Black Gate – Page 770 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Peer-Pressure Writing: Offering Encouragement & Just a Little Shame

Sunday, August 16, 2015 Tina Jens Comments 0 Comment

Mama may have warned you as a child not to give into peer pressure, but that all depends on what the chanting crowd is pushing you to do. In more and more cases, in a variety of ways, writers are inviting other writers to pressure them to write, right? These can include formal educational writers’ retreats, but can be as simple as you and a buddy meeting at a coffee shop.

The classic model is to attend a writers’ retreat. There are lots of them with varied focuses on writing form, commercial genre, regional location, school affiliation, and more. Often, these retreats also offer work-shopping of the manuscripts written there, and in some cases, guest lectures by top tier authors and editors.

One of the best in the spec lit field is the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. A six-week program held on a college campus, it was established in 1968 and has a stiff competition among applicants to be accepted. It has other regional offshoots. As you can imagine, paying room, board, and instructors fees can add up: the 2015 Clarion workshop was estimated to cost around $5,000, plus travel, and that’s in addition to being able to afford six weeks away from your job.

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Future Treasures: Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea

Sunday, August 16, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

The first Koko novel, Koko Takes a Holiday, set in a war torn future 500 years from now, flew under the radar for me. That was probably a mistake. Sandman Slim author Richard Kadrey called it “a vivid and brutal old school (in the best sense) cyberpunk headkick,” and Publishers Weekly said its “sheer velocity keeps the story rattling along like a big geeky pinball machine.”

A review copy of the sequel, Koko the Mighty, arrived last week, and this looks like a perfect time to jump on board. The book will be released in trade paperback by Titan at the end of August. Check it out.

With an outstanding Ultimate Sanction bounty still on her head, Koko Martstellar (ex-mercenary and saloon madam extraordinaire) and Jedidiah Flynn (former orbital sky-cop) have narrowly escaped death in paradise. Rescued during a storm, Koko and Flynn are taken in by what amounts to a self-sufficient outlander cult. To save Flynn’s life, Koko barters her warrior skills and assists the de-civ group in fending off their most imminent threat: a horde of genetic-mutant raiders. However, even with the group’s foes bested and their idealist lifestyle somewhat enticing, being among the outlander de-civs doesn’t sit well with Koko. In spite of the de-civ group’s hospitality and Flynn’s arguing that they have it pretty good, Koko suspects something is amiss. People within the outlander group’s interlocking compounds keep disappearing with flimsy explanations — people like the girl who died on the cliff before Koko and Flynn’s rescue — and soon the group’s leadership assesses Koko as a threat to their secret agenda. As the mystery unfolds, Koko’s limits and loyalties — perhaps even her love for Flynn — will be tested.

And as if that isn’t enough, bounty agent Wire has managed to track down Koko and, after a little politicking, is preparing to lead an army of genetic-mutant raiders in a last-man-standing battle against the cult…

Koko the Mighty will be published by Titan Books on August 25, 2015. It is 327 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition.

Cloud Sculptors, Dragon Riders, and an Unearthly Craps Game: Nebula Award Stories 3, edited by Roger Zelazny

Sunday, August 16, 2015 William I. Lengeman III Comments 5 comments

Nebula Award Stories Three
Edited by Roger Zelazny
Pocket Books (193 pages, $0.75, February 1970)

It looks like there were 16 works of shorter fiction nominated for the 1968 Nebula awards. Seven of them appear in this collection. Although the Ballard story included doesn’t appear on the ballots I found listed at various reference sites.

In any event, there are some holes in my reading history represented here. I’ve read lots of Ellison over the years and a fair amount of Ballard. As for Leiber, Moorcock, McCaffrey and Delany, not so much. But there’s some great stuff here, by my reckoning, and a few good ones and one that was not so much.

PICKS

“The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D,” by J. G. Ballard

As the title suggests, actual cloud sculptors are sculpting clouds in this one. At first they do it for small change and later for a wealthy and not-so-nice woman. Things fall apart at this point, in rather spectacular fashion.

“Gonna Roll the Bones,” by Fritz Leiber

Last things first. Leiber’s story has one of the best last lines I’ve read for a long time. And the story that precedes it isn’t half bad either. It’s actually quite good and deserving of an award. You could go wrong in so many ways when writing a story that’s just a play-by-play rendition of an unearthly craps game. But Leiber carries it off well.

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The Dark Issue 9 Now on Sale

Sunday, August 16, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The Dark is a quarterly magazine co-edited by Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace. The ninth issue features four all-original short stories:

“Hani’s: Purveyor of Rusks, Biscuits, and Sweet Tea” by Sara Saab
“A House of Anxious Spiders” by Jy Yang
“The Old Man in the Kitchen” by Patricia Russo
“Mother of Giants” by Kristy Logan

You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by subscribing to the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets. A one-year sub (six issues) is just $15 – subscribe today.

