Black Gate – Page 782 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Shovel’s Painful Predicament

Monday, July 20, 2015 Bob Byrne Comments 4 comments

Shovel_Martin — Yeah, it’s Shovel. You were expecting Philip Marlowe?

I wanted to have a little bit of fun this week. You, enlightened reader, have heard about William Gillette’s curtain raiser play, The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, because you wouldn’t dare miss a PLoSH post, right?

I am a serious fan of both Sherlock Holmes and the hard boiled genre of mystery fiction (which you also know because you’ve read the many columns I’ve written on both subjects…). Since Painful Predicament.. is a parody of Holmes, I decided to write a parody of a hard boiled private eye short, using Gillette’s mini-play as the model. So, I give you “Shovel’s Painful Predicament.”

I sat in my office, watching dust motes dance in the sunlight. The slats were pulled halfway, and they made a regular pattern on the floor. Unfortunately, this was the most action the office had seen in a week. Being a shamus in this town meant dry spells in jobs, not just the weather. The phone wasn’t ringing, but I wasn’t all that certain I’d paid the bill, either. I wouldn’t need an armored truck if I withdrew my bank account. Hell, I wouldn’t even need a wallet.

I heard tentative footsteps in the hallway. It sounded as if their maker was reading the doors, looking for the right one. They stopped in front of mine. I stayed behind my desk and waited. Someone pounded on the door and it rattled on its hinges. I grunted an “It’s open” in surprise. I hoped the hinges remembered how to work.

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New Treasures: The Chart of Tomorrows by Chris Willrich

Monday, July 20, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Back in May I published a brief head’s up about the latest Gaunt & Bone novel, The Chart of Tomorrows. I finally have a copy in my hot little hands, and I’m impatient to start reading it.

Chris Willrich’s “The Lions of Karthagar,” set in the world of Gaunt and Bone, appeared in the last issue of Black Gate. The first novels featuring the two heroes, The Scroll of Years (2013) and The Silk Map (2014), were both published by Pyr. In this third installment, the two find their plans to retire interrupted when their son becomes the chosen vessel of a powerful spirit…

The poet Persimmon Gaunt and the thief Imago Bone had sought only to retire from adventuring and start a family, but they never reckoned on their baby becoming the chosen vessel of the mystical energies of a distant Eastern land. With their son Innocence hunted by various factions hoping to use him as a tool, they kept him safe at the cost of trapping him in a pocket dimension of accelerated time.

Now free, the thirteen-year-old Innocence has rejected his parents and his “destiny” and has made dangerous friends in a barbaric Western land of dragon-prowed ships and rugged fjords. Desperately, Gaunt and Bone seek to track him down, along with their companion Snow Pine and her daughter A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, who was once trapped with Innocence too.

But as the nomadic Karvaks and their war-balloons strike west, and a troll-king spins his webs, and Joy is herself chosen by the spirit of the very land Innocence has fled to, Gaunt and Bone find themselves at the heart of a vast struggle — and their own son is emerging from that conflict as a force of evil. To save him and everything they know, they turn to a dangerous magical book, The Chart of Tomorrows, that reveals pathways through time. Upon the treacherous seas of history, Gaunt and Bone must face the darkness in each other’s pasts, in order to rescue their future.

The Chart of Tomorrows was published by Pyr Books on July 7, 2015. It is 541 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Kerem Beyit.

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Tricks for Writing in Public

Sunday, July 19, 2015 Tina Jens Comments 5 comments

Last week, I talked about how to find the right space at home for writing. As a part of that, I touched on the fact that, sometimes, the primary purpose of a room can interfere subconsciously with your writing efforts.

In our condo, I made the second, tiny, bedroom my office space. But since I spend a lot of time in there grading student papers, modifying my class curriculum, prepping for the next class, doing administrative and publicity work for the Gumbo Fiction Salon reading series, writing non-fiction, handling business correspondence, doing travel planning, and other writing-related-but-not-fiction-writing work, sometimes, even with the playful decor of the room, my office is not the best place to write fiction. I’m too aware of the other tasks that need to be done.

In other rooms, I’m often distracted by the visual To-Do List that pops up everywhere I look. There’s always laundry that’s piling up, a few dishes in the sink, a closet or cabinet or shelf that needs organizing, administrative work to do. And while making sure the clutter or items that need attention are behind me, I’m aware of the chores, even if they aren’t in my peripheral vision.

