Black Gate – Page 716 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Future Treasures: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

Saturday, December 5, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs, the first volume in The Divine Cities, was nominated for the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards, and came in second for the Locus Award. That’s a very impressive trifecta, and not something you see very often. Tor.com described it as “an atmospheric and intrigue-filled novel of dead gods, buried histories, and a mysterious, protean city,” (and Peadar Ó Guilín called it “The best fantasy I’ve read so far this year. Great stuff”), and that’s what first sparked my interest. The second volume, City of Blades, arrives next month, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

A generation ago, the city of Voortyashtan was the stronghold of the god of war and death, the birthplace of fearsome supernatural sentinels who killed and subjugated millions.

Now, the city’s god is dead. The city itself lies in ruins. And to its new military occupiers, the once-powerful capital is a wasteland of sectarian violence and bloody uprisings.

So it makes perfect sense that General Turyin Mulaghesh — foul-mouthed hero of the battle of Bulikov, rumored war criminal, ally of an embattled Prime Minister — has been exiled there to count down the days until she can draw her pension and be forgotten.

At least, it makes the perfect cover story.

The truth is that the general has been pressed into service one last time, dispatched to investigate a discovery with the potential to change the world — or destroy it.

The trouble is that this old soldier isn’t sure she’s still got what it takes to be the hero.

City of Blades will be published by Broadway Books on January 26, 2016. It is 296 pages, priced at $15 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.

The Wasteland: Swan Song by Robert McCammon

Saturday, December 5, 2015 Sean Stiennon Comments 3 comments

Swan Song
By Robert McCammon
Pocket Books (956 pages, $4.95, June 1987)
Cover by Rowena Morrill

Post-apocalypse tales are a rising star these days. Mad Max: Fury Road is rightfully acknowledged as a high-water mark for action films. Most recently the release of Bethseda’s Fallout 4 has anyone who calls himself a gamer holed up for power-armored adventure in the American wasteland. Whether the apocalypses are caused by nuclear blasts, hordes of the undead, or simply climate change, they consistently capture the imagination of millions.

The appeal is easy to understand. Our imaginations suggest that the collapse of civilization would give us ordinary people a chance to be heroes, to transform our baseball bats into swords, to see our commuter vehicles transformed into heroes’ chariots. We spend idle time in fluorescent-lit cubicles wondering how we’d fare if a mushroom cloud rose over the horizon.

Most post-apocalyptic settings have a clear surface pessimism. The end of civilization isn’t generally something to smile at. But I think the genre’s enduring popularity can be found in an underlying optimism about the ability of (relatively) ordinary people to become heroes in the most extreme circumstances imaginable. The misery of radioactive mutations or mass deaths are the grim background which makes the courage and heroism of the survivors all the brighter.

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New Treasures: The Messenger of Fear Novels by Michael Grant

Saturday, December 5, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Michael Grant is the best selling author of Gone and BZRK. His latest series, which began with Messenger of Fear, follows the adventures of Mara, who wakes up in a graveyard and eventually becomes the Messenger’s apprentice, punishing the wicked who act out of selfishness and greed.

Messenger of Fear was reprinted in paperback in August and the sequel, The Tattooed Heart, was released in hardcover in September. Lisa McMann, bestselling author of the Wake trilogy, calls the first volume “A palpitating horror fantasy mash-up with a genius twist that blew my mind.” Sounds like this one’s worth investigating.

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q26 Now Available

Saturday, December 5, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly made a big splash this month with the arrival of the long-awaited anthology of their first few years, The Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume 1.

But while that’s been grabbing the headlines, don’t forget that HFQ is one of the most reliable regular sources of new adventure fantasy, and that they just released their 26th quarterly issue. This one contains short stories by Robert Zoltan, Jon Byrne, and J.R. Restrick, and poetry by Mary Soon Lee, Eliza Victoria, and Ann Keith. Here’s the complete fiction TOC:

“The Voice of the Green Flame,” by J.R. Restrick. In a besieged city a king must make horrid decisions and plume ancient horrors. This story is S&S/Weird Fiction at its finest!

