Black Gate – Page 854 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, Part II

Saturday, January 10, 2015 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

Last week I wrote the first installment of a three-part series looking at DAW’s ambitious program to bring some two dozen of C.J. Cherryh’s early fantasy and space opera novels back into print, The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, Part I. I looked at The Faded Sun Trilogy, The Morgaine Saga, and The Chanur Saga, published in January, March, and May of 2000, respectively.

In the Comments section of that article, Joe H. observed,

That first Chanur omnibus always confused me because it was functionally equivalent to putting The Hobbit, Fellowship and Two Towers into a single volume. And then you had that seven-year gap before the second Chanur omnibus was published…

Joe is quite correct. Chanur’s Homecoming, the fourth novel in the series, was in effect the conclusion of a trilogy which began in Chanur’s Venture and The Kif Strike Back. Readers coming to the novels for the first time with the first omnibus had to track down a copy of the final volume, or wait until it was collected with Chanur’s Legacy in the omnibus Chanur’s Endgame in 2007.

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January 2015 Nightmare Magazine Now on Sale

Saturday, January 10, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The January 2015 issue of Nightmare Magazine is now available.

Nightmare is the sister publication to the highly-regarded science fiction and fantasy magazine Lightspeed. It’s an online magazine of horror and dark fantasy, with a broad focus — editor John Joseph Adams promises you’ll find all kinds of horror within, from zombie stories and haunted house tales to visceral psychological horror. Fiction contents this month are:

Original Stories

“Returned” by Kat Howard
“The Trampling” by Christopher Barzak

Reprints

“The Hollow Man” by Norman Partridge
“Blessed Be the Bound” by Lucy Taylor

There’s also an editorial with news on the follow-up to the groundbreaking Women Destroy Science Fiction! anniversary issue of Lightspeed, the upcoming Queers Destroy Science Fiction! project, as well as new subscription pricing through Amazon. Read the complete editorial online here,

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New Treasures: Dangerous Games edited by Jonathan Oliver

Saturday, January 10, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Time for another New Treasure. This time, I’m in the mood for an anthology — one I can really sink my teeth into. Fortunately, I think I have just the thing.

The latest anthology from Solaris, Dangerous Games, collects original short fiction from Chuck Wendig, Lavie Tidhar, Paul Kearney, Pat Cadigan, and many others, on a theme near and dear to my heart: games.

In a world of chances, one decision can bring down the house, one roll of the dice could bring untold wealth, or the end of everything. In this anthology of all new short stories the players gather, their stories often dark, and always compelling.

The players and the played, this new anthology from Jonathan Oliver (Magic, End of The Road, House of Fear, The End of The Line, World War Cthulhu) brings together brand new stories from an international team of talented authors, each with their own deadly game. This collection is set to include a full house of top authors including Hugo award-winning American writer Pat Cadigan, Brit Gary McMahon, Mexican Silvia Moreno Garcia, plus Tade Thompson, Rebecca Levene and more!

We’ve covered several excellent anthologies from Solaris recently, including Ian Whates’s Solaris Rising, Solaris Rising 2, Solaris Rising 3, and two from Jonathan Strahan’s — his SF books Engineering Infinity, Edge of Infinity, and Reach for Infinity, and his fantasy volumes Fearsome Journeys and Fearsome Magics.

Dangerous Games was edited by Jonathan Oliver and published by Solaris Books on December 2, 2014. It is 320 pages, priced at $9.99 in paperback and $7.99 for the digital version.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Four Tricks for Dealing with The Unsightly Scars of Righteous Battle

Friday, January 9, 2015 mariebilodeau Comments 3 comments

It occurred to me while writing about the benefits of chainmail bikinis that one of the major downfalls is the vast amount of exposed skin. Not for any morality or mortality reasons (although those do make for interesting points), but rather for the sheer amount of maintenance that would require. I’m not even talking about shaving and waxing. (We all agree that Conan *must* wax to pull off that oily muscled look, right?)

