Black Gate – Page 791 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The mid-June Fantasy Magazine Rack

Monday, June 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

The big news this week is that Clarkesworld has started considering novelettes. They’ve also raised their rates to 10¢/word for the first 5,000 words, and 8¢ for each word over 5,000. For the pulp fans in our audience, Matthew Wuertz had a look at the September 1939 issue of John W. Campbell’s famous fantasy magazine Unknown, and Rich Horton posted a Retro Review of the July 1957 issue of Venture, with stories by James E. Gunn, Theodore R. Cogswell, H. Beam Piper, C. M. Kornbluth, Lester Del Rey, and Tom Godwin.

In his May Short Story Roundup, Fletcher Vredenburgh reviews the latest issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine #40 and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #24, calling the latter “maybe their best yet,” with equal praise for Cullen Groves’ “The Madness of the Mansa,” Dennis Mombauer’s “Melting Gold and Ashes,” and “The Reeds of Torin’s Fields by Andrea G. Stewart.

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

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Future Treasures: Iron and Blood by Gail Z. Martin and Larry N. Martin

Monday, June 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Gail Z. Martin is the author of Chronicles of the Necromancer, The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, and Deadly Curiosities, among other fine novels of heroic fantasy. Her first collaboration with Larry N. Martin was “Airship Down: A Sound and Fury Adventure,” a short story in Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier’s 2014 anthology Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs Aliens.

That apparently worked out well, because the husband and wife writing team has launched a new series together: The Jake Desmet Adventures. The first installment, Iron & Blood, is due next month from Solaris. And it looks pretty darned interesting.

New Pittsburgh, 1898 –- a crucible of invention and intrigue. Born from the ashes of devastating fire, flood and earthquake, the city is ruled by the shadow government of The Oligarchy. In the swarming streets, people of a hundred nations drudge to feed the engines of progress, while in the abandoned tunnels beneath the city, supernatural creatures hide from the light, emerging only to feed.

Jake Desmet and Rick Brand travel the world to secure treasures and unusual items for the collections of wealthy patrons, accompanied by Jake’s cousin, Veronique LeClerque. But when their latest commission leads to Jake’s father’s murder, the three friends are drawn into a conspiracy where dark magic, industrial sabotage and the monsters that prey on the night will ultimately threaten not just New Pittsburgh, but the whole world.

Iron and Blood will be published by Solaris on July 7, 2015. It is 432 pages, priced at $9.99 in paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. Read more at the Solaris website.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: On Screen Before Norwood

Monday, June 15, 2015 Bob Byrne Comments 1 comment

Screen depictions of the great detective have been a staple topic here at The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes. And because you assuredly read this post (actually, you might have: this has turned out to be my most popular PloSH post. I think it’s an error in the counting macro, but I’ll take it!), you know that in 1921 Eille Norwood and Stoll Films began their very popular series of Holmes silent films.

So today, we’ll look at the pre-Twenties career of Holmes in films.

There had been plays featuring Sherlock Holmes in 1893 and 1894. Then, William Gillette made his lasting debut as Holmes in his own play in 1898. Which you know since you read this post (I’m awfully self-assured people read this column, aren’t I?).

The restored Gillette film was screened in San Francisco the first week of June and will be available on DVD this Fall (I don’t plan on paying $34.95 for a copy, myself. I’ll wait until the price comes down.).

Then, in 1900, we saw the first appearance of Holmes in the fledgling media of film.

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Clarkesworld 105 Now on Sale

Sunday, June 14, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

So much news from Clarkesworld this month. The big news is that it is now accepting fiction up to 16,000 words — great news for those of us who enjoy longer stories. Its rates have increased as well: it’s now paying 10¢ per word for the first 5,000 words, and 8¢ for each word over 5,000. And at the Nebulas last weekend, I met editor Neil Clarke and learned he had no less than three stories he’d edited up last for awards — more than any other editor in the field.

Issue #105 is now on sale, and it’s a great time to try Clarkesworld if you haven’t before. It contains four new short stories, plus reprints from Terry Bisson (the first Wilson Wu and Irving story) and Caitlin R. Kiernan.

