Black Gate – Page 729 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Vintage Treasures: The Joyous Invasions by Theodore Sturgeon

Sunday, November 8, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

I’ve been gradually surveying the many collections of Theodore Sturgeon, one of the finest — some would say the finest — short story writers the field has ever seen. They’re easy to obtain, and very inexpensive, although the vast majority have been out of print for over three decades.

Well, most of them are easy to obtain. There are a few exceptions, and one of them is The Joyous Invasions, a collection of three novellas that appeared only in the UK. I’ve been trying to find a copy since I first discovered it existed earlier this year, and I finally succeeded last week. Here’s the description.

Alien Incursions

A tiny parasitic being whose task is to prepare humanity for an extra-terrestrial takeover. Its method: to make all dreams come true…

The ultimate sick TV show of the future — where the attractions are children struck down by a mysterious disease from outer space…

An alien field-expedition to Earth, which bases itself in a cheap boarding house — with weird and very unexpected results…

Here, together in one volume, are three stunning novellas by one of the giants of modern Science Fiction

The Joyous Invasion contains two of Sturgeon’s most famous stories, and one I’d never heard of.

“To Marry Medusa” (Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1958)
“The Comedian’s Children” (Venture Science Fiction Magazine, May 1958)
“The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1955)

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John DeNardo’s Five Reasons to Read Short Speculative Fiction Anthologies

Saturday, November 7, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I love short fiction. It’s how I was introduced to science fiction and fantasy, reading The Hugo Winners and The Early Asimov in the trailer in our back yard when I was twelve. I highlight a lot of anthologies and collections here on the blog, new and old (as you may have noticed).

John DeNardo, founder of the great SF Signal, shares my obsession with short genre fiction, and at the Kirkus Reviews site he uses a meditation on short stories as a crafty way to review Gardner Dozois’ 32nd volume of The Year’s Best Science Fiction, in his article “5 Reasons to Read Short Speculative Fiction Anthologies.” Take, for example, Reason #4: Short Fiction Is Fun.

People read fiction for fun, and where else can you experience so many fun stories than in a speculative fiction anthology that offers cool new worlds and ideas around which to tell them?

Few stories are as page-turning as “The Regular” by Ken Liu, set in a near-future Boston where a cybernetically enhanced investigator goes looking for a deadly serial killer. “West to East” by Jay Lake is as superb an adventure story as you’re ever likely to read. It involves a pair of space travelers stranded on an alien planet with a harsh atmosphere and having no way to return home. If you could encapsulate everything that is weird and wonderful about 1950s Sci-Fi B-movies, it’d probably look like “Passage of Earth” by Michael Swanwick, the story of an alien invasion as seen from the perspective of a medical examiner and his ex-wife. Then there’s the fast-moving “Red Light, and Rain” by Gareth L. Powell, a gripping action story about two time-traveling enhanced humans who wage a battle on the streets of present-day Amsterdam.

Read John’s complete article here, and see our coverage of The Year’s Best Science Fiction (including the complete TOC) here.

Future Treasures: Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

Saturday, November 7, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

With all the fuss around Catherynne M. Valente’s new novel Radiance, I almost missed the fact that Cat’s 2013 award-winning novella, Six-Gun Snow White, was being brought back into print by Saga Press.

Six-Gun Snow White is a delightful reimagination of one of the best-known fairy tales of all time, featuring Snow White as a gunslinger in the mythical Wild West. It was nominated for every major award our field has to offer — including the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards — and it won the Locus Award for Best Novella of the year, for the limited edition from Subterranean Press. Now Saga is reprinting the book as an attractive trade paperback, with cover and interior art by Charlie Bowater.

Forget the dark, enchanted forest. Picture instead a masterfully evoked Old West where you are more likely to find coyotes as the seven dwarves. Insert into this scene a plain-spoken, appealing narrator who relates the history of our heroine’s parents — a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. Although her mother’s life ended as hers began, so begins a remarkable tale: equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, this is an utterly enchanting story… at once familiar and entirely new.

Six-Gun Snow White will be published by Saga Press on November 10. It is 154 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $14.99 in trade paperback. The cover and interior illustrations are by Charlie Bowater.

