Black Gate – Page 725 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Solar Pons & the Dead Fishmonger

Monday, December 28, 2015 Bob Byrne Comments 2 comments

August Derleth created Solar Pons as a successor to Sherlock Holmes. You know that, of course, because I’ve written about Pons several times and I mention him at the bottom of every post. A Praed Street Dossier was a collection of Pons odds and ends written by Derleth, related to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street.’

Included were some “Notebook” entries, attributed to Dr. Parker. Derleth would write two more “Notebook” installments for The Pontine Dossier, the newsletter of the Praed Street Irregulars.

The “Notebooks” are among my favorite Pons writings by Derleth. They provide additional insights into Pons and even add a case or two to the Pontine Canon. In fact, I like them so much I have continued on with the series, including ‘Notebook’ entries in several issues of my Solar Pons Gazette. I plan on adding more.

Tongue a bit in cheek with the names, here is a case from one of my ‘Notebooks’ entries in the Gazette. While Dr. Parker included this case, he never saw fit to fully write it up and publish it, so you are likely not familiar with it.

20 April, 1921

“Did you see this letter in the Herald, Pons?” I asked, handing him the item of discussion. He briefly glanced at it and then tossed it aside without a word. “You don’t think much of the suggestion, then?”

Solar Pons looked at me with the trace of a smile. “I believe that you are intentionally baiting me, Parker. So be it. No, I do not believe that ‘optograms’ will aid in finding the killer of Andrew Treacher.”

…

Read More Read More

Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Monday, December 28, 2015 William I. Lengeman III Comments 4 comments

You could say many things about William Shatner but you probably wouldn’t say he’s a subtle actor. Unless you compare his acting style to the delicate and restrained thespian stylings of Ricardo Montalban, who appears here as genetically enhanced super-overactor, Khan Noonien Singh. Two heavy hitters of the overacting community square off and naturally Kirk triumphs, but his win comes at a price.

The consensus regarding Star Trek films is that The Motion Picture was a lackluster effort and The Wrath of Khan was among the best — if not the best — of all of them. I’d agree that The Motion Picture had its fair share of issues but it also had a decent science fictional concept at its heart, and did a passable job at creating the sense of wonder that good science fiction often manages.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen

Sunday, December 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I’ve been looking forward to Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk since I first glimpsed the cover over the summer. It will be released this week, and the pre-release buzz has been impressive. Nancy Hightower at The Washington Post ranked it as one of the Best SF and Fantasy titles of December, saying:

Barsk is set 62,000 years into a human-less future, where anthropomorphic animals rule the galaxy. There is no record of human existence, and while the different species get along relatively well, the Fant, an elephant-like hybrid, are completely shunned and exiled to live on a rainy planet called Barsk. While labeled less intelligent and “dirty,” the Fant nonetheless are the only species to produce a drug that allows clairvoyants known as Speakers to commune with the dead. When the planet is threatened with invasion and annihilation by the galaxy Senate, Jorl, a Fant Speaker, must race to save it by communing with ancient beings who hold even darker truths. Suspenseful and emotionally engaging, Barsk brings readers into a fascinating speculative world.

Lawrence has been nominated for the Nebula Award three times, and the Hugo Award once. The early reviews for Barsk have been glowing, with Karl Schroeder calling it “A compulsive page-turner and immensely enjoyable,” and James L. Cambias proclaiming it “Captivating… [a] heartwarming story in a unique and fantastic world… as rich and mysterious as Dune.” We first covered the book last month.

Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard will be published by Tor Books on December 29, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The marvelous cover is by Victo Ngai.

Hypnojewels, Smugglers, and Ancient Alien Races: Rich Horton on The Plot Against Earth/Recruit for Andromeda

Sunday, December 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

“Calvin M. Knox” is one of Robert Silverberg’s most well-known pseudonyms. He used it extensively to write reviews, over two dozen short stories (frequently in magazines where he also had a story under his own name), and three novels: Lest We Forget Thee, Earth (1958), The Plot Against Earth (1959), and One of Our Asteroids is Missing (1964), all Ace Doubles.

Milton Lesser was born in Brooklyn in 1928, and changed his name to Stephen Marlowe in 1956. Under that name he wrote 40 crime novels and fictional autobiographies. He began publishing SF under his original name while still a teenager, and he continued to to do so through the 50s and 60s, producing seven novels and nearly 100 short stories between 1950 and 1965.

