Black Gate – Page 791 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Art of the Genre: Bill Willingham Loved the Ladies, Even if TSR Wouldn’t Always Let Him Show Them…

Wednesday, July 1, 2015 Scott Taylor Comments 6 comments

Check out the lady below Elric in this Willingham done for White Plume Mountain. Bet you didn't realize it was cropped, did you? — Check out the lady below Elric in this Willingham done for White Plume Mountain. Bet you didn’t realize it was cropped, did you?

Former TSR Artist and now comic writer sensation [Fables] Bill Willingham wanted to be Frank Frazetta, or so I surmise. I’ve always been a fan of his work, dating back to those early days in the RPG field when he was a member of ‘The First Four’ at TSR.

Along with Jim Roslof, Jeff Dee, and Erol Otus, Bill managed to produce some absolutely lovely interior illustrations and acrylic covers for the first sets of D&D modules, once the business took off and TSR could afford color. His tenure there, which ended with a blow up concerning the termination of artists that removed both he and Dee from the company, ended up being the best thing for him as he went on to relative fame and fortune in comics, a place that his talent certainly spawned from.

I sat with Bill at a seaside café back on 2009 when ComicCon was still a monster, but not the headache it is today and we discussed his work in the field. Nothing too in-depth, and sadly he was unable to add his art to my Art Evolution project because it had been too many years since he’d done that kind of work. Still, he looked over all the other artists who had donated work and was most pleasantly surprised to see his old friend Jeff Dee in there. Obviously Dee was ‘the kid’ during his time in the burgeoning TSR ‘pit’, and at 19 there was no doubt that was the case, but Bill seemed to have a twinkle in his eye for Dee’s version of Lyssa in the project, and I was at least happy to somehow connect the two again, if even for a just a nostalgic moment.

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White Supremacist Science Fiction: Reading The Turner Diaries

Wednesday, July 1, 2015 Sean McLachlan Comments 9 comments

The recent attack by a white supremacist on a black church in Charleston reminded everyone that radical Muslims aren’t the only terrorists out there. In fact, an FBI report studying terrorism in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005 shows there were more attacks by far-right groups than Muslim groups, even in the most recent years of that period. A study of terror attacks in the European Union reveals that less than two percent were religiously motivated. Most were either by separatist or far-right organizations.

So what motivates radical right-wing terror groups? What’s their equivalent of ISIS beheading videos? While there is a large body of white supremacist videos and literature, the undisputed classic is The Turner Diaries.

This novel, written in 1978 by white supremacist activist William Luther Pierce under the pen name Andrew MacDonald, tells of a race war in the 1990s in which a group of whites called The Order overthrow the Zionist-controlled U.S. government and kill all Jews and racial minorities. The book became famous because a scene depicting the blowing up of an FBI building was eerily similar to the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. Later investigation showed he had been inspired by the book, as had a short-lived racist group called The Order that committed a string of robberies and killed a Jewish radio personality. Several other white supremacist criminals have also been inspired by the novel.

While it’s not proven that the Charleston shooter, Dylann Roof, had read the book, it’s so well-known in the circles in which he circulated he surely must have heard of it. Curious, I decided to track it down.

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Adrian Simmons on Pseudopod

Wednesday, July 1, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Adrian Simmons is one of our favorite editors. With his team of cohorts he edits the marvelous Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, which you should be reading.

He’s also a prolific and popular blogger, and his articles for Black Gate — including Fools in the Hotzone and Frodo Baggins, Lady Galadriel, and the Games of the Mighty — are some of the most popular pieces we’ve ever published.

But he’s also a fine fiction writer. This week Pseudopod, the premier horror fiction podcast, has posted his story “A Fan Letter To Joe Landsdale,” alongside the story it’s based on, Joe Landsdale’s “Boys Will Be Boys.”

The reader is Jared Axelrod. Check it out here.

Future Treasures: The Empress Game by Rhonda Mason

Wednesday, July 1, 2015 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Titan Books has been doing some terrific stuff recently, especially in the realm of intriguing fantasy series. So when they sent me an advance proof of Rhonda Mason’s The Empress Game, the first installment in a promising new space fantasy coming out later this month, I promised myself I’d read it.

