Black Gate – Page 781 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Vintage Treasures: The Sword and the Satchel by Elizabeth Boyer

Monday, September 28, 2015 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Elizabeth Boyer’s first novel, The Sword and the Satchel, launched her on a successful career as a fantasy author in the 80s and early 90s. Rather uniquely at the time, she drew heavily from Norse mythology, and the setting of every one of her novels is the Scandinavia of Norse myth — packed with deadly frost giants, sinister dark elves, quarrelsome trolls, mist-shrouded burial mounds, wizards, sorcerers, and dwarves. Her first series, World of Alfar, began with The Sword and the Satchel and continued in three additional volumes:

The Elves and the Otterskin (1981)
The Thrall and the Dragon’s Heart (1982)
The Wizard and the Warlord (1983)

Her other books include the four volume Wizard’s War series, The Clan of the Warlord (1992), and her final novel, Keeper of Cats (1995).

The Sword and the Satchel was published as a paperback original by Del Rey in May 1980. It is 312 pages, priced at $2.25. The cover is by Robert Florczak.

Apex Magazine #76 Now on Sale

Monday, September 28, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

In his editorial this month, Jason Sizemore celebrates the rich world of international SF.

I offer my customary welcome with a bit more glee than usual. This is a special month for Apex Magazine as we spotlight one of my favorite things: international SF. To make this happen, I turned to Cristina Jurado, a Spanish author and editor-in-chief of SuperSonic, the first bi-lingual semiprozine for the English and Spanish speaking markets. She did a wonderful job selecting the original fiction this month.

When Lavie Tidhar and I did the first volume of The Apex Book of World SF in 2009, few Anglo readers could name more than a handful of non-Anglo (specifically the United States, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain) genre authors. On the eve of the release of The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 4, it pleases me to report that the scope of the genre has broadened substantially in the last six years. Perhaps the most buzzed about science fiction novel of the year is Chinese writer Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem. The world owes Ken Liu a debt of gratitude for bringing Liu’s work to English readers.

This issue of Apex also includes a new story from Liu Cixin, “Mountain.”

Here’s the complete TOC.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes on Screen

Monday, September 28, 2015 Bob Byrne Comments 4 comments

Holmes enthusiasts have their peculiarities. One of mine is that I enjoy just grabbing Alan Barnes’ Sherlock Holmes on Screen from the shelf and randomly reading about some past tv or film effort starring the great detective.

Almost twenty years ago, I couldn’t find a single picture of Ronald Howard’s Holmes on the internet. So I scanned one from a book and that was the basis for HolmesOnScreen.com, which for about a decade, had more info about Holmes television and film projects than any other site on the web. With the coming of Guy Ritchie’s Holmes, I decided to shut down the site (surprisingly, I enjoyed the movie) and soon thereafter set up SolarPons.com.

But Holmes on screen has remained a major interest area for me. By my count, twenty-one The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes posts have covered that subject! Now, I’m not saying that if you read every one of the links below, you’d be a leading expert on Holmes on screen. But you’d probably know more than most folks you talk to on the subject. And hey; they’re all free!

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Airship Hunters Take Flight

Monday, September 28, 2015 William Patrick Maynard Comments 0 Comment

This weekend I read and thoroughly enjoyed a New Pulp novel called Airship Hunters recently published by the fine folks at Meteor House. I really try and make these articles be about classic pulp, but new titles do catch my eye and while I am a fan of co-author Jim Beard’s occult detective, Sgt. Janus, it was actually the airship that caught my attention.

I first read about airships as a kid in several Edgar Rice Burroughs titles. A film dramatizing the Hindenburg disaster and then an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Black Sunday terrified me when I was just starting grade school. My introduction to the New Pulp world in 2009 came via Airship 27 with their nifty logo on each book. I even put an airship in my second Fu Manchu novel a few years later as a result. Far and away, my crowning achievement with airships was discussing their use in two cult classic films of the early 1970s: Darling Lili and Zeppelin with one of the principals involved in their production. So yes, suffice to say if you tell me Meteor House is publishing an airship title from Jim Beard, you have my attention.