Silverberg and Lesser were published back-to-back in Ace Double D-358 in 1959, with the novels The Plot Against Earth and Recruit for Andromeda. The latter has never been reprinted, and has now been out of print for over 55 years.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

Sunday, December 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

John Wyndham’s first SF story, “Worlds to Barter,” was published in the May 1931 issue of Wonder Stories, one of the very first pulp magazines I ever bought (which still brings back fond memories every time I see the cover). It appeared under his pulp pseudonym, John Beynon Harris, and alongside “Through the Purple Cloud” by Jack Williamson, and stories by Fletcher Pratt, Ed Earl Repp, and an editorial by Hugo Gernsback. Wyndham was just 27 years old.

His real fame, of course, came with his novels. The first to appear under his own name was the international bestseller The Day of the Triffids (1951), followed by The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955), The Outward Urge (1959), Trouble with Lichen (1960), and Chocky (1968).

The Midwich Cuckoos was first published in hardcover in the UK by Michael Joseph in 1957, and made into the classic SF film Village of the Damned in 1960 (and remade by John Carpenter in 1995).

A nightmare tale of a quiet English village where nothing ever happened until late one September night, when every woman in town became inexplicably pregnant…

Nine months later, sixty beautiful children were born… sixty unbelievable threats to the human race!

Today The Midwich Cuckoos is something of a neglected classic. It has been out of print in the US since the Del Rey paperback edition shown at right was released in May 1980. It is 189 pages, priced at $1.50. The cover is by Dean Ellis. An ebook was published in July 2010 by RosettaBooks, and that’s probably your best bet if you’re trying to track down a copy.

Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1953: A Retro-Review

Saturday, December 26, 2015 Matthew Wuertz Comments 8 comments

Galaxy Science Fiction continued its momentum into the February, 1953 issue. Boldy asserting it only published original stories (no reprints), it drew the finest science fiction authors of the time.

“Four in One” by Damon Knight — George Meister and his team establish a base on an alien planet and begin to explore the surroundings. The four of them fall down a ridge and are consumed by a strange, slug-like organism. The only thing remaining of the humans are their brains, eyes, and spinal columns. Amazingly, they can each influence the organism as though it’s part of their own body, which is essentially the only body any of them have. Though George, as a scientist, wants to spend time analyzing the creature, the others are divided as to the next step to take. And they begin to take more aggressive actions, such as forming appendages that might be able to kill any opposing brains.

This is such a unique story that it’s a good read just for that reason alone. But the characters and tension also work well together. There’s a bit of a gross factor involved, I suppose, but I hope that doesn’t dissuade readers.

“Protective Mimicry” by Algis Budrys — Someone is counterfeiting galactic money, but the bills are perfect duplicates, down to the serial number. The treasury’s chief inspector sends a man named Baumholtzer to investigate where they turned up – a humid, heavily-forested planet named Deneb XI. Baumholtzer heads to the only city on the planet and finds a bar that knows how to make his drink. Unfortunately for Baumholtzer, the person behind the duplicate money knows he’s coming.

It’s a nice detective story with great descriptions. I wish it had been longer, but it moves at a good pace, so maybe expanding it wouldn’t be a great idea. I just liked the feel of the narration so much that I wanted to keep going.

…

Read More Read More

December 2015 Locus Now on Sale

Saturday, December 26, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The December issue of the Newsmagazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field features interviews with authors Chuck Wendig and Bet Cato, reports on the 2015 World Fantasy Awards and British Fantasy Awards, a convention report of the World Fantasy Convention, news on the massive Orbit expansion we reported on last month, the Nebula Nominations, author updates on George R.R. Martin, William Gibson, and Neil Gaiman, and many others, US and British Forthcoming Books lists, a column by Kameron Hurley, short fiction reviews from Gardner Dozois and Rich Horton, and reviews of new books from Charlie Jane Anders, Jonathan Strahan, Catherynne M. Valente, Linda Nagata, Cherie Priest, Matt Wallace, Kameron Hurley, Gemma Files, and many others.

In addition to all the news, features, and regular columns, there’s also the indispensable listings of Magazines Received, Books Received, British Books Received, and Bestsellers. Plus an obituary for T.M. Wright, Letters, and an editorial. See the complete contents here.