Short stories featured this issue are:

“Somewhere I Have Never Traveled (Third Sound Remix)” by E. Catherine Tobler
“Asymptotic” by Andy Dudak
“This Wanderer, in the Dark of the Year” by Kris Millering
“Forestspirit, Forestspirit” by Bogi Takács
“The Hole in the Hole” by Terry Bisson (from Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 1994)
“Riding the White Bull” by Caitlin R. Kiernan (from Argosy Magazine, January-February 2004)

Non-fiction includes “The Day-Glo Dystopia of Poly Styrene: Punk Prophet and Science Fiction Priestess” by Jason Heller, “The Paradox of the Telescope: A Conversation with Robert Charles Wilson” by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, “Another Word: The Vaguely Picaresque Adventures of a New Writer” by John Chu; and an editorial, “Once Again Down the Rabbit Hole” by Neil Clarke, in which he analyzes the results of his reader survey. This issue also includes two podcasts.

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New Treasures: The Edge of Reason Trilogy by Melinda Snodgrass

Sunday, June 14, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Melinda Snodgrass’s The Edge of Reason was originally published in hardcover with a snoozer of a cover (seriously — see below) by Tor Books in 2008. For the paperback edition in 2009 Tor recolored the cover, which I don’t think helped much. Maybe in 2009 it made sense to dress up the tale of a secret war between the forces of science and superstition as a Da Vinci Code lookalike, but here in 2015 we know better.

Maybe that’s why I never noticed The Edge of Reason when it first appeared. Why have I noticed it now? Because Tor reissued it on April 21 with a vastly superior cover by Chris McGrath (above). Seriously, this book has giant tentacles, and no one thought to feature them on the cover? This is Publishing 101, people.

Tor has not gifted us with a newer, awesomer edition of The Edge of Reason simply because Chris McGrath had a free weekend. The sequel, The Edge of Ruin, will be reprinted in paperback on July 28th (above, cover by McGrath), and the third volume, The Edge of Dawn, arrives on August 4th — also with a McGrath cover. Which also prominently features tentacles. Because that’s how you do it.

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Dungeon Crawling is Fun Again: Etrian Odyssey

Sunday, June 14, 2015 Josh Bycer Comments 4 comments

Dungeon crawling has always been a popular subset of the RPG genre. Sometimes motivating players requires a massive story, plot twists on top of plot twists, and evil villains out to rule the world. Other times, a party of heroes and a dungeon full of treasure is enough. But despite the popularity of the latter design among CRPG fans, the genre shrunk in favor of RPGS built around massive stories, like Mass Effect.

Today I want to look at the Etrian Odyssey series from Atlus; a company known for Japanese role playing game (JRPG) design, and how it managed to relight the fire for the classic dungeon crawl with old and new mechanics.

A Beginner’s Guide to Dungeon Crawlers

Before we talk about Etrian Odyssey, let’s quickly recap the dungeon crawler genre.

Dungeons crawlers have been popular since the 80s, with series like Might and Magic and Wizardry. In these titles, you assembled a party of heroes from predefined classes like warrior, cleric, mage etc, and explored dungeons for treasure and monsters. Combat was typically turn based, as you attempted to sojourn as far as possible before being forced to return to a town or safe area.

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Ancient Explorers Unveils the True Horror of the Rat King

Sunday, June 14, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

The Ancient Explorers Facebook group has explored some fascinating topics recently, including an ancient Chinese cure for obesity, the mysterious Nazca lines of Peru, and the enigmatic Voynich manuscript. But they’ve never posted anything quite like the true story of the Rat King, a near legendary medieval monster.

Several museums around the world contain bizarre once-living artifacts of a pseudo-legendary beast from the Middle Ages called a “rat king.” A rat king is formed when several rats have their tails fused together, whether by knotting or being somehow glued together. The result is a small horde of rats all facing outward from the central knot, presumably forced to act as one composite beast. The more fanciful accounts hold that one leader rat is suspended in the middle and acts as the “head” who directs the rest — a nightmarish notion, especially considering the fears of plague that rats conjure up.

