Black Gate – Page 850 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Vintage Treasures: Somewhere a Voice by Eric Frank Russell

Saturday, February 14, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I cover a lot of different writers with these Vintage Treasures posts. Some are authors I’ve long cherished, and some are folks I’ve never read. Frequently they’re books I’ve been curious about for a long time, and sometimes they’re simply odd discoveries from recent collections I’ve acquired.

But I think the most rewarding are those where I take a look at writers I’ve long overlooked. That’s the case with Eric Frank Russell, whom I really knew for a single story, “Dear Devil,” which I read in Terry Carr’s great anthology Creatures From Beyond many years ago — a great story, true, but a single story nonetheless. So I’m discovering him for the first time now by reading collections of his pulp science fiction, such as Men, Martians, and Machines and Six Worlds Yonder, and they are delightful.

I went searching for more in my library and found Somewhere a Voice, a 1966 Ace paperback that has now been out of print for nearly five decades. A great pity, I think, since Russell’s stories still speak to a modern audience and I’m convinced he would easily find readers today.

In the meantime, I can do my part to fight against the cruel modern neglect of Eric Frank Russell by spending a few moments talking about him here, and that’s what I’m going to do. Plus, I’m going to throw in a few pulp magazine covers, because it’s Saturday morning and I have nothing better to do.

Let’s start with the text from the back of the book, because that saves me the effort of describing it myself.

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The Series Series: What, You Mean Sarah Beth Durst’s Conjured Is A Stand-Alone?

Friday, February 13, 2015 Sarah Avery Comments 0 Comment

Conjured defied nearly all my expectations. That’s part of what makes it awesome.

Alas, one of my expectations was that it would be the first volume in a series. It’s strong enough to have carried that work, and then some. Instead, the book turns its final twist with a near-audible click, and we must leave its characters for good.

I need to tell you about it anyway.

My copy of Conjured came to me in a big bag of freebies at the World Fantasy Convention. Most of the books in that bag were first volumes in series, given away to promote the later volumes. When I gave each book a one-page chance to catch my attention, this was the story that wouldn’t let me go.

Eve can’t put together a coherent memory of the crimes she witnessed, or much else about her past, but the FBI must find the killer she escaped from. She knows she’s the only victim who ever escaped. She knows he wants her back. Nothing else she remembers fits the life she’s living now in the Witness Protection Program.

She’s as big a mystery to herself as her former captor is to the FBI. Why, she wonders, does she know what pizza is, but not how to unbuckle a seat belt?

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Future Treasures: Temple of Elemental Evil Board Game

Friday, February 13, 2015 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

The Temple of Elemental Evil, written by Gary Gygax and Frank Metzner and published by TSR in 1985, is considered one of the greatest RPG adventures ever created. When Dungeon magazine ranked them in 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game, The Temple of Elemental Evil was voted the 4th greatest D&D adventure of all time. In his 1991 history of role-playing games, Heroic Worlds, Lawrence Schick wrote “If you like huge classic dungeon crawls, this is probably the best of the lot.”

It has seen several incarnations since its original release, including a Fourth Edition re-release of the first chapter, The Village of Hommlet, and a popular computer game version, developed by Troika Games and published by Atari. It remains the only computer game ever released set in Greyhawk.

Now Wizards of the Coast is converting this grandaddy of all dungeons crawls into a board game, to be released in April of this year. Here’s the description from the WotC website:

In the Temple of Elemental Evil board game, you play as a heroic adventurer. With amazing abilities, spells and magic weapons, you must explore the dungeons beneath the Sword Coast where you will fight monsters, overcome hazards and find treasure. Are you ready for adventure?

The Temple of Elemental Evil board game features multiple scenarios, challenging quests and cooperative game play designed for 1-5 players. The contents can also be combined with other D&D Adventure System Cooperative play board games, including The Legend of Drizzt and Castle Ravenloft.

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Five Things Better Than Handing In Your Manuscript

Friday, February 13, 2015 Violette Malan Comments 5 comments

This is in the forefront of my brain this week because – you guessed it – I’ve just handed in a manuscript. Now even though this is only the current draft of the work-in-progress, it feels pretty good, so I started to wonder, is there anything better than this?

Here are some of my thoughts:

Winning the Nobel Prize. It’s true you get to call yourself a Nobel Laureate, but I’ve asked around, and apparently this isn’t as wonderful as you might think. To start with, you have to go to Stockholm in February. Nothing against Stockholm, but really, February. It sometimes gets given to people years, and even decades after the work it’s being awarded for was done – which means their thank-you speeches frequently have a heavy subtext of “what, that old thing?” The money’s nice, but again, it so often comes later than you’d like it. In fact, more than one Nobel Laureate has been overheard to murmur, “Great, something else to dust.”

Winning the Superbowl. This one I confess I just don’t get. I keep asking what’s in the bowl, and all I get are funny looks. I mean, there’s a big difference between a super bowl of popcorn, and a super bowl of sauerkraut. I’m just saying, I’d need more details to be able to tell whether winning one is better than handing in a manuscript.

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Goth Chick News: The Party Just Never Ends When AtmosFearFX Is In the House

Thursday, February 12, 2015 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

Back at the 2013 Haunted Attractions Show we met the very talented and creative folks at AtmosFearFX Digital Decorations. These are the people responsible for the digital loops of various horror scenes which can be projected on any surface with stupendously unnerving results.