“Beggar’s Belief,” by Jon Byrne. Life among the dregs of society is not easy by any stretch, but there are those who master the difficulties and eke out their living. Among the dangers they face, one rises high above the rest — hope.

“The Blue Lamp,” by Robert Zoltan. Adventure fiction in the classic style, Zoltan’s tale will take you from the mundane and into a world of magic and mystery not seen since the glory days of the pulps.

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Kull and the Quest for Identity

Friday, December 4, 2015 William Patrick Maynard Comments 3 comments

NOTE: The following article was first published on April 18, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 250 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom” is a remarkable advancement upon “Exile of Atlantis” and the “Am-ra of the Ta’an” fragments. Howard’s first published story of what will later be known as the Pre-Cataclysmic Age leaves behind the derivative world of Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches to mine new territory in terms of character and setting as well as genre.

Kull, the barbarian who has recently seized the crown and now must struggle to keep it, marks a significant break from both Howard and the fantasy genre’s past while continuing to build upon the age-old theme of the outsider as noble savage. Howard was hardly the first young man who felt a sense of kinship with such characters. It is not hard to imagine the aspiring young writer, alienated in Cross Plains, pouring his feelings into the exiled Atlantean who remains an outcast even after rising to the throne of Valusia.

The story opens with Kull making a proper royal entrance. Unsurprisingly, the barbarian king’s empathy rests not with Valusia’s finest archers and trumpeters, but with the mercenaries paid to act as foot soldiers – men who show the king little respect, but who demonstrate integrity for all their brash honesty. This sets the stage for the introduction of Brule, the noble Pict destined to become Kull’s loyal companion. While Brule enters the series as a figure of suspicion, Kull soon modifies his opinion of the man’s character. Brule, like Kull, is a man of integrity.

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Vintage Treasures: Rudy Gutierrez Does Nalo Hopkinson

Friday, December 4, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

About fifteen years ago, I received an unsolicited fantasy story from a young author in Canada. I rejected it, and the author didn’t take the rejection well. She wrote me a pretty grumpy letter.

You sometimes get grumpy letters when you reject stories. Usually the best thing to do is ignore them. But I didn’t in this case, because the author had a point. It was an excellent story, and she knew it. The author’s name was Nalo Hopkinson, and I had rejected her story because of its frankly adult tone and content.

Well, she took me to task for that. Black Gate was brand new at the time, and Nalo challenged me for rejecting a story purely on the grounds of sexual content. She found it cowardly, and I didn’t blame her. That’s no way to build a reputation for a new magazine, she said. In my response, I told her I would have loved to publish her story — but not in Black Gate, which we had worked very hard to make suitable for readers 12 and up. I thought there was a clear market niche for a family-friendly fantasy magazine, and had set out to create one. Her story was very strong, but no so strong that I was willing to go back on the promises I’d made to our investors, distributors and advertisers. Nalo got that immediately, wrote me a warm and thoughtful response, and we hit it off. I’ve followed her career with great interest ever since — and what a stellar career it’s been.

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A Rose By Any Other Name?

Friday, December 4, 2015 Violette Malan Comments 4 comments

It was back when I was teaching a course on satire that I understood for the first time the true importance of characters’ names, and the titles of books. It’s more obvious, perhaps, in a satirical work than in any other, but names – whether of people or novels – are vitally important.

It behooves us as writers to pay them great attention.

To illustrate what I mean, let me show you an example from a satirical work that’s also considered SF, Anthony Burgess’ Clockwork Orange. What’s the significance of the title? We all know what an orange is, don’t we? A type of citrus fruit that grows in semi-tropical areas, which can be eaten, or made into juice, or marmalade or some other specimen of usefulness.

We all know what a clockwork is. A mechanism designed and built by humans to run other items or machines, initially clocks (hence the name), but subsequently a variety of other things. On a large scale, they could run factories, on a small scale, toys. We still find people who would say a “wind-up” or “clockwork” toy, particularly a “clockwork man.”