And I totally failed. I told myself I probably wouldn’t have liked it, anyway. And then Liz Bourke totally trashed that theory, with this stellar review over at Tor.com, calling it an “old-fashioned pulp space opera”:

Rhonda Mason’s science fiction debut — first in a projected trilogy — is unashamedly old-fashioned pulp space opera… Kayla Reunimon makes a living through brutal gladiatorial combat in an arena on a world that probably counts as a classic space opera “hive of scum and villainy.” She used to be an Ordochian princess, trained to protect her psychic twin, until an Imperial-supported coup overthrew her government and killed most of her family. She escaped with her last surviving younger brother, but without resources, they’ve been stranded, and Kayla has kept them safe and fed as best her training allows. But when a mysterious stranger approaches her with an offer she can’t refuse — an offer he won’t permit her to refuse — their precarious equilibrium is irretrievably altered. The stranger — Malkor — might offer them their best hope of survival, because their enemies are closing in…

This is a novel about fighting princesses. And family. But you pretty much had me at gladiatorial princesses. I’m not going to pretend this is particularly admirable of me, but I’m terribly afraid I like that trope far, far too much. I can forgive a novel a lot for combining angst and violence in an entertaining way, and The Empress Game does that.

Looks like I’m going to have to read it after all. The Empress Game will be published by Titan Books on July 14, 2015. It is 352 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover artist is uncredited.

The Late June Fantasy Magazine Rack

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The big news this week is that we’ve started coverage of Ireland’s long-running magazine of the Fantastic, Albedo One, with issue #45, and the huge (432 pages!) Queers Destroy Science Fiction! Special Issue of Lightspeed — which is also available in a special trade paperback edition.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our mid-June Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

As we’ve mentioned before, all of these magazines are completely dependent on fans and readers to keep them alive. Many are marginal operations for whom a handful of subscriptions may mean the difference between life and death. Why not check one or two out, and try a sample issue? There are magazines here for every budget, from completely free to $7.50/issue. If you find something intriguing, I hope you’ll consider taking a chance on a subscription. I think you’ll find it’s money very well spent.

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New Treasures: The Revolutions by Felix Gilman

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Matthew David Surridge called Felix Gilman “one of the strongest new novelists in fantasy fiction today.” Over the past eight years Gilman has been gradually making a name for himself, with popular steampunk novels like Thunderer, Gears of the City, and the duology The Half-Made World and The Rise of Ransom City. For his latest, The Revolutions, now available in paperback from Tor, Gilman has written a sweeping stand-alone tale of Victorian science fiction, arcane exploration, and planetary romance.

In 1893, young journalist Arthur Shaw is at work in the British Museum Reading Room when the Great Storm hits London, wreaking unprecedented damage. In its aftermath, Arthur’s newspaper closes, owing him money, and all his debts come due at once. His fiancé Josephine takes a job as a stenographer for some of the fashionable spiritualist and occult societies of fin de siècle London society. At one of her meetings, Arthur is given a job lead for what seems to be accounting work, but at a salary many times what any clerk could expect. The work is long and peculiar, as the workers spend all day performing unnerving calculations that make them hallucinate or even go mad, but the money is compelling.

Things are beginning to look up when the perils of dabbling in the esoteric suddenly come to a head: A war breaks out between competing magical societies. Josephine joins one of them for a hazardous occult exploration-an experiment which threatens to leave her stranded at the outer limits of consciousness, among the celestial spheres.

Arthur won’t give up his great love so easily, and hunts for a way to save her, as Josephine fights for survival… somewhere in the vicinity of Mars.

The Revolutions was published in hardcover by Tor Books on April 1, 2014, and reprinted in trade paperback on April 7, 2015. It is 416 pages, priced at $16.99, or $9.99 for the digital edition.

June Issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine Now Available

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Issue 41 of Curtis Ellett’s Swords and Sorcery Magazine, cover-dated June 2015, was published today. Each issue of Swords and Sorcery contains two short stories, and is available free online. This issue includes new fiction from Kevin Cockle and Cameron Huntley.

“Wind Song,” by Kevin Cockle, is a story of aerial warfare pitting magical flying machines against dragon riders. Cockle’s novel Spawning Ground is due out in 2016. He has also written numerous short stories, and co-written a short film, The Whale, with Mike Peterson. This is his first publication in Swords & Sorcery.

“The King’s Blacksmith,” by Cameron Huntley is the story of a young craftsman who must decide if his devotion to his art is worth the cost. This is Huntley’s first story in Swords & Sorcery but his work has previously been seen in The Dream Quarry and Goldfish Grimm’s Spicy Fiction Sushi.