If you enjoy the magazine you can also support it by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments. Read issue 9 here, and see their complete back issue catalog here.

The issue is cover dated August 2015. We last covered The Dark with Issue 8.

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

New Statesmen on the “Shockingly Offensive” 100 Best Fantasy and SF Novels

Saturday, August 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 65 comments

Liz Lutgendorff at New Statesmen read all 100 books on NPR’s list of the best science fiction and fantasy novels — a list that includes virtually every major title the genre has yet produced. And her response mirrors a complaint I hear over and over from young fantasy readers, and especially women — the classics of our genre have very little to offer readers seeking interesting and strong women characters.

There were also books that were outright misogynistic, like a A Spell for Chameleon where characters openly talk about not trusting women… The main plot of A Spell for Chameleon is that the main character, stupidly named Bink, has no magical talent…. Along the way, he meets Chameleon, who has the unenviable magic of being smart but ugly in one phase of the moon and beautiful but stupid in another. This inevitably leads to Bink liking her… Apparently for Bink, having someone compliant was more valuable than intelligence or independence, making Bink an utter creep…

Frankly, from my vantage in 2015, it was just plain weird to read books where there were hardly any women, no people of colour, no LGBT people. It seemed wholly unbelievable. I know what you could say: it’s science fiction and fantasy, believability isn’t one of the main criteria for such books. But it is relatively absurd that in the future people could discover faster-than-light travel, build massive empires and create artificial intelligences but somehow not crack gender equality or the space-faring glass ceiling.

The consequence of the lack of women and the obvious sexism is that the books became very much like one another. My book reviews contained more profanity and I became a much more harsh critic of the genres I most enjoyed reading. They were all the same story of white guys, going on an adventure.

I’m sure Ms. Lutgendorff’s comments will be hotly debated, but I think it’s foolish to ignore her gut reaction. Like it or not, the classics of an older generation are giving way to new novels, as they should. That’s what happens in a living genre. Read the complete article here.

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in July

Saturday, August 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

While we wait impatiently for the next episode of the popular BBC series Sherlock, the best way to pass the time seems to be to talk about the show with other fans. Bob Byrne proved this with the #1 post at Black Gate in July, his July 13th article “The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Season 3 – What Happened?”, in which he observes the negative fan reaction to the third season:

Season three (finally) arrived. Hoo-boy. Not only did I see, I observed. And for the first time, I saw and observed a notable amount of unhappiness with the show. And with the second episode, it was certain that a shift had occurred among the fan base. It continued through the third (season finale) episode.

A significant number of folks grumbled about season three. Where there had been very little unhappiness with the first six episodes, an entire contingent of fans did not like season three and it impacted their overall attitude towards the show…

I will state categorically that the excitement for season four is not nearly as great and certainly isn’t as universal as it was for prior seasons. Now, a bit of that could be due to the loooong delay (season four has now been pushed to 2017).

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New Treasures: The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milán

Saturday, August 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

I love dinosaurs. And epic fantasy. Epic fantasy with dinosaurs? That’s just a no brainer. Emily Mah interviewed author Victor Milán on his new novel The Dinosaur Lords — which George R. R. Martin calls “A cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones” — just last week; check it out here.

Intrigue, beauty, brutality, and dinosaurs – welcome to Paradise.

A world made by the Eight Creators on which to play out their games of passion and power, Paradise is a sprawling, diverse, often cruel place. Men and women live on Paradise but dinosaurs predominate: wildlife, monsters, beasts of burden – and of war. Colossal plant-eaters like Brachiosaurus; terrifying meat-eaters like Allosaurus and the most feared of all, Tyrannosaurus rex rule the land. Armored knights ride dinosaurs to battle legions of war-trained Triceratops and their upstart peasant crews. Seeking to centralize real power in his figurehead Fangèd Throne, Emperor Felipe of Nuevaropa sets off a chain of wars that may blaze up to consume the continent called the Tyrant’s Head. But is Imperial ambition the only spark, or are more sinister forces at work?

And so we have as our players in the tale: Fallen hero Karyl Bogomirsky, who wants to escape from constant headaches and nightmares and gets lured into the quixotic task of raising an army from a province of pacifists. Part-time Dinosaur Master and minstrel, and full-time rogue Rob Korrigan, who wants to get paid and laid — but he follows the man he’s written and sung about into what looks like certain disaster. Princess Melodia, who is eager to escape the shadow of her indulgent but neglectful father the Emperor but is faced by consequences she never anticipated. And Imperial Champion Jaume, Count of the Flowers, the Empire’s most celebrated swordsman and poet, who wants to serve Beauty and the right. But what can he do when faced with two equally wrong and ugly choices?