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The Other Sax Rohmer

Friday, December 4, 2015 William Patrick Maynard Comments 2 comments

I recently penned an article examining the possibility that four privately-printed titles by The Theosophical Society of London might have been the work of a young Sax Rohmer since he and the author of the four theosophical works were both born in the UK as Arthur Henry Ward in 1883. Rohmer shared a lifelong interest in theosophy and occasionally wrote non-fiction pieces on the topic and other occult interests. The current article is concerned with a second mystery writer with the name Sax Rohmer or, more correctly stated, Elizabeth Sax Rohmer.

Credited on the back of her lone novel as the daughter of Sax Rohmer, Elizabeth was in fact his wife. Born Rose Elizabeth Knox into a family of Music Hall entertainers, her brother Teddy was one of The Crazy Gang whose influence in British comedy ranged from The Goon Show to Monty Python. While never as prolific as her husband, Elizabeth penned at least two short stories, “Spikey” and ” ‘arker” under the name Lisbeth Knox in 1924 and 1932, respectively. Under the name Elizabeth Sax Rohmer, she scripted a number of radio and television scripts with her husband. Sadly, no copies of the programs survive and her short fiction remains obscure.

Elizabeth Sax Rohmer’s lone novel, Bianca in Black was published in 1958. At the time, her husband was battling poor health and involved in a protracted court case over his literary rights. Strapped for cash, Elizabeth went to work on a novel herself for Thomas Bouregy’s Mystery House imprint in the US and for Ryerson Press in Canada. A paperback edition by Airmont would follow four years later. Elizabeth acknowledged that her husband helped her with the story and writing of the book. While it is clearly his wife’s work primarily, Sax Rohmer’s hand is evident in certain aspects. The story itself has some slight echoes of his 1954 mystery, The Moon is Red.

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Goth Chick News: Stop Your Grinnin’ and Drop Your Linen – This is the Holiday Gift You’ve Been Searching For

Thursday, December 3, 2015 Sue Granquist Comments 2 comments

Some years ago, a previous profession put me in gruesomely close proximity to the outcomes of even “minor” motorcycle accidents. And though I’ve since moved on to focusing on movie corpses, this is likely due to the fact that the real things are just so…well… icky.

Therefore, though I’d never tell anyone else what they should do, I for one do not saddle up my sexy little blood-red 250 without donning every bit of safety gear first. And believe it or not, this makes me terminally uncool in Illinois where we have no mandatory helmet law for motorcyclists.

You know that cute little wave we bikers are supposed to give one another to acknowledge our mutual bad-assed-ness?

Nope, me either – because unhelmeted riders do not consider me in my helmet and Kevlar in 90 degree Chicago heat to be anything close to bad-assed.

That is – until now.

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Future Treasures: The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernandez

Thursday, December 3, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

When you publish a lot of book reviews, you get used to hearing manufactured publicity from publishers… half-hearted quotes from their other writers, and glib comparisons to best sellers. Which makes it so refreshing when you encounter true buzz building around a wonderful new book — chatter on social media, unsolicited endorsements from other writers, and excited discussions among friends. That’s what I’m seeing with Carlos Hernandez’s first book, a quirky and compelling collection of science fiction stories that’s rapidly building a tidal wave of admiration and anticipation in advance of its release next month.

Curious about all the commotion, I reached out to Carlos to see if I could get him to say a few words about his book, and he was generous enough to send me the comments below. Enjoy.

The title of my collection, The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria, is so esoteric and personal that it might leave a body wondering how it could serve anyone as a guide to anything. But I’ve picked up travel guides to places I am unlikely ever to visit just for the utter delight of reading them, grateful for the maps, the region-specific vocabulary, the window into human experience there aren’t world enough and time for me to get first-hand. The ones I relish most are deeply introspective, well-mannered, street-smart, generous. They understand the transformative power of small acts, of minute observation, of language. And they are, despite everything they have seen in their travels, deeply in love with humanity.

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