At this year’s Goth Chick News Zombie Apocalypse Party, Black Gate photog Chris Z., who does double duty as the resident technology guru (necessary due to John O’s regular “blue screens of death”), used AtmosFearFX’s Zombie Invasion loop to create a Hollywood-worthy effect.

Covering a large window with rear projection cloth, he projected from the outside of the room. The result was life-sized zombies beating against the window leaving bloody hand prints before dragging themselves out of view.

The loop repeated with a timed frequency and with enough slight differences to be nothing short of perfect.

You know it’s a good effect when a guest asks where you hired the “people dressed as zombies hanging around out on the terrace and banging on the window.”

And just like a gift that keeps on giving, there’s no end of fun to be had once you make the nominal investment in a project (available on eBay) and the fabric which is available at most stores selling home theater equipment at around $10 a square foot.

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Writing: Why You Shouldn’t Tinker With the Beginning Until You’ve Written to the End

Thursday, February 12, 2015 Comments 3 comments

Storyteller-Tools-New-Cover 255 — Outliners like me, we write in layers.

The beginning of your novel is… Important. Vital. Critical.

It’s the bit that grabs the reader, and if the reader is your dream agent or an editor, then it can potentially grab you a career instead.

So, important, vital, critical. So much pressure to get it right. A nagging fear that it’s wrong.

And yet, you need to hone your beginning last. Here’s why…

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New Treasures: Righteous Fury, by Markus Heitz

Thursday, February 12, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

American readers, I think, could use a little more exposure to European fantasy. So I’m pleased to see Jo Fletcher Books bringing German author Markus Heitz to this side of the pond.

His series The Dwarves was an international bestseller, and now he launches a brand new series with Righteous Fury, originally published in Germany in 2009.

In Dsôn Faïmon, realm of the cruel and surpassingly beautiful artist-warriors known as the älfar, the military is planning a campaign against the enemies of the empire. Caphalor and Sinthoras are separately looking to enlist a powerful demon to strengthen their army, but the two älfar have very different goals.

While Caphalor is determined to defend the borders of the empire, the ambitious Sinthoras is intent on invasion. In order to expand the borders of Dsôn Faïmon, he has set his sights on the kingdoms of dwarves, elves, and men — a decision that, should it come to pass, may have far-reaching consequences for him and for the älfar.

Righteous Fury, the first volume of The Legends of the Älfar, was published by Jo Fletcher Books on February 10, 2015. It is 402 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition. It was translated from the German by Shelagh Alabaster.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Star Trek Kickstarter Warps Ahead

Thursday, February 12, 2015 Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones Comments 4 comments

When I first reported on the Star Trek Continues Kickstarter a few weeks ago it was newly born. This morning it’s just reached its first stretch goal, which means that not only will there be two more episodes, but the people who devote their time and energy to creating this will be building us an engineering set as well!

If this is your first time hearing about the series, follow the link above to find a wonderful take on Star Trek that may be the closest we’ll ever get to seeing new original episodes of the quality of the best of the original series.

Here’s what I said about the second episode, “Lolani,” on this very web site, although it holds true for all three of the episodes made thus far: “… it feels like a lost episode. It’s not just the sets and the effects, which are truly astonishing in their faithfulness, it’s the pacing, and the music cues, and the fadeouts, and the story beats, and the writing — and the actors. These people understand who the original characters were and inhabit them — and I swear that this script could stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the finest entries in the original run.”

The staff and crew aren’t getting paid for their work:iIt’s a labor of love done in their free time. Hours and hours and hours of their free time.

I hope you’ll join me in swinging by to donate money to their new Kickstarter, which you can find here. Now that they’ve hit their first stretch goal I’m hoping in the final four days of fund raising they can get enough capital to construct a planet set so they can beam down to visit strange new worlds!

If you’re skeptical about the sound of any of this, I invite you to visit the site and try out these three fine existing episodes for yourself. If you’re a fan of the original show, you’re likely to be astonished.

Live long, and prosper.

Writing Through February

Thursday, February 12, 2015 Elizabeth Cady Comments 1 comment

I have a bad case of February.

I know I’m not the only one, because I live with two small girls and a husband who are suffering from the same malaise. You know it: it’s cold. It’s dark. It has been cold and dark for a long time. Christmas is over, spring is a long way off, and everything is just… hard.

If you live in one of the particularly snow-covered zones this is doubly true. Crossing the street is hard. Getting out the door is hard. Heck, getting out of bed in the morning is hard.

So writing? Pffft. The irony is that, like exercise, I know that writing is one of the things that keeps me healthy, whole, and sane. Keeping the commitment to myself and to the page is necessary. But like everything else at this time of year it is so terribly, terribly hard.

I know what helps me:

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Bumper Year for Buried Treasure in Britain

Wednesday, February 11, 2015 Sean McLachlan Comments 0 Comment

A pile of 697 of the Lenborough hoard coins after cleaning. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

The British have been pretty lucky these past few years. According to the British Museum, numerous treasures have been uncovered by metal detectorists and accidentally by workmen.

One of the most impressive is the Anglo-Saxon coin hoard from Lenborough, Buckinghamshire, found in December of last year, and which the British Museum has just announced it has acquired. Around 5,200 Anglo-Saxon silver pennies, and two cut half pennies, of kings Æthelred II (r.978-1016) and Cnut (r.1016-35), were found wrapped within a lead sheet. The hoard was discovered on a metal-detecting rally, and recovered under the guidance of the local Finds Liaison Officer. The hoard contains coins from more than forty different mints around England, and provides a rare source of information on the circulation of coinage at the time the hoard was buried.

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