And let’s be realistic. Wow, the scars adventurers must have. I mean, I once had a tick removed from my tender tender belly flesh. That’s what you get for running in the woods fully clothed, so I flinch at the thought of running half-naked in the woods. You’d become a tick magnet.

Anyway, a 70-year old mostly blind doctor went at me with a scalpel to remove the tiny leg still stuck in my flesh and, I gotta tell you, that left a scar. Now that was one tiny, super sharp and badly wielded knife. So let’s pause and imagine how many scars inappropriately armored individuals must have.

This is more about the unsightly scars left behind by being thrust at with swords, spears, arrows, knives, mystical weapons, spells, and large pachyderms. Obviously there are ways of dealing with such minor scars, leaving visible only the major nod-to-backstory ones.

In my continued efforts to support sword and sorcery fashion adventurers, here’s an undoubtedly incomplete list of tricks to deal with scarring while wearing almost nothing.

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Writerly New Year’s Resolutions and How to Make Them Work: Part 1

Friday, January 9, 2015 Comments 4 comments

Xmas Sword — No rocket pack from Santa, but I’m not complaining… 🙂

So here it is, AD2015. This being the 21st century, I hope you’re enjoying the belated rocket pack Santa finally brought you. (For some reason mine didn’t arrive and I got a sword instead.)

Judging from the way the local kids’ birthday parties usually fall between September and November, January is a time when people try to start something new, or at least make a fresh start. This is why the Internet is full of New Year Resolutions made by aspiring writers.

You know the kind of thing: This year I’ll… focus more on my writing… finish my novel… be more disciplined… write 10K words a week…. etc etc.

From the vague to the painfully specific, they mostly boil down to either being more productive, or else setting things up so you can be more productive.

Take being more productive.

First can we quickly discard the obsession with word count?

Yes, rapid drafting is a good thing, but really aggregate word count is what counts — time spent planning and revising is also valuable — and what that aggregate count counts towards is finishing a novel. So if you must measure your productivity, then please make a proper project plan with milestones and monitor yourself against that.

Now let’s turn to the most common subtext of productivity resolutions: the sporting idea that productivity and motivation are two sides of the same coin. A good pep talk — Steven Pressfield provides just about the best of these — and with proper motivation, you can blast through resistance, Bum In Chair (“BIC”), silence your inner critic, and Bob’s your uncle. Productivity! Hurrah!

Been there, done that. Maybe it’s because I’m British, but I think that’s putting the cart of enthusiasm before the horse of capability…

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Amazing Stories, May 1964: A Retro-Review

Thursday, January 8, 2015 Rich Horton Comments 7 comments

Here we are fairly late in Cele Lalli’s tenure, an issue with an impressive set of names on the TOC, but mildly disappointing overall content. The cover is by Ed Emshwiller, illustrating Lester Del Rey’s “Boiling Point”. The interiors are by George Schelling and Virgil Finlay.

The editorial, from Norman Lobsenz as usual, discusses with some concern the possibility of manipulation of people’s genetic material… then adds two silly Benedict Breadfruitian puns on the subject of the proper pronunciation of Lobsenz (Lobe-sense, it seems).

Ben Bova contributes a science article called “Planetary Engineering”, about prospects for building a base on the Moon. (Future articles in the series will cover more extensive “planetary engineering”, including terraforming other planets in the Solar System.)

Robert Silverberg’s book review column, The Spectroscope, covers Philip K. Dick’s The Game Players of Titan (which he judges as decent, but a disappointment relative to the best of Dick’s work), Doc Smith’s Skylark 3 (regarded by Silverberg as rather bad, though Doc is praised on personal grounds), and John Campbell’s anthology Analog 2 (he considers it very uneven, with one excellent story, a couple decent ones, and some weaker stuff). I will add that I agree with Mr. Silverberg on all points.

The stories, then.

