Black Gate – Page 798 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

New Treasures: Dave vs. The Monsters by John Birmingham

Tuesday, June 16, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I’m not sure what to make of this new trend of releasing an entire trilogy in two months. In my day, you had to wait years for all three novels in a fantasy trilogy. And the publisher never told you when the last book was coming out because, hell, they didn’t know. Nobody knew. You just walked back and forth to the bookstore every single week, dutifully checking. In the snow. Uphill, both ways. And we liked it that way.

Kids today, they don’t know what waiting is. Take the new fantasy trilogy by John Birmingham, Dave vs. The Monsters, for example. The first volume, Emergence, was released on April 28, and the second one, Resistance, on June 2. And just in case that five week wait between volumes was too traumatic for you, Del Rey is releasing the final volume, Ascendance, just four weeks later, on June 30.

You’re spoiled rotten. You know that, right?

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Call for Backers! Tales of the Lost Citadel Campaign on Kickstarter, in Conjunction with a Video Interview with C.A. Suleiman, in the DARK!

Tuesday, June 16, 2015 Emily Mah Comments 1 comment

The Kickstarter Campaign for Tales of the Lost Citadel, a trans-media anthology with C.A. Suleiman at the helm, has gone live!

So, first off, go become a backer for said campaign. And then you can come back here and watch Colin (which is what the “C” stands for) talk about it in the video interview below. Or if you want to know more about said anthology and the video on the campaign page only whets your appetite, then watch the interview below for more information (and then go back the campaign!)

C.A. Suleiman has written novels and game content for over a decade and has worked for franchises like White Wolf and Dungeons and Dragons. Nowadays, when he isn’t working on The Lost Citadel or with Mark Rein-Hagen on I Am Zombie, he makes music with his band, Toll Carom, and posts random pictures of large cats on Facebook. He sat down with me this weekend for the following interview.

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Vintage Treasures: Kelwin by Neal Barrett, Jr.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

We have the makings of a small Neal Barrett, Jr. fan club here at Black Gate. It began when a discussion of his Aldair novels — which Fletcher Vredenburgh called “a blast of strangeness and adventure” — broke out in the comments section of a post about Mark Frost’s The List of 7. Shortly after Barrett’s death last year, Keith West briefly recounted meeting him at various conventions, and Fletcher reviewed The Prophecy Machine, the first of his novels of Finn, the Master Lizard Maker, saying:

I started it immediately and found myself in a fun, almost goofy story of craftsmen, duelists, animal people, and machinery not meant to be fiddled with by man…

From its first page, The Prophecy Machine heralds fun… Barrett has created a hilarious city of lunatics ruled by lunatic rules for Finn’s adventures to take place in… the book’s a lark. It’s funny and inventive from end to end. Jessica Slagg’s an amusing foil for the occasionally pompous and cocksure Finn. Sabatino’s exchanges with Finn are a funny mix of menace and camaraderie.

The only thing I can possibly compare it to is one of Jack Vance’s Cugel books. Like Vance, Barrett’s fantasy world doesn’t feel beholden to any real world setting. But the comparison really doesn’t do it justice. Barrett’s sly voice and Finn’s world are entirely his own.

I recently stumbled on a copy of Barrett’s first novel, Kelwin, a post-apocalyptic novel packaged as a sword & sorcery novel. It’s a fine example of 70s-era science fantasy, and I didn’t hesitate to make it mine.

Kelwin was released in paperback by Lancer Books in 1970 with a Jim Steranko cover. It has never been reprinted, and has now been out of print for 45 years. For Barrett fans, it makes a fine collectible.

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Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters edited by Janet Morris

Tuesday, June 16, 2015 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 8 comments

For the past several months I kept seeing notices for the coming release of Heroika 1: Dragon Eaters. Edited by Janet Morris, one of the true heavies in heroic fantasy, and someone I have known online for several years now, I knew this was a book I was going to be reading. That its table of contents included several writers I’m a big fan of as well as many whose names I’m starting to hear good things about made it look better and better. That it’s about killing dragons sealed the deal. So when John O’Neill asked if I wanted to review it and I could have an e-book of it, I said “YES!”

I’m happy to report that with all that buildup, it’s a terrific bunch of stories. Anthologies are great because you can pick them up and dive in anywhere and take a short, rewarding excursion into whatever genre it is. I generally don’t read anthologies from cover to cover in a short period of time. Reading for this review it turned out I wanted a break from dragon-killing when I tried to finish the book in only a few big sessions. There are a few stories that aren’t to my taste, but there are no clunkers and some real treasures in this book.

The stories, and there are seventeen of them, are presented chronologically — well, the ones set in the real world anyway. Those set in more fantastical settings are fit in among the medieval ones. In the earliest tales dragons stand toe-to-toe with the gods. Slowly, they lose that stature and become mere monsters. Deadly, true, but no longer forces of raw, elemental chaos. Eventually they’re regarded only as mythical. In the future, scientific explanations have to be found for their existence.

Janet and Chris Morris’ “The First Dragon Eater” opens the book. Narrated by Kella, a priest of Tarhunt, it tells of the battles between the Storm God, Tarhunt, and the dragon, Illuyankas. Taken from Hattan myth, it’s probably one of the earliest tales of dragon-killing. The story’s style — formal sounding, as if something recited in a temple — lends gravitas to the introduction of the monstrous worms that figure in so many world myths and fantasy stories.

“Legacy of the Great Dragon” by S.E. Lindberg moves forward into ancient Egypt, as Thoth, physician of the gods, helps Horus to find power to avenge the death of his father, Osiris, at the hands of Set. This is a wild piece, with a cosmically huge dragon and gods fighting inside of it.

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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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