We last covered Locus with the October 2015 issue. Locus is edited by Liza Groen Trombi, and published monthly by Locus Publications. The issue is 62 pages, priced at $7.50. Subscriptions are $63 for 12 issues in the US. Subscribe online here. The magazine’s website, run as a separate publication by Mark R. Kelly, is a superb online resource. It is here.

See our December Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

John DeNardo’s 2015 Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Holiday Gift Guide

Saturday, December 26, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Well, Christmas is over, the gifts are (mostly) unwrapped and, barring that one uncle who always seems to be traveling on Christmas, all the presents have been exchanged. Which means it’s finally safe to look at gift-giving guides again (I don’t know about you, but all the best ones seem to pop up just as I finish my shopping.) After all, you need some suggestions on what to spend those gift certificates on, right?

Perhaps the best guide I found this year was John DeNardo’s 2015 Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Holiday Gift Guide, published in two parts over at Kirkus Reviews. What makes it so cool? It’s packed with deluxe comics, Star Trek and Stars Wars books, cool merchandise, and lots more. Here’s his suggestions for how to spend on the art lover in your life.

The go-to gift for your visually oriented loved ones is an art book. Science fiction and fantasy fans would adore Spectrum 22: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art edited by John Fleskes. Its 300 pages are jam-packed with an amazingly diverse selection of art, especially considering that they are all spectacular. It’s is a book you’ll pick up again and again. Or maybe your giftee leans toward the creepy? The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History by Stephen Jones is a visual feast aimed at lovers of horror. It contains an endlessly impressive selection of horror art since the late 19th century. Every page deserves multiple visits.

John has so many ideas, he had to split his list into two parts.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel José Older

Saturday, December 26, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Daniel José Older’s first Bone Street Rumba novel, Half-Resurrection Blues, was one of the most acclaimed novels of the year, selected as one of the Best Fantasy Books of 2015 by BuzzFeed, Barnes & Noble, and other fine establishments.

The second in the series, Midnight Taxi Tango, will be released in paperback next month. If you’re a regular reader at Tor.com, you’ve probably already sampled it, as portions were originally published there as three original short stories: “Anyway: Angie,” “Kia and Gio,” and “Ginga.”

The streets of New York are hungry tonight…

Carlos Delacruz straddles the line between the living and the not-so alive. As an agent for the Council of the Dead, he eliminates New York’s ghostlier problems. This time it’s a string of gruesome paranormal accidents in Brooklyn’s Von King Park that has already taken the lives of several locals — and is bound to take more.

The incidents in the park have put Kia on edge. When she first met Carlos, he was the weird guy who came to Baba Eddie’s botánica, where she worked. But the closer they’ve gotten, the more she’s seeing the world from Carlos’s point of view. In fact, she’s starting to see ghosts. And the situation is far more sinister than that — because whatever is bringing out the dead, it’s only just getting started.

Midnight Taxi Tango will be published by Roc on January 5, 2016. It is 322 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions. Sadly, the gorgeous cover art is uncredited.

Read the first chapter at Tor.com.

The Cover and TOC for Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016

Friday, December 25, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Ten years ago Rich Horton, who’d already published several highly detailed survey articles in the print edition of Black Gate (including “Building the Fantasy Canon: the Classic Anthologies of Genre Fantasy” and “The Big Little SF Magazines of the 1970s”) wrote the first installment of what was to become a highly ambitious series: Rich Horton’s Virtual Best of the Year.

Rich surveyed virtually every piece of short fiction published in the genre in 2005 (an astounding 9.5+ million words), and compiled a list of the best, and we published it here at Black Gate. He repeated that feat in 2006 and 2007, and his reports on the field became more in-depth and insightful each year.

In 2006, Rich also began publishing two anthologies with Prime Books: Fantasy: The Best of the Year and Science Fiction: The Best of the Year. In 2009 those books merged into one massive volume, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, which quickly became one of the most respected and acclaimed anthology series in our industry. It has been published every year since.

Last week Prime Books released the cover of the 2016 edition (at right, click for bigger version), the eighth volume in the series, alongside the Table of Contents. This one contains fiction from C.S.E. Cooney, Kelly Link, Vonda M. McIntyre, Catherynne M. Valente, Naomi Kritzer, Seanan McGuire, Chaz Brenchley, Elizabeth Bear, Ian McDonald, Geoff Ryman, Genevieve Valentine, and many others.

Here’s the complete TOC.

…

Read More Read More