The largest of these disturbing artifacts contains 32 of the little horrors and resides at the Mauritianum Museum in Altenburg, Germany. Some existing rat kings are mummified, while others are preserved in jars. Rat kings have been found in Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Indonesia. In every case except Indonesia, the rats were black: Rattus rattus L. In the case of Indonesia, they were small field rats: R. argentiventer.

As recently as 2005, a farmer named Rein Koiv found a rat king consisting of 16 individuals (nine of which were already dead) underneath the floorboards of his farm in Estonia, their tails glued together by frozen sand.

Read the complete story here.

Vintage Treasures: Ariosto by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Saturday, June 13, 2015 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Two weeks ago I wrote about Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s third novel, Hôtel Transylvania (1978), the opening novel in the celebrated Count Saint-Germain series, one of the first (and most successful) vampire romance sagas. It reminded me that, before Yarbro became a celebrated horror writer, she was well on her way to being one of the most acclaimed fantasists in America, with two of her earliest novels, The Palace (1979) and Ariosto (1980), nominated for the World Fantasy Award.

Ariosto was first published by Pocket Books, with a cover by Don Maitz (left). In addition to the World Fantasy, it was also nominated for the Balrog Award, and placed 11th in the Locus poll for best Best Fantasy Novel of the year. It was reprinted only once in the US, in a new paperback edition by Tor Books in January 1988 (right, cover by McPheeters), and has been out of print for nearly 30 years.

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Raya Golden on Building a Career as a Hugo Nominated Illustrator, Putting Up with Demanding Author Clients, and Her Talent for Gay Pinups

Saturday, June 13, 2015 Emily Mah Comments 3 comments

It is cover reveal day for my two upcoming novels, Restless Earth and Blessing Sky, and so these beautiful covers are being posted all around the internet. What better excuse to interview Raya Golden, the illustrator? Raya lives here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has been working as a professional artist for ten years.

Recently, she and I sat down to discuss a wide range of topics (hence the interview has a detailed guide below it that tells you where to click to hear about the topics that interest you.) First we discussed how to build a career as an artist; it isn’t easy. Then we got into the particulars of different kinds of art, from her Hugo Nominated work on George RR Martin’s Meathouse Man comic, to the graphic novel she is working on now. She was kind enough to explain the process of creating a graphic novel or comic step by step.

Then there are book covers, which present a plethora of challenges. She and I talked about everything from the design basics of an effective book cover to the challenges of portraying minority cultures. During this time I also explained the milieu and setting of these novels, which are essentially fantasy steampunk westerns.

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C.S.E. Cooney Gets a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly

Saturday, June 13, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

C.S.E. Cooney, Black Gate‘s website editor emeritus, signed with Mythic Delirium Press for her first short fiction collection, Bone Swans, and it’s already gathering rave reviews in advance of its July release. Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying:

Cooney’s brilliantly executed collection of five stories is a delicious stew of science fiction, horror, and fantasy, marked by unforgettable characters who plumb the depths of pathos and triumph. In “Life on the Sun,” sacrifice and rebirth are explored in a fantastical desert where future tech and wizardry mingle, as a mystical pharaoh-like figure forces a young rebel fighter to stoically embrace her fate. Children bravely battle to survive an adult-free, post-apocalyptic Earth in “The Big Ba-Ha,” even though they know their demise — hungrily anticipated by the ghoulish creatures that now share their world — is inevitable… Cooney’s magical prose elicits laughter even as gruesome scenes induce shudders, and her expert pacing breathlessly buoys the reader to each story’s conclusion. All of these stories could easily serve as the foundation for novels while also working beautifully at their current length. These well-crafted narratives defiantly refuse to fade from memory long after the last word has been read.

Bone Swans will be released next month, but if you can’t wait you can read some of the stories in their original online appearances, including right here at Black Gate: “Life on the Sun,” (from Black Gate), “Martyr’s Gem” (from Giganotosaurus) and “How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One” (from Giganotosaurus).

Bone Swans will be published by Mythic Delirium Press on July 7th, 2015, with an introduction by Gene Wolfe. It is 224 pages, priced at $5.99 for the digital edition. Get more details on their website.