Black Gate – Page 721 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Was Holmes Fooled in “Thor Bridge”?

Monday, December 7, 2015 Bob Byrne Comments 1 comment

Part of the fun of being a Sherlockian (I use the term to mean someone who has read the stories and delves into them, studying and possibly writing about them: not having watched the BBC television show Sherlock and expounding the wonders of Benedict Cumberbatch) is speculating on the stories. In a post last November, I posed that perhaps Holmes was actually fooled by Lady Brackenstall in “The Adventure of The Abbey Grange.”

I don’t think that actually happened, but in Playing the Game, I laid out what I thought was at least a plausible scenario for it. Similarly, I pondered the possibility that Holmes set himself up in the blackmailing business after matters were concluded in “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.” Now, I don’t believe what I wrote in that one at all, but it was fun and it’s not impossible (just preposterous).

So, I ask you, is it possible that Holmes had a blind spot regarding the fairer sex and that he once again was duped by a pretty woman?

SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS

Though frankly, if you’re reading this post and you haven’t read “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” I’m a little perplexed. But click on this link and read it. It won’t take long.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: It Was Only A Dream…

Sunday, December 6, 2015 Tina Jens Comments 1 comment

Just as there are certain guitar licks, walkdowns, turnarounds, and other patterns that can help with the flow and structure of a song, writing and storytelling have some generic techniques that can be used to great effect, or great failure, depending on how, when, and why they’re applied.

The most universal and familiar in fiction is probably the framing device that starts many children’s stories: “Once upon a time…” and ends them with, “And they lived happily ever after.” Those phrases are an emotional touchstone for most readers, taking them back to a magical time when stories were a centerpiece to our lives.

But most of these shortcut techniques aren’t used as often, and aren’t guaranteed to evoke a specific emotional response. Let’s look at a risky writing technique: The “It Was Only A Dream…” ending.

I generally hate this kind of ending, because it feels like a trick. It feels like the writer is chanting “Neener neener!” and laughing at the audience who fell for this prank.

However, as Eric Cherry (my frequent writing-neepery partner) and I explored specific instances of it being used, I realized that I didn’t always hate it. I just have such a strong emotional reaction when it’s used badly that it overshadows my appreciation of the times when it’s used well.

To use it in a way that respects the audience, it should shine the light of what we know about the story through a prism that reveals new facets to the story, rather than negating all that came before. It should make us embrace what we’ve already experienced within the story, and then view all of that in a new way.

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Collecting Robert A. Heinlein

Sunday, December 6, 2015 John ONeill Comments 28 comments

Over the past few weeks I’ve discussed some interesting patterns I’ve seen among paperback SF and fantasy collectors. These are hardly profound observations — they’re obvious to anyone who’s been collecting science fiction paperbacks for the past twenty years. But it has been interesting to see some well-known trends quantified.

The catalyst for all this was a sequence of similar online auctions by a single seller, for roughly comparable lots of paperback books by some of the most popular genre writers of the 20th Century. All were in virtually perfect shape — the kind of auctions that bring out die-hard collectors. The results were fairly predictable.

32 books by Arthur C. Clarke	$27.00
35 books by Isaac Asimov	$82.17
56 books by Philip K. Dick	$536.99

Click on the links to see the actual books in question. What we’re seeing here is a pretty fair representation of the popularly and demand for each of these writers some two to three decades after their deaths. So while there’s a wide disparity in prices, that’s to be expected. But I think the really interesting result came from the Heinlein auction.

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Thinking About What Makes The Shining and The Exorcist Work

Sunday, December 6, 2015 Derek Kunsken Comments 2 comments

Linda-Blair-in-The-Exorcist-1973 — Aw, man. This just ain’t right.

Sometimes in the course of growing as a writer, you fluke into a success before you grow the skills to consistently hit that success. My second-ever fiction sale was to Asimov’s Science Fiction in 2008 and over the following two-and-a-half years, I collected nothing but rejections from them.

My 2008 story had accidentally included enough good elements that it made it into the magazine, but I didn’t understand what those science fictional elements were or how to use them properly until about 2011.

I think the same thing happened to me with a story called “Dog’s Paw.” I thought I’d been writing a lit story when in fact, I had included horror elements that eventually got it published in a horror anthology, Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, and a superb audio version at Pseudopod.org (British people make everything sound extra-good). After my experience with my 2008 Asimov’s story, I was under no illusions that I was a competent horror writer, just a lucky one.

This spring, I decided to try to write a horror story. Knowing my weakness, I deliberately tried to figure out what goes into a good horror story. And when I want to analyze story structure, I go first to movies, because I find it easier to see the moving parts.

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A Slick and Stylish Potpourri of Geeky Hipness: Ernest Cline’s Armada

Sunday, December 6, 2015 James McGlothlin Comments 2 comments

Armada
By Earnest Cline
Crown Books (368 pages, $26 in hardcover, July 14, 2015)

Ernest Cline’s 2011 debut novel Ready Player One was quite the achievement. As I said in my review earlier this year here at Black Gate, Ready Player One was more than just a cute cyberpunk romp. I think it showed real ingenuity, portraying what science fiction could be for a new generation. And I thoroughly enjoyed it! It’s no surprise to me that Steven Spielberg is slated to direct a movie version, hopefully sometime in the near future. I was incredibly excited about reading Ernest Cline’s second novel Armada.

There are quite a few similarities between Armada and Ready Player One. For example, Armada‘s protagonist, Zack Lightman, fits the standard NSA profile for contemporary geek: young loner who spends more time in a make-believe world of science fiction and fantasy books, movies, and videogames than he does in the “real” world. Zack particularly dreams of flying off on some grand space-faring adventure, mainly because he spends most of his time on a hugely popular online flight simulator called, coincidentally, Armada.

Zack later learns, however, along with everyone else on the planet, that the Armada game is actually a testing device for evaluating and then recruiting people for real spaceflight and warfare against an alien force. And — surprise, surprise — it turns out that Zack Lightman is one of the top players. Does this sound anything like The Last Starfighter to anyone? Similar, but not quite.

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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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