Black Gate – Page 816 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Future Treasures: Sword of the North by Luke Scull

Thursday, April 16, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Sword of the North is the sequel to 2013’s The Grim Company, which Tor.com called “Brilliant” and The Daily Mail called “A grisly, compelling read… hugely enjoyable.”

The second volume in the series returns to the hostile, decaying world where the gods are dead… a land desperately in need of heroes. But what it gets instead is a ragtag band of old warriors, a crippled Halfmage, two orphans and an oddly capable manservant: the Grim Company.

In The Grim Company, Luke Scull introduced a formidable and forbidding band of anti-heroes battling against ruthless Magelords and monstrous terrors. The adventure continues as the company — now broken — face new dangers on personal quests…

As Davarus Cole and his former companions were quick to discover, the White Lady’s victorious liberation of Dorminia has not resulted in the freedom they once imagined. Anyone perceived as a threat has been seized and imprisoned—or exiled to darker regions — leaving the White Lady’s rule unchallenged and absolute. But the White Lady would be wiser not to spurn her former supporters: Eremul the Halfmage has learned of a race of immortals known as the Fade, and if he cannot convince the White Lady of their existence, all of humanity will be in danger.

Far to the north, Brodar Kayne and Jerek the Wolf continue their odyssey to the High Fangs only to find themselves caught in a war between a demon horde and their enemy of old, the Shaman. And in the wondrous city of Thelassa, Sasha must overcome demons of her own.

Because the Fade are coming…

Sword of the North will be published by Roc on May 5, 2015. It is 448 pages, priced at $26.95 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet Withdraw From the Hugo Ballot

Thursday, April 16, 2015 John ONeill Comments 15 comments

The drama over the 2015 Hugo nominations continues.

Earlier today 11-time Hugo Award winner Connie Willis refused to present the Campbell Award at this year’s ceremonies, saying “If I did, I’d be collaborating with [Vox Day and his followers] in their scheme.”

And later today, two authors whose works were included in Vox Day’s Rabid Puppies slate both declined their Hugo nominations. Annie Bellet, whose “Goodnight Stars” was nominated for Best Short Story, wrote:

I don’t want to stand in a battlefield anymore. I don’t want to have to think over every tweet and retweet, every blog post, every word I say. I don’t want to cringe when I open my email. I don’t want to have to ask friends to google me and read things so that I can at least be aware of the stuff people might be saying in my name or against my name. This is not why I write. This is not the kind of community I want to be a part of, nor the kind of award I want to win…

Maybe someday I will get to sit in a pretty dress next to my mother and know that if I lose the rocket, it will be because someone wrote a story that resonated more than mine. To know that I will lose to a person and not a political fight. To sit there and know if I lose, no one will cheer. And if I win, no one will boo. Perhaps someday I can win this award for the right reasons and without all the pain.

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The Witch Bottle, or How to Catch a Witch With a Bit of Pee and Some Pins

Wednesday, April 15, 2015 Sean McLachlan Comments 3 comments

The Bellarmine jug was popular for witch bottles. This one is stamped with the date 1688. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Are your cows dying? Do your chickens no longer lay eggs? Are you suffering from gout, shingles, or a really bad case of the clap? Do you suspect a witch might have it in for you?

Never fear, for now you can piss your troubles away with the witch bottle! Put your urine and a few other knick knacks into a jug, and that troublesome witch will go curse someone else’s farm. Or better yet, die.

Witch bottles were one of the many articles of folk magic used in England in the early modern period. Like with all folk practices, the details varied widely while retaining some basic similarities. A victim of the witch, or a special witch hunter, would fill a bottle with the victim’s urine. Other articles might be added such as bent nails or pins, thorns, hair, fingernail clippings, and bits of naval fluff. The bottle was then carefully stoppered.

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Pretty Deadly: The Song of Death-Faced Ginny

Wednesday, April 15, 2015 Elizabeth Cady Comments 5 comments

I still remember the first time I read Sandman. I didn’t read comics back then: I thought of them as longer versions of the strips in the Sunday paper and didn’t give them much other thought. Then one day, I was sitting in the metal working classroom in High School, and Morley, a red-haired skinny punk rocker I still wish I had gotten to know better, handed me a comic book and said, “You should read this. It’s awesome.”

I knew from the cover, a strange collage that was both enticing and off-putting, it wouldn’t be what I expected. But I had no idea what I was in for. I didn’t like the art, and some of the references confused me, but otherwise, I was completely blown away. It was one of those life altering experiences: not only did I discover Neil Gaiman, I discovered comic books. That first volume completely changed the way I thought of storytelling and visual design, the way that myth and story could dance together, and the way the mythic and mundane could crash together.

Twenty years later, I had that experience again. Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios’ Pretty Deadly is a lush, gorgeous and lyrical graphic novel, a mythopoeic western that plays with the conventional gunslinger tropes while bringing in elements of horror and folklore. And what ties it all together is the song of Death-faced Ginny.