Fantastic, January 1962: A Retro-Review

Saturday, November 7, 2015 Rich Horton Comments 1 comment

A Goldsmith era Fantastic, again, also from the stash I picked up at Sasquan. This one has a cover by Lloyd Birmingham, illustrating, rather faithfully, Randall Garrett’s “Hepcats of Venus” (a story probably published at about the last time one could have published it). The cover also advertises an Erle Stanley Gardner (of Perry Mason fame) SF story, “The Human Zero.” Interior illustrations are by Virgil Finlay, Leo Summers, and one Kilpatrick. I don’t recognize the last one, by name or style, and the ISFDB shows only 5 appearances by him or her, all in Amazing or Fantastic in 1961/1962.

The features are as usual for Fantastic on the scant side – Norman Lobsenz’ editorial and the letter column, According to You. The latter features a long letter by Mrs. Alvin A. Stewart on the subject of her dislike for David Bunch, in the process rehashing an ongoing debate. There are letters praising two serials in previous issues, James White’s Second Ending (which is excellent) and Manly Banister’s Magnanthropus, which I haven’t read, though I found the sequel (Seed of Eloraspon) to be fitfully enjoyable but far from a masterwork, and on the whole kind of preposterous. Paul Zimmer (presumably Marion Zimmer Bradley’s brother, and an author in his own right, Paul Edwin Zimmer) thought Magnanthropus the best serial Fantastic ever published. (Zimmer also takes a swipe at Bunch.) On the other hand, Fred Patten (a name to conjure with in fandom!) thought Magnanthropus a tremendous letdown after Second Ending.

I have to say I somewhat miss lettercols with that sort of spirited discussion of the stories in previous issues.

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Fantasy Scroll Magazine 9 Now Available

Saturday, November 7, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The ninth issue of the online-only Fantasy Scroll Magazine, cover dated October 2015, is now available.

The first order of business in Iulian Ionescu’s editorial is an update on their upcoming Year One anthology, Dragons, Droids and Doom, which contains every story from their first year, including tales by Ken Liu, Piers Anthony, Rachel Pollack, Hank Quense, William Meikle, Cat Rambo, and Mike Resnick. It will be available in both print and as an ebook, and will be officially launched at PhilCon on November 22.

Iulian also provides his usual sneak peek of the contents of issue #9 in his editorial. Here’s a snippet:

We begin with “Thomas Lynne,” a fantasy short story by Jordan Taylor. The author transports us in a southern-US setting filled with fantasy elements that weave naturally with the character’s story. Next is “When Angels Wear Butterfly Wings,” a bone-chilling flash story by Stone Showers, followed by the equally bone-chilling “Sea Found” by L R Hieber. You can learn more about L R Hieber in the interview section.

“Fountain” is next, a science fiction story by Lynda Clark, describing a post-apocalyptic, dog eat dog world where everyone is struggling to survive. Next is “Beneath the Raven’s Wing” by Rebecca Birch, a story that follows a young, female protagonist as she is faced with powers beyond her understanding. Shane Halbach’s “Exit Strategy” follows, a story filled with humor, thievery, and dragons.

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Support the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game Kickstarter

Saturday, November 7, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

The Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is one of the most successful OSR (“Old School Renaissance”) games on the market, with a well-designed, modern rules system grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Now publisher Goodman Games is going back to press with a fourth printing, and to fund it they’ve announced a Kickstarter. Here’s the basic spiel.

Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended you to, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery. Fast play, cryptic secrets, and a mysterious past await you: turn the page…

What if Gygax and Arneson were able to build upon thirty years of game design when they created D&D? What if they were freed to focus on their stated inspirations — rather than creating the RPG building blocks from scratch? What if someone were to attempt just that: to immerse himself in the game’s inspirations and re-envision the output using modern game design principles?

That, in short, is the goal of DCC RPG: to create a modern RPG that reflects D&D’s origin-point concepts with decades-later rules editions. From the company that was publishing old-school modules before the OSR ever existed, DCC RPG is not an old-school clone, but a re-imagining of what D&D could have been, utilizing the game’s primary sources of inspiration.

The goal was a modest $15,000; as of this writing the campaign has surpassed $91,000 in pledges, with 18 days left and absolutely no signs of slowing down. The publishers have added an extravagant number of stretch goals — and the ones that have already cleared include sewn-in satin ribbon bookmarks, a full color dust jacket, two built-in 4-panel judge’s reference panels, reprints of five out-of-print modules, and gilded page edges. It’s not too late to jump on board and get all the stretch goals — and the 480-page hardcover rule book — for just a $40 pledge.