Read the current issue here. We last covered Swords and Sorcery Magazine with Issue #40.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine is edited by Curtis Ellett, and is available free online. Fletcher Vredenburgh reviewed issue #40 in his May Short Story Roundup.

See our mid-June Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

The Novels of Tanith Lee: Days of Grass

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

We’re continuing with our look at the extraordinary 40-year career of Tanith Lee, who passed away on May 24th. So far I’ve focused on her highly regarded series work, but I don’t want to neglect her standalone novels.

Today I’d like to briefly highlight Days of Grass, subtitled After the Fall of Humanity, one of the first Tanith Lee novels I ever bought. I wish I could tell you I was drawn by her reputation, but truthfully it was Michael Whelan’s gorgeous cover that seduced me. Click on the image at right for a bigger version — and be sure to note the man hiding in the rocks, and the alien striding machine rounding the cliffs on the far left.

Days of Grass might do better today than it did when it was first published. It’s a postapocalyptic dystopia with a strong female protagonist, and the world didn’t know how to treat a book like that in 1985. As it is, it has never been reprinted, and has now been out of print for 30 years. Copies are available online for not much more than the original cover price.

The free humans lived underground, secretive, like rats. Above, the world was a fearsome place for them – the open sky a terror, the night so black, and the striding machines from space so laser-flame deadly.

Esther dared the open; she saw the sky; she saw the Enemy. And she was taken – captive – to the vast alien empty city. Surrounded by marvels of science not born on earth, Esther did not know what they wanted of her. There was mystery in the city, dread in the heavens, and magic in the handsome alien man who came to her.

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The Dark Island by Henry Treece

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 4 comments

Britain is a dark island of mists and woods. It lies farther north than any other known land, so that the sun is seldom seen there. The people of this island are brave in battle but fearful of their gods and priests.

Arminius Agricola, Ambassador to Camulodunum, A.D. 25 – A.D. 30

The first written of Henry Treece’s Celtic Tetralogy, the second chronologically, and the third to be reviewed by me, The Dark Island (1952) is a story of 1st century AD Britain. I’ve previously reviewed The Great Captains and Red Queen, White Queen here at Black Gate. The fourth is The Invaders. Together, they present one of the most artistically successful attempts to portray ancient Britain and its people. Treece’s ancient Britons are the inhabitants of a dark and violent world, where signs and portents are seen in every event. For them, the gods and their blessings and curses are real. Fiercely independent as they believe themselves to be, even kings and princes bow down before the blood-soaked hands of the Druids. Under their direction human sacrifices to the gods are a regular occurrence. It is a world alien to us today and Treece presents it without condescension or sentimentality, and as completely believable.

The Dark Island is a story of trying to hold on to ideals in the face of overwhelming forces. Gwyndoc, cousin of Caradoc (better known as Caractacus), is a prince and a warrior. He was raised to be loyal, brave, and to fear the gods. In the wake of the Roman invasion, the shattering of the British army at the Battle of the Medway, and the easy acquiescence of most of the population to Roman rule, holding true to his ideals becomes difficult and self-destructive.

Gwyndoc and Caradoc are as close as brothers when they are young. They come of age during the golden days of the rule of Caradoc’s father, Cunobelin (more commonly known as Cymbeline). While Caesar’s invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 BC failed, Roman commerce and culture have made great inroads there. The merchants of Camulodunum and the tribal kings and princes have become richer than ever before. Their sons are educated by Roman tutors. Times are peaceful and plentiful.

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A Brief Guide to Space Race Movies

Monday, June 29, 2015 William I. Lengeman III Comments 4 comments

You could sweat the details, but it’s probably safe to say that the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted nearly 12 years. The Soviets kicked it off on October 4, 1957 with the launch of the little satellite that could, the one known as Sputnik. The Americans fell behind on nearly every front in those early years but then grabbed the brass ring on July 21, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

Nowadays, four decades after humans last walked on the moon, space exploration fails to stir the public imagination like it once did. Ticker tape parades for astronauts are a thing of the past, and Canadian Chris Hadfield is arguably the closest thing to a “celebrity” astronaut to come along in decades.

But it was not always thus. If you’d like a fictional perspective on how things were in the pioneering days of space flight, you could do worse than to check out the six movies listed below.

Marooned (1969)

Marooned seems to have slipped into something like obscurity in the nearly half a century since it was made. It’s a movie that concerns an Apollo-like mission which runs into difficulties that prevent them from re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Thus, they are marooned in orbit around Earth with a limited supply of oxygen.

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