Now in all fairness, it should be noted this new title is a collaborative effort between Jim and his co-author, Duane Spurlock. I know of Duane, but I had not previously read his work. Much like Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain a century earlier with Fantomas, the two men authored alternating chapters while compiling the book. Spurlock hails from Kentucky while Beard is my fellow Ohioan. There is a distinct Midwestern flavor to the adventure which lends an undeniable charm and authenticity to the proceedings.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Choosing Your Narrative Point of View, Part One: A Few Questions to Get You Started

Sunday, September 27, 2015 Tina Jens Comments 0 Comment

This is Part 1 in the Choosing Your Narrative POV Series.

When you’re trying to choose which point of view (POV) to write your short story from, you need to ask yourself several questions. It’s okay if you don’t know the answers to all these questions immediately.

The point of these questions is to get you thinking about these things and help you figure some of the answers out. (Many of these questions are equally relevant for novel writing.)

1. Whose Story is It?

Who is your lead character? (Also known as the protagonist or hero.)

This is not necessarily an easy question. The most obvious choice may not be the best one. Sometimes a more interesting story comes out of choosing a character who is not heroic or powerful in traditional ways. We’ve seen many a knight in shining armor kill a pesky dragon. But what if all the knights are away, and the princess, or her handmaiden, has to tackle the problem?

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Black Gate Online Fiction: Souldrifter by Garrett Calcaterra

Sunday, September 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Souldrifter by Garrett Calcaterra, Book Two of The Dreamwielder Chronicles.

“Arm the ballistas!” Giorgi commanded from the helm. “Ready the naphtha charges!”

The crew sprang into action around Taera, taking up their battle stations and readying their weapons… Giorgi had been forthright in admitting that naval battles never went to plan. That was doubly true with the Old World — they were bound to have their own tricks. Explosive weapons. Firewielders. Beastcharmers with whales or giant squids at their command. Stormbringers who could very well negate the Pyrthin stormbringers’ efforts and snuff out the wind altogether, leaving both fleets still in the water. If that happened, it would turn to hand-to-hand combat. The grappling hooks would come out and then the cutlasses.

I hope you were right, Makarria, Taera thought as the enemy fleet loomed closer. The Old World armada was massive, easily outnumbering the Pyrthin fleet two vessels to one. And they weren’t backing down.

Garrett Calcaterra is author of the YA fantasy series The Dreamwielder Chronicles. His other full-length books include The Roads to Baldairn Motte and Umbral Visions, and his short fiction and non-fiction has appeared places such as Wet Ink, Pirates & Swashbucklers 1 & 2, Membrane SF, Arkham Tales, and here at Black Gate.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by John Fultz, Jon Sprunk, Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe, E.E. Knight, Vaughn Heppner, Howard Andrew Jones, David Evan Harris, John C. Hocking, Michael Shea, Aaron Bradford Starr, Martha Wells, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, C.S.E. Cooney, and many others, is here.

Souldrifter will be published by Diversion Publishing on September 29, 2015. It is 298 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $4.99 for the digital edition. Learn more here.

Read an exclusive excerpt from Souldrifter here.

New Treasures: Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Sunday, September 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Bradley P. Beaulieu’s Twelve Kings in Sharakhai is shaping up to be one of the major fantasy releases of the year. Our very own Howard Andrew Jones says it’s “Crammed with intrigue, suspense, and stunning action,” and Glen Cooks says, ““I am impressed…. An exceedingly inventive story in a lushly realized dark setting.” Over at SF Signal, Paul Weimer does a splendid job of explaining just how compelling and new Beaulieu’s worldbuilding is in this opening novel of an ambitious new fantasy series.

The worldbuilding is complicated, rich, and endlessly fascinating. This is fantasy that goes far beyond the Great Wall of European Medieval fantasy, to a secondary world which takes its cues from the trading cities of the Taklamakan Desert, the deserts of Middle East, and places in between. The city is a wonder of a trading capital, a rich tapestry of people and their stories. I felt like I trod the dusty streets beneath the watch of the Kings as I followed Çeda’s journey, and the gods, monsters, and magic in this world are all fresh, original and wonderfully detailed. From the ebony blades of the Blade Maidens to the dangerous rush of power from the forbidden adichara petals, the powers beyond the forces of steel and fist depicted in this world are chaotic, wild, and entrancing.