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Vintage Treasures: The Dubric Bryerly Mysteries by Tamara Siler Jones

Wednesday, April 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

There’s really nothing quite like Tamara Siler Jones’ Dubric Bryerly Mysteries out there today.

They were a fascinating mix of fantasy, forensics, and crime thriller involving the head of security at Castle Faldorrah, Dubric Byerly, who is cursed to be haunted by the ghosts of those whose deaths demand justice. Three volumes were published: Ghost in the Snow (2004), Threads of Malice (2005), and Valley of the Soul (2006), all by Bantam Spectra. Ghost won the Compton Crook Award, given out at Balticon every year for Best First Novel. All three have great covers by Les Edwards.

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Connie Willis Declines to Be a 2015 Hugo Award Presenter

Wednesday, April 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Connie Willis has a long tradition as an MC and presenter at the Hugo Awards. She was asked by Hugo Award MC David Gerrold to present the Campbell Award at this year’s ceremonies, and she publicly declined the invitation on her blog:

You may or may not have heard of the Hugo crisis currently facing the science-fiction community… Basically, what’s happened is that a small group of people led by Vox Day/Theodore Beale and Brad Torgerson took advantage of the fact that only a small percentage of Hugo voters nominate works to hijack the ballot… When I heard about this, I was sick at the thought of what they’d done and at all the damage they’d caused… But I didn’t want to speak out and refuse to be a presenter if there was still a chance to salvage the Hugo Awards ceremony…

But then Vox Day and his followers made it impossible for me to remain silent, keep calm, and carry on. Not content with just using dirty tricks to get on the ballot, they’re now demanding they win, too, or they’ll destroy the Hugos altogether. When a commenter on File 770 suggested people fight back by voting for “No Award,” Vox Day wrote: “If No Award takes a fiction category, you will likely never see another award given in that category again. The sword cuts both ways, Lois. We are prepared for all eventualities.”

I assume that means they intend to use the same bloc-voting technique to block anyone but their nominees from winning in future years. Or, in other words, “If you ever want to see your precious award again, do exactly as I say.” It’s a threat, pure and simple… In my own particular case, I feel I’ve also been ordered to go along with them and act as if this were an ordinary Hugo Awards ceremony. I’ve essentially been told to engage in some light-hearted banter with the nominees, give one of them the award, and by my presence – and my silence – lend cover and credibility to winners who got the award through bullying and extortion.

Well, I won’t do it. I can’t do it. If I did, I’d be collaborating with them in their scheme.

Read our summary of this year’s Hugo mess here, and Connie’s complete statement on the matter here.

The Parallel Worlds of Poul Anderson’s Operation Chaos

Wednesday, April 15, 2015 Gabe Dybing Comments 1 comment

I may have got ahead of myself by reporting on three novels of 1960. This is because, in opening Operation Otherworld, an omnibus edition of Poul Anderson’s Operation Chaos and Operation Luna, I learned that Operation Chaos was not merely published in 1971 but also as four novellas or novelettes beginning in 1956. Their titles mark the four episodes that make up Operation Chaos: “Operation Afreet,” “Operation Salamander,” “Operation Incubus,” and “Operation Changeling.” All were published in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

This book in many ways is a return to or continuation of the ideas first presented in Three Hearts and Three Lions. Indeed, Sandra Miesel in Against Time’s Arrow spends most of her analysis of Anderson’s concepts of Chaos and Law in this book rather than in the former. I, however, found myself more interested in Anderson’s presentation of parallel worlds and his technique of introducing the concept. The very first words:

Hello, out there!

If you exist, hello!

We may never find out. This is a wild experiment, test of a wilder hypothesis. But it is also a duty.

I lie dream-bound, only half aware of my world. They are using me to call for them across the time streams because that which happened to me, so many years ago, has left its traces beneath my ordinariness; they believe a message thought by me has a better chance of finding a resonance in you than if it came from almost anyone else…

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New Treasures: Warhammer 40K: The Horus Heresy Box Set

Wednesday, April 15, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Okay, this one was a bit of an indulgence.

Back in January, I wrote about how much I’ve been enjoying the delightful Horus Heresy audio books from Black Library. A sweeping dark fantasy featuring sorcery, magic, undead legions and ruinous Chaos powers secretly maneuvering to bring about the downfall of the Imperium of Man in the 31st Century, they’ve been something of an occasional guilty pleasure for me. But then I listened to Ben Counter’s riveting Galaxy in Flames — the third book in the sequence, and the one in which the Hersey is finally revealed in the brutal massacre of loyalist legions on Isstvan III — and I knew I was going to have to knuckle down and buy the entire set.

