest 3-liter of Mountain Dew, slid my buttcheeks into the grooves of my favorite easy chair and settled in, happily anticipating a few hundred hours of wonder-stuffed fun.

Only. Well. The game. I mean. It’s. Well.

This video sums up what millions of gamers suddenly felt at once, and were suddenly silenced.

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Fantasia 2016, Day 9: Horror at Varying Levels of Self-Awareness (Shelley, The Inerasable, and Seoul Station)

Wednesday, August 31, 2016 Matthew David Surridge Comments 0 Comment

Shelley Weekends are busy at the Fantasia International Film Festival, and Friday, July 22, saw things beginning to ramp up for me after a slow few days. After much internal debate, I decided to see three movies, all of them horror films of different kinds. First came the Danish film Shelley, at the Hall theatre, about sinister events around a surrogate mother in an isolated household. Then would come a Japanese film, The Inerasable (Zange —Sunde wa Ikanai Heya), about two women investigating a ghost manifesting in an urban apartment. Finally would come an animated Korean zombie movie, Seoul Station (Seoulyeok). They promised three very different tones. And, as it turned out, delivered nicely.

Written and directed by Ali Abbasi, Shelley follows a Romanian woman, Elena (Cosmina Stratan), who has agreed to become a live-in maid for a Danish couple, Louise and Kasper (Ellen Dorit Petersen and Peter Christoffersen). They live on their own in an isolated house without electricity, and the movie opens with Elena being driven to their home in the deep woods. As she settles in and becomes friends with her bosses we learn about all three of them — how Elena has a boy back in Bucharest, how she’s struggling to send money back to him, and then on the other hand how Louise and Kasper are vegetarians and raise their own food and want a child of their own which Louise is not physically able to bear. They soon offer Elena enough money to pay for an apartment for her and her boy if she will be a surrogate mother for their child. She agrees, but as the pregnancy goes on problems develop. Health issues; the sort of things a doctor finds normal. But then also more sinister signs. A mysterious crying in the night. Bad dreams. Is the pregnancy cursed?

If so, it’s not clear by what. The feel of horror in this movie is oddly attenuated. There are hints of bad things, but no reason why those bad things are manifesting (if they are). Nor a sense of any specific malevolence. There is a shaman-like seer (Björn Andrésen) who tends to the spiritual need of Elena’s bosses, but although at moments he seems to recognise evil at work, he doesn’t hint at why or what that evil might be.

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Future Treasures: Of Sand and Malice Made by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Wednesday, August 31, 2016 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Bradley P. Beaulieu’s first novel in the Song of Shattered Sands series, Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, was published last September, and listed as one of the Best Books of the Year by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and BuzzFeed. The next book in the series, Of Sand and Malice Made, tells an earlier tale of Çeda, the youngest pit fighter in the history of the great desert city of Sharakhai. It arrives in hardcover from DAW next week.

Çeda, the heroine of the novel Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, is the youngest pit fighter in the history of the great desert city of Sharakhai. In this prequel, she has already made her name in the arena as the fearsome, undefeated White Wolf; none but her closest friends and allies know her true identity.

But this all changes when she crosses the path of Rümayesh, an ehrekh, a sadistic creature forged long ago by the god of chaos. The ehrekh are usually desert dwellers, but this one lurks in the dark corners of Sharakhai, toying with and preying on humans. As Rümayesh works to unmask the White Wolf and claim Çeda for her own, Çeda’s struggle becomes a battle for her very soul.

The next installment in the series, With Blood Upon the Sand, is due in hardcover in February.

Of Sand and Malice Made will be published by DAW on September 6, 2016. It is 240 pages, priced at $18 in hardcover, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by René Aigner.

A Fine Tribute to the Godfather of Weird Literature: The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu, edited by Paula Guran

Wednesday, August 31, 2016 Damien Moore Comments 1 comment

Within The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu, masterfully edited by Paula Guran, you will find a plethora of bewitching stories. Plenty of brilliant writers who contributed their talents incorporate Lovecraft’s universe into their tales. Others invent their own worlds and wink at the Godfather of weird literature.

One went so far as to sum Lovecraft up in a biography. In her piece “Variations on Lovecraftian Themes,” Veronica Schanoes shines an unforgiving light on Lovecraft’s racism and Anti-Semitism. That’s not to say Lovecraft has no redeeming qualities. Schanoes notes, for example. how he nurtured countless young writers through letters.

Contradictions abounded in Lovecraft’s life, and no one understands this more than Schanoes. Having thoroughly educated herself on her topic, her research delivers a punch to the gut. It makes you wonder if you can go on loving a writer knowing they valued hate.

On the subject of loving writers, you could say “A Shadow of Thine Own Design” by W.H. Pugmire is a love letter to Lovecraft. The story begins in the infamous city of Arkham. A young man named Malcolm Elioth meets an old woman named Edith Gnome. Ms. Gnome possesses a piece of artwork by the notorious Richard Upton Pinkman. Once the painting appears in the story, Lovecraft’s shadow looms over the stage. Yet, Pugmire makes the world his own by amplifying the grotesque power of the painting. The stunning description of Ms. Gnome’s baroque hell house shimmers off the page. Though Lovecraft’s beloved city and legendary painter play important roles in the tale, Pugmire constructs his own universe around them. And that’s what makes this tale so enjoyable.

Look no further than “Legacy of Salt” by Silvia Garcia-Moreno for an equally enjoyable piece. When Eduardo reunites with his relatives, who live in what seems like a time capsule, he desperately yearns to return to his lover in Mexico City. But Imelda, his enchanting and backward cousin, stabs a hook into his flesh. Their sordid waltz around their attraction is only one part of the story. The ancient rituals of Eduardo’s relatives, dating back to the time of the Aztecs, sear themselves into your memory. It’s not easy breaking away from a spiritual bond as strong as this one. Moreno-Garcia knows this well. This story haunts you.

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