Sometimes, the only way I can escape the visual To-Do List, is to get out of the house. I do some of my best fiction writing out in public. Part of that is the “out of sight, out of mind” concept, but there’s also an element of helpful coercion. I don’t have to prioritize and make judgments about whether my writing or housework or grading or administrative stuff should be done first. If the only work I have with me is my writing, then I might as well be productive and do it.

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July 2015 Lightspeed Magazine Now on Sale

Sunday, July 19, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Lightspeed has some intriguing new fiction this month, from Carrie Vaughn, Andrea Hairston, and Taiyo Fujii (translated by Jim Hubbert). But they also have four top-notch reprints, including a Hugo nominee from Tony Daniel (“Life on the Moon”), a Detective Inspector Chen story from Liz Williams (“Adventures in the Ghost Trade,” a 2000 British Science Fiction Award Nominee), and classic stories from Mary Robinette Kowal and William Alexander.

Lightspeed publishes fantasy and SF, both new fiction and reprints. Here’s the complete fiction contents of the July issue.

Fantasy

“Adventures in the Ghost Trade” by Liz Williams (from Interzone #154, April 2000)
“Saltwater Railroad” by Andrea Hairston
“Ana’s Tag” by William Alexander (from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, #23, November 2008; available 7/28)

Science Fiction

“Crazy Rhythm” by Carrie Vaughn
“Life on the Moon” by Tony Daniel (from Asimov’s Science Fiction, April 1995)
“The Consciousness Problem” by Mary Robinette Kowal (from Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2009; available 7/21)
“Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” by Taiyo Fuji. Translated by Jim Hubbert. (available 7/28)

Readers of the eBook version also get a reprint of the novella “Dapple,” by Eleanor Arnason, and two novel excerpts: Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman, and Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand.

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Vintage Treasures: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Sunday, July 19, 2015 John ONeill Comments 11 comments

We Have Always Lived in the Castle-small

We Have Always Lived in the Castle back-small

It’s been at least 25 years since I read Shirley Jackson’s classic We Have Always Lived in the Castle. But it’s the kind of book that sticks in your mind.

I won’t say much about the plot, other than that it deals with the three surviving members of the Blackwood family: Merricat, a practicing witch, her elder sister Constance, who has not left their home for six years, and their deranged Uncle Julian. All three live in a large house, far from the neighboring village. Not so very long ago there were seven members of the family — until someone put a fatal dose of arsenic in the sugar bowl one night. Constance was acquitted of the murders and returned home, where her sister Merricat protects her from the sneers and curiosity of the townspeople. Their days pass in quiet isolation… until a new danger appears, in the shape of their mysterious cousin Charles.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of the most famous examples of “Southern Gothic,” and one of works that made Shirley Jackson famous. It was published three years before her death. There have been over a dozen editions, but my favorite is the 1963 paperback above, with the gorgeous and spooky cover by William Teason. You can usually find copies available online for under $10.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle was published in hardcover by The Viking Press in 1962, and reprinted in paperback by Popular Library in October 1963. The paperback is 173 pages, priced at sixty cents.

Fantasia Diary 2015, Days 2 and 3: Un homme idéal, Kung Fu Killer, and Wonderful World End

Sunday, July 19, 2015 Matthew David Surridge Comments 2 comments

Un homme idéal In the days leading up to the Fantasia Festival I’d look at the schedule and see a dilemma looming on the second day, last Wednesday. The first of many similar dilemmas ahead: which of two movies playing directly opposite each other do I watch? In this case a French suspense film, Un homme idéal (in English A Perfect Man), was up against a Donnie Yen martial-arts movie, Kung Fu Killer. The next day would be simpler, as my girlfriend and I had agreed to see the Japanese teen drama Wonderful World End together. But Wednesday offered two very different things. Which to watch?

By the magic of movie festivals, both. I’d catch one in the screening room, and one in the theatre. Which I’d watch where would depend on what was available in the screening room. I decided Kung Fu Killer would gain a certain amount from the big screen, and likely from the crowd response. It was also more of a known quantity — I thought I had a pretty fair sense of what it was and how good it was likely to be. Un homme idéal was more of a wild card. So if I had my choice, that’d be the one I’d watch in the screening room.

On Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before Miss Hokusai opened the festival, I picked up my accreditation badge and wandered over to the screening room. It turned out to have both films. So I sat down with Un homme idéal, which was in a sense my first movie of the festival this year. The screening room copy was on DVD (so in standard definition) and had a prominent watermark; probably best to factor that into the discussion that follows.

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Baen Announces the 2015 Fantasy Adventure Award Nominees

Sunday, July 19, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The nominees for the second annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, to be awarded “to the best piece of original short fiction that captures the spirit and tradition” of the great adventure fantasy writers, have been announced. The 2015 Finalists are:

“Saurs,” Craig DeLancey
“Unfound,” Rhiannon Held
“Shell Game,” Joseph L. Kellogg
“Victor the Sword,” Robin Lupton
“Trappists,” Katherine Monasterio
“Burning Savannah,” Alexander Monteagudo
“Kiss from a Queen,” Jeff Provine
“An Old Dragon’s Treasure,” Robert Russell
“The Triton’s Son,” Keith Taylor
“Adroit,” Dave Williams

The grand prize winner wil see their story published on the Baen website, and will receive an engraved award and an assortment of Baen titles. The winner will be officially announced at the Writer’s Symposium at Gen Con, July 30 – August 2, 2015. The winner will be selected by the Baen editorial staff and Larry Correia.

The 2014 Grand Prize winner was “The Golden Knight” by K. D. Julicher. For more details on the award, see the Baen Books website.

The Books of Tanith Lee: Companions on the Road

Saturday, July 18, 2015 John ONeill Comments 12 comments

We’re continuing with our look at the extraordinary 40-year career of Tanith Lee, who passed away on May 24th. So far we’ve covered 13 novels and three collections; today I’d like to look at the slender 1979 paperback Companions on the Road, which I think has been unjustly neglected over the last four decades.

Companions on the Road collects two novellas, Companions on the Road (1975) and The Winter Players (1976). Both were originally published as chapbooks in the UK by Macmillan, with covers by Juliet Stanwell Smith (see below). For their US release as a paperback original, they were collected into a single volume from Bantam titled Companions of the Road: Wondrous Tales of Adventure and Quest, with a wraparound cover by Lou Feck (click on the images above for bigger versions).

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Future Treasures: Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Saturday, July 18, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

One of the nice things about hanging out with genre professionals is hearing what gets them excited. While I was at the Nebula weekend here in Chicago in June, there was a lot of excited chatter about an upcoming book from debut novelist Zen Cho, a Malaysian writer who’s published short fiction in anthologies like Bloody Fabulous, End of the Road, and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women.

Now I finally have my hands on an advance copy of Sorcerer to the Crown, and I can see what all the fuss was about. It captivated me with the very first chapter. I predict this novel will launch Ms. Cho on a stellar fantasy career.

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, one of the most respected organizations throughout all of England, has long been tasked with maintaining magic within His Majesty’s lands. But lately, the once proper institute has fallen into disgrace, naming an altogether unsuitable gentleman — a freed slave who doesn’t even have a familiar — as their Sorcerer Royal, and allowing England’s once profuse stores of magic to slowly bleed dry. At least they haven’t stooped so low as to allow women to practice what is obviously a man’s profession…

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers and eminently proficient magician, ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up. But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain — and the world at large…

Sorcerer to the Crown will be published by Ace on September 1, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $26.95 in hardcover and $10.99 for the digital edition.

See the First Trailer for The Shannara Chronicles

Saturday, July 18, 2015 John ONeill Comments 11 comments

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never really been much of a fan of Terry Brooks’ Shannara books. So when The Shannara Chronicles, a new scripted series filmed for MTV, was announced, I didn’t really pay much attention.

But the first trailer, released last week at Comic-Con, has managed to pique my interest. The show has a unique look, and the production values are top notch. And the assembled talent — including writing team Alfred Gough & Miles Millar (Spider-Man 2, Smallville), producer Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Avengers), and cast John Rhys-Davies, Ivana Baquero and Manu Bennett — looks fantastic. Check out the 3-minute trailer above.

The Shannara Chronicles will begin broadcasting in January 2016 on MTV, and be available for binge watching on DVD and Blu-ray later in the year.