Read the complete review, “Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley Beaulieu is a Must-Read for Fans of Lush Epic Fantasy,” at SF Signal.

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai was published by DAW on September 1, 2015. It is 592 pages, priced at $24.95 in hardcover, and $9.99 for the digital version. The gorgeous cover art (click for the full wraparound cover jacket) is by Adam Paquette. Get more details at Brad’s website.

Theresa DeLucci on Six-Guns and Strange Shooters: A Weird West Primer

Sunday, September 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 10 comments

You know how we feel about the Weird Western here at Black Gate. It’s a neglected sub-genre with some terrific work that deserves a lot more attention.

Over at Tor.com, Theresa DeLucci clearly feels the same way. She’s done a marvelous survey of some recent additions to the field in books, games, film, and music — including R.S. Belcher’s The Shotgun Arcana, Jonathan Maberry’s Deadlands: Ghostwalker, and John Joseph Adams’s great anthology Dead Man’s Hand. Here she is on Cat Valente’s short novel Six-Gun Snow White:

Similar to [Emma] Bull’s Territory, this fairytale of the half-Navajo daughter of industrialist George Hearst is more of an alternate history than a Weird piece… until the origin of the Evil Queen’s magic mirror is revealed. While Valente’s West is a land of Native American magic, coyote spirits, and the mystery of wide open spaces, the East hold forests choked with ancient dark magic that reaches up from the earth in twisting black tentacles. Tentacles are never attached to anything wholesome in fiction.

Read Theresa’s complete article at Tor.com here.

And in honor of all this recent Weird Western coverage, I’ve created a new — and long-overdue — category at Black Gate. Check out all our Weird Western coverage here.

Future Treasures: Rising Tide by Rajan Khanna

Saturday, September 26, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Rajan Khanna’s first novel Falling Sky, the tale of a post-apocalyptic North America filled with zeppelins, a plague-ravaged populace, and a pirate air city, was called “Like Hemingway meets The Walking Dead” by Tad Williams. Me, I didn’t need to wait for the reviews — I was sold at “pirate air city.”

The sequel, Rising Tide, arrives in two weeks, and it continues the tale of Ben Gold and Miranda, who has developed a test for the zombie virus… but when an old enemy attacks, there may not be time to perfect it.

Ben Gold sacrificed his ship in an effort to prevent pirates from attacking the hidden city of Tamoanchan. Now Malik, an old friend turned enemy, has captured Ben and Miranda — the scientist Ben loves. With Miranda held hostage, Ben has to do Malik’s dirty work.

Miranda has plans of her own, though. She has developed a test for the virus that turned most of the population into little more than beasts called Ferals two generations ago. She needs Ben’s help to rescue a group of her colleagues to perfect the test — but first they must rescue themselves.

When a terrible new disease starts spreading across Tamoanchan and people start dying, it seems there’s something more sinister afoot. Then an old enemy attacks. Can Ben fight off the invaders? And will it be in time to save anyone from the disease?

Rising Tide will be published by Pyr on October 6, 2015. It is 267 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Chris McGrath. Learn more at Rajan Khanna’s website here.

Slushpile Blues

Saturday, September 26, 2015 Adrian Simmons Comments 8 comments

I’m going to start this by getting on my high horse for a second.

When we started Heroic Fantasy Quarterly back in ’09 we had several goals; one of them was to bring a little class back into the public face of editing. We had seen one too many editor panels at conventions that turned into sad little pity parties. We vowed (and at HFQ when we vow something, blood oaths are involved) that we would not do that. Further, we would blood-eagle ourselves before we bitched, pissed or moaned about having to read slush.

In fact, from day one, we don’t even call it reading “slush”, we call it reading submissions. “Slush” is a fundamentally derogatory term. And I want everyone to know that if you see me on a panel and someone else is going on about the slush pile, I’ve got a devil on my shoulder telling me to bust their stupid face into next week. And all the angel on my other shoulder is telling me is just not to use a closed fist to do it.

With all that out of the way, I will be using the term “slush” and “slushpile” in the following article, as distasteful as it is for me to do so.

I ran into this article at New Republic: “Cheat! It’s the Only Way to Get Published.” The writer was an intern at a literary magazine and, aside from the usual denigration of, and projection onto, the writers on the slushpile, the important part is this.

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