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Goth Chick News: From Comics to Film, Bad Kids Go (Back) To Hell

Thursday, January 8, 2015 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

Back in 2010 at the Chicago Comic Con, we had a chance meeting with the creators of what was then a new comic series entitled Bad Kids Go to Hell. This was mainly due to their booth being manned by several young ladies in skimpy Catholic school uniforms, which Black Gate photographer Chris Z seemed to find immensely camera-worthy.

However, after speaking with creators Matthew Spradlin and Barry (Bazz) Wernick, who came up with this idea during the 2007 Hollywood writer’s strike, I had to admit they were onto something. Four years on, I was clearly not the only one who thought the Bad Kids Go To Hell graphic novel was disturbing and hysterical in equal measure.

What was created during the pair’s relentless promotional tour of comic-fan conventions and in-store signings during the next year, was nothing short of a juggernaut cult following. The touring allowed Spradlin and Wernick to improve their pitch and ultimately gave them their shot at turning the comic into a movie.

Which is precisely what they did in 2012.

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Vintage Treasures: The Year’s Best Fantasy, First Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Thursday, January 8, 2015 John ONeill Comments 18 comments

Some 27 years ago, the first volume of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s long-running Year’s Best Fantasy series appeared.

Created in conscious imitation of Gardner Dozois’s even longer-running Year’s Best Science Fiction (also published by St. Martin’s), Datlow and Windling’s Year’s Best Fantasy became the most prestigious and long-lived fantasy annual the genre has yet seen. Renamed The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror beginning with the third book in 1990, it lasted an impressive 21 years, publishing its final volume in 2009.

The series accumulated numerous accolades and award nominations over the decades, and became the acknowledged yearbook for the field. Just as Dozois did with his sprawling summations, Datlow and Windling summarized the year’s news, events, and gossip in lengthy and highly readable intros. If you were a new writer, publication, or small press, it was a major career milestone just to be name-checked.

I remember how excited I was to finally get my hands on a copy in the fall of 1988. I took it to the common room of my graduate dorm in Urbana, Illinois, and curled up in a comfy chair, where I read for hours while the first winter snow accumulated outside. I read this first volume cover to cover, in the process getting introduced to dozens of writers like Delia Sherman, Michael McDowell, David J. Schow, Susan Palwick, and many others. The book was the equivalent of a graduate course in modern fantasy.

In fact, there was just one problem. I didn’t like most of the stories.

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The Royal Armory of Madrid

Wednesday, January 7, 2015 Sean McLachlan Comments 1 comment

This sumptuous armor and barding was a gift from Carlos Manuel, Duke of Savoy, to Philip III. It was made in Milan in the 1580s.

Europe is rich in collections of early arms and armor. Most major cities and many smaller towns have their local armories. Generally these collections span a broad range of time, but La Real Armería, the Royal Armory, in the Royal Palace in Madrid, is unusual in that most of the collection dates to the lives of Charles V (1500-1558) and Philip II (1527-1598). This makes it perhaps the best collection of high quality sixteenth-century arms and armor in the world.

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New Treasures: The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter by Rod Duncan

Wednesday, January 7, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Rod Duncan is a mystery writer with three novels to his credit: Backlash, Breakbeat, and Burnout. His first fantasy novel, The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter, is advertised as the first book in The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire series.

Duncan brings his talent for mystery to the shadowy streets of a fantasy metropolis, where Elizabeth Barnabus maintains a dangerous secret identity as she earns a living as a private detective. Graham Joyce called The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter “A magic box pulsing with energy. Compulsive reading from the get-go… [a] blend of steampunk alternative history wrapped in the enigma of a chase.”

Elizabeth Barnabus lives a double life – as herself and as her brother, the private detective. She is trying to solve the mystery of a disappearing aristocrat and a hoard of arcane machines. In her way stand the rogues, freaks and self-proclaimed alchemists of a travelling circus.

But when she comes up against an agent of the all-powerful Patent Office, her life and the course of history will begin to change. And not necessarily for the better…

The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter was published by Angry Robot on August 26, 2014. It is 384 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Will Staehle.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.