So I was delighted to discover that I could get the first twelve novels of the Horus Heresy — all 5,456 pages! — in a single deluxe box set. The series serves as background to the popular Warhammer 40K game, and is written by Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill, Ben Counter, James Swallow, and others. Several novels in the series have hit the New York Times bestseller list. In addition to the first dozen novels, this deluxe set also includes Whispers of Heresy, an exclusive anthology of novellas originally released exclusively as audio dramas.

A new Imperium is being forged across the galaxy. After millennia of isolation and localised conflict, the Emperor of Mankind has risen to rule holy Terra, and now commands his Space Marine Legions in reuniting all the lost colonies of humanity. At the forefront of his armies are the primarchs — post human warriors and leaders without equal, created from his own genetic template. This Great Crusade is all but over when Horus, the Emperor’s first primarch son and Warmaster of the Legions, becomes part of a wider plot by the primordial forces of Chaos to corrupt mankind and bring fresh ruin to the galaxy. Swaying some of his brothers to his cause and facing others openly upon the field of battle, Horus has set his eye upon the Throne of Terra itself, and will not hesitate to let the Imperium devour itself in the bloodiest civil war in the history of mankind…

The Horus Heresy Box Set was published by Black Library on October 14, 2014. It contains a dozen paperback novels (plus one anthology) totaling 5,456 pages, priced at $125. Several online outlets are selling it at a discount; I was able to buy my copy for around $80. Well worth it if you enjoy science fantasy, or good military SF of any kind.

Choice of the Petal Throne

Tuesday, April 14, 2015 James Maliszewski Comments 9 comments

In my opinion, the hobby of roleplaying has only ever produced two fantasy settings to rival Middle-earth in terms of depth and creativity: Greg Stafford’s Glorantha and M.A.R. Barker‘s Tékumel. Of the two, I suspect Glorantha is the better known, at least in the roleplaying world, if only because the RPG with which it was long associated, RuneQuest, was very successful, particularly in Europe (where it was, at various times, more popular than even Dungeons & Dragons if you can believe it).

Tékumel, on the other hand, has languished in semi-obscurity, despite the fact that the RPG in which it first appeared, Empire of the Petal Throne, was published only a year after D&D, making it one of the most venerable of its kind. Part of the reason why that is the case is that, unlike most fantasy settings, Tékumel owes little to the histories or legends of the West’s Classical and Middle Ages. Instead, its primary inspirations are ancient Egypt, pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and Mughal India – all seen through the lens of sword-and-planet writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack Vance. Consequently, the setting’s peoples, flora, fauna, mythologies, and elaborate social systems are quite unlike those to which most roleplayers (especially in North America) are accustomed. Add to that the unfamiliarity of Tékumel’s constructed languages – Barker was a professor of linguistics – and you have a recipe for supposed inaccessibility.

I think that’s a shame – and not just because I’m personally very fond of Tékumel.

The truth is that Tékumel’s “inaccessibility” is (mostly) on the surface. The names (like Mu’ugalávya and Tsatsayágga, to cite two examples) and scripts are intimidating at first, I’ll admit, but, with time and effort, they become much less so. The same is true of Tékumel’s lengthy imaginary history and its complex religions and societies. Once those initial barriers are overcome, what you’ll find is a fantastic setting filled with amazing opportunities for adventure, from treasure-hunting expeditions into subterranean labyrinths to cutthroat imperial politics to visitations to other planes of existence.

Even so, overcoming Tékumel’s initial alienness isn’t easy, as there is no straightforward way to learn about the setting, which is why I am so very pleased to see the release of Choice of the Petal Throne.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Sad Puppies

Tuesday, April 14, 2015 Scott Taylor Comments 21 comments

What is the Wizard's First Rule? — What is the Wizard’s First Rule?

Before I get into this, I want to first make it clear that John O’Neill goaded me into writing today. When I mentioned that I found myself siding with Larry Correia, and God forbid Vox Day, on the hot topic of the week [Hugo vs Puppies, which we recently summarized here], John baited me with this gem:

And I’m fascinated to hear that you take the Puppies side in this…. hard as I try, I’m not able to warp my head into their liberals-have-stolen-the-Hugos-year-after-year-with-their-lies-and-secrets way of thinking. I’ve been trying to find someone to do a Puppy-friendly take to counter my posts… you interested?

I told him, and I quote:

LOL, I’ve no real depth to anything I would write, just a gut feeling, and in the end I’d probably alienate the bulk of any fellow BG bloggers I’ve come to know over the years. Now obviously that doesn’t mean anything to me as my fans are gamers who don’t give a rat’s ass about the Hugo, but still, it could get very ugly, very fast.

And it’s true, I write Art of the Genre, not Words of the Genre, so I’ve really no dog in this fight, but as someone who is on the outside, and enjoys breaking down numbers, my opinion did provide some puppy love. So I started thinking a bit more on my view.

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