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Review: Steampunk History – Osprey’s Confederate Cavalryman versus Union Cavalryman

Friday, November 6, 2015 Comments 4 comments

9781472807311_7 — …breathtaking moments where the very centuries seem to clash

Leather duster, shotgun… sword and lance. That’s pretty much an iconic Steampunk image, but it’s also a Confederate Cavalryman, which is why I asked Osprey to send me a review copy of their Confederate Cavalryman vs Union Cavalryman – Eastern Theater 1861-65 (Combat) – I am these days at least a 50% Steampunk author, after all.

I was expecting insights into what happens when “modern” Victorian cavalry armies clash. I got that, but also a sense of what cavalry warfare feels like in any era where cold steel and raw courage grant victory as much as good tactics and drill.

To an outsider, the American Civil War looks like oddly like a backwards version of World War One. Both were continental scale wars between belligerents who shared a civilisation. Both resulted from convoluted strings of decisions made with more enthusiasm for honour and principle than for preserving the lives of young men. However, during the course of the fighting, the Civil War gained moral purpose — became about slavery– whereas the Great War lost it — became about… well mostly mud, with the real crusades being internal, classically the development of tanks by both sides.

What’s interesting — to the same outsider — is that the American Civil War, unlike World War One, routinely had massed cavalry battles.

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New Treasures: The Builders by Daniel Polansky

Friday, November 6, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Click on the images for bigger versions.

Daniel Polansky has had an enviable career. His first novel, Low Town, was one of the most talked-about fantasy debuts of the year, and he’s already produced two sequels: Tomorrow the Killing (2012) and She Who Waits (2013). His new novel Those Above, the opening entry in The Empty Throne, was called “Machiavellian clockwork glory” by Mark Lawrence.

His latest, The Builders, the newest entry in Tor.com‘s novella series, is a dark anthropomorphic fantasy featuring a company of warriors keeping a low profile after being on the losing end of a grueling war. John Hornor Jacbos calls it “Funny, exciting, and extremely original. The Wild Bunch meets Watership Down.” I’ve been intrigued by all the titles in Tor.com‘s new publishing venture, but The Builders cranks my interest up to 11. And at 224 pages, it’s closer to a full-fledged novel than a novella.

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Dungeons & Dragons Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide

Friday, November 6, 2015 Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones Comments 5 comments

By the time Forgotten Realms hit bookstore shelves in 1987 I was off to college and long absent from Dungeons & Dragons. I never played 2nd Edition, nor leafed through Unearthed Arcana, and while I saw the books and occasionally glimpsed a Forgotten Realms novel, I never read one. It wasn’t that I thought myself too good for gaming, it was just that I’d moved on to other systems.

It was years before I returned to appreciate the simpler, archetypal approach to character creation and streamlined combat as presented in Castles & Crusades and in true retro-clones like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord. The idea behind them was that the 3.0 and after D&D engine had become encumbered with all sorts of add-ons that bogged down character creation, combat, and play. Having tried to run some of the newer iterations of the game I found myself in sympathy with that philosophy, because for me the story creation got lost in all the rules.

5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons took a lot of what had come before and re-presented it, with innovation and re-organization and a lot of care. It made all those cumbersome feats and skills and fiddly combat bits optional or streamlined (or jettisoned them), which impressed me. I’m still using other systems, but I like what I’ve seen enough that I’ll probably try running it some time.

All that pre-amble is to say I may be the perfect audience for this new Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, because I’m familiar with Dungeons & Dragons and partial to the new game but know almost nothing about the Forgotten Realms or the Sword Coast that’s one of its regions.

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Vintage Treasures: John the Balladeer by Manly Wade Wellman

Friday, November 6, 2015 John ONeill Comments 12 comments

Manly Wade Wellman, whom Karl Edward Wagner called “the dean of fantasy writers,” was one of the great 20th Century fantasists, particularly in the field of the “occult detective.” He created several memorable occult investigators, including Judge Pursuivant and John Thunstone. But his most enduring creation is surely Silver John, also known as John the Balladeer.

Silver John, a Korean War vet who becomes a wandering singer in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, appeared in around 20 stories published between 1951 and 1987, chiefly in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and later in anthologies like Shadows and Whispers. The stories were gathered in several volumes over the years, and these books are highly collectible today. In 1988 Baen Books released a complete collection of the Silver John stories in paperback, John the Balladeer, with a captivating painting by Steve Hickman.

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