The Dinosaur Lords was published by Tor Books on July 28, 2015. It is 448 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Richard Anderson.

Vintage Treasures: The Lights of Barbrin by Joseph Burgo

Saturday, August 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 8 comments

I haven’t said a lot about the Timescape imprint from Pocket Books, one of the most prestigious publishing lines of the 80s. Founded by David G. Hartwell, it was named after Gregory Benford’s SF novel Timescape, and it produced over 100 paperbacks between 1981 to 1985 — including the four volumes of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, Philip K. Dick’s The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, Clark Ashton Smith’s The City of the Singing Flame, John M. Ford’s The Dragon Waiting, Donald Kingsbury’s Courtship Rite, and many others — including many Hugo and Nebula award nominees. It was shut down by Pocket in 1985, as it wasn’t producing a sufficient number of bestsellers for its budget. The line has a sterling reputation for quality. And among the many high-profile books, it also produced a number of highly regarded titles from lesser known authors… including The Lights of Barbrin, the debut fantasy from an unknown writer named Joseph Burgo.

The Quest of Ehred the Mighty

Braced by the strength of his Haziad — the four freedom fighters who represent fire, air, earth, and water — fire-bearer Ehred fought his way to importance, wielding a mighty force that made him all powerful in Nabrilehr, the land of the misfits.

But the evil Rand, barred from all Haziads because of his twisted devotion to the dangerous Unmaker, strove long and hard — and finally stole Ehred’s fire power for his own destructive use.

Now Ehred and his Haziad must steal back the blazing power — for in Rand’s hand it threatens to consume Ehred’s world!

Burgo never produced another fantasy novel, and this is his only contribution to the field. The Lights of Barbrin was published in paperback by Pocket in September 1978, and reprinted under the Timescape imprint in February 1982. It is 192 pages, priced at $2.50. The cover is by Carl Lundgren. There is no digital edition, and it has now been out of print for 33 years.

Sharing Creative Space: An Interview with Marvel Editor Daniel Ketchum

Saturday, August 15, 2015 Derek Kunsken Comments 0 Comment

So far in this series, I’ve interviewed Marvel Associate Editor Jake Thomas, Assistant Editor Xander Jarowey, and Assistant Editor Heather Antos about their roles in the production process and their editorial voices.

Today, I wanted to e-talk about the sharing of creative territory between writer and editor. So, I’m having an e-conversation with Marvel Editor Daniel Ketchum, who edits A-Force, Magneto, Nightcrawler, Storm, X-Force, X-Men and other books.

Daniel, in an interview you mentioned that part of your job is deciding which villain the X-Men fight in the next issue. I suppose I assumed (naively) that the writer got to decide most things. How do you divide creative decision-making roles with your writers?

Haha. Truth be told, that answer I gave is more of an easy-to-grasp oversimplification of what Marvel editors do. Four times out of five, the conversation with a writer at the outset of a story arc starts with them pitching the story they want to tell. (That other one time is when something like AXIS or SECRET WARS comes up and you just shouldn’t avoid addressing it.)

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Future Treasures: The Path of Anger by Antoine Rouaud

Friday, August 14, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I don’t know about you, but it takes a lot for me to commit to a new fantasy series. The Path of Anger, the first volume of The Book and the Sword, has all the right ingredients: imperial intrigue, long-buried secrets, assassinations, a missing sword, and a mystery tangled up with the birth of a new regime… Antoine Rouaud is a debut fantasy writer who works at NPR Radio. The Path of Anger was translated from the French by Tom Clegg.

There will be blood. There will be death. This is the path of anger…

Year 10 of the new Republic, in the remote port city of Masalia. Dun-Cadal, once the greatest general of the Empire, has been drinking his life away for years. Betrayed by his friends and grief-stricken at the loss of his apprentice, he’s done with politics, with adventure, and with people. But people aren’t finished with him — not yet.

Viola is a young historian looking for the last Emperor’s sword, said to have been taken by Dun-Cadal during the Empire’s final, chaotic hours. Her search not only leads her to the former general, but embroils them both in a series of assassinations. Dun-Cadal’s turncoat friends are being murdered, one by one, in the unmistakable style of an Imperial assassin…

But as Dun-Cadal comes to realize, none of these developments — not even the surprise of meeting his supposedly deceased apprentice — has been the result of chance. An intrigue transcending the fates of the individual characters has been put into motion, and its secrets are revealed one by one as the story unfolds.

The Path of Anger will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on August 25, 2015. It is 437 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Larry Rostant.