Black Gate – Page 858 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Future Treasures: Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Adam Sternbergh’s debut novel Shovel Ready (which I just covered below a few minutes ago) is now being marketed as part of a series (Shovel Ready: A Spademan Novel). Usually that means more than one book is involved and a little digging last night turned up a sequel: Near Enemy, coming next month.

This one features a job gone wrong, terrorists, Egyptian radicals, and underhanded New York politics. Looks like I’ll have to add this one to the pile.

New York is toxic — decimated by a dirty bomb years ago. The limnosphere is a virtual safe haven — if you’re rich enough to buy in. Spademan is a hit man — box-cutter at the ready.

His latest job is to snuff out Lesser, a lowlife lurking around other people’s fantasies. As Spademan is about to close the deal, Lesser comes back from the limn with a wild claim: terrorists are planning to attack New York. Again. This time from the inside out.

The warning sends Spademan down a dark path full of unsavory characters and startling revelations. A shadowy political fixer tells him of a long-running power struggle that goes all the way to City Hall. A brilliant Egyptian radical brings Spademan to the mysterious far-reaches of the limn. And a beautiful nurse holds the secret to what, and who, is behind these attacks — and she seems to want to help Spademan stop them. But he works best alone. Or so he thinks.

Spademan has always had his share of enemies, but now they’re coming at him from all sides and it’s impossible to know whom to trust. To stay sharp, his only option might be the one thing he swore he’d never do again.

Near Enemy will be published by Crown on January 13, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $24 in hardcover.

Explore a Haunted Cyberpunk City in Punktown from Miskatonic River Press

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I was at the Chronicle City website today, looking for updates on one of my favorite new science fiction RPGs, Cold & Dark, when I stumbled on an interesting update for an upcoming product.

Punktown is a setting book for the Call of Cthulhu and Basic Roleplaying systems. It explores a dark, haunting, cyberpunk city full of aliens, robots and mutants all set in the world of Jeffrey Thomas’ novel series.

With Punktown being the last project by Miskatonic River Press before they wind down operations MRP’s President, Tom Lynch, approached Chronicle City’s founder, Angus Abranson, about looking after the project… The partnership also means that Punktown will live on beyond the core book as Chronicle City and author Jeffrey Thomas will be collaborating on developing future products to support, explore and grow the game.

This is definitely a good-news, bad-news scenario. First, I’m a huge fan of Miskatonic River Press, and it’s great to hear they have something new in the works. They’ve produced some really terrific Call of Cthulhu products, including New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Our Ladies of Sorrow, and their Roman-era adventure The Legacy Of Arrius Lurco.

The bad news of course, is that they’re closing. I noticed they hadn’t published anything for a while, but to hear they were folding up shop is distressing, to say the least. Still, I’ve heard great things about Jeffrey Thomas’s Punktown books, and if Miskatonic River has to end their illustrious publishing career with one book, I’m pleased it’s this one.

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Fantasy Adventure on a Tablet: Talisman: Digital Edition

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 Bob Byrne Comments 1 comment

Talisman is a fantasy board game that first came out about twenty years ago. There have been a couple editions and multiple expansions. In December of 2008, Fantasy Flight Games released a revised fourth edition, for which expansions are still being produced.

In 2012, Thumbstar Games released Talisman: Prologue, a sort of ‘Talisman Light’ ipad app. It was a one-player game and was a decent translation of the board game, though not very absorbing.

In 2014, however, Nomad Games released Talisman: Digital Edition, which is a full-blown, 1-4 player game. It’s a fine adaptation of the original.

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New Treasures: Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

I’ve had my eye on Adam Sternbergh’s debut novel since it came out in hardcover in January. A thriller about a garbageman-turned-hitman in near-future dystopian New York City, Shovel Ready reminds me of Daniel Polansky’s Low Town and Jonathan Lethem’s hardboiled debut fantasy Gun, With Occasional Music… all three are original and daring. Now it’s finally out in trade paperback, just in time for Christmas vacation. If I can find a few hours uninterupted on the couch, I may just get the chance to read it.

Spademan used to be a garbage man. That was before the dirty bomb hit Times Square, before his wife was killed, and before the city became a blown-out shell of its former self.

Now he’s a hitman.

In a near-future New York City split between those who are wealthy enough to “tap in” to a sophisticated virtual reality, and those who are left to fend for themselves in the ravaged streets, Spademan chose the streets. When his latest client hires him to kill the daughter of a powerful evangelist, he must navigate between these two worlds — the wasteland reality and the slick fantasy — to finish his job, clear his conscience, and make sure he’s not the one who winds up in the ground.

Adam Sternbergh was the editor-at-large at New York Magazine and is currently the culture editor for The New York Times Magazine.

Shovel Ready was published in hardcover by Crown on January 14, 2014 and in trade paperback by Broadway Books on October 14, 2014. It is 272 pages, priced at $14 for the paperback.

He Sought Adventure

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 James Maliszewski Comments 18 comments

Over the past six years, I’ve spent a great deal of time exploring the literary antecedents of Dungeons & Dragons (and, by extension, many other early roleplaying games). It’s been a (mostly) fun journey, not least of which because it gave me the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with writers and stories I hadn’t read for years and that exercised powerful influence over my youthful imagination. Sometimes, it’s also afforded me the opportunity to take a look at authors to whom I didn’t pay much attention in the past, but who were important figures in fantasy and science fiction in their own right and not simply because of their contributions to the goulash of ideas and concepts Gygax and Arneson drew upon in creating those little brown books that changed the world.

One of the fruits of the last six years is my growing sense that, if I were to pick a single author whose stories, characters, ideas, and – above all – ethos summed up D&D for me (and perhaps for Gygax as well, though I wouldn’t dare claim to speak on his behalf), it would not be Robert E. Howard or Michael Moorcock or Poul Anderson, or even J.R.R. Tolkien, all of whose fingerprints can clearly be found on the pages of the game. No, it would be Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr., born 104 years ago tomorrow (December 24).

I’m not ashamed to admit that, for the most part, I encountered most of the literary progenitors of Dungeons & Dragons only after I’d started playing the game. I was already familiar with certain works of fantasy, all of which played a role in preparing me for the hobby of roleplaying. However, writers like Howard, Lovecraft, and even Tolkien weren’t ones I came across “in the wild,” so to speak. Rather, they were all recommended to me by the older guys who haunted the hobby shops and game stores my friends and I visited regularly. They kept saying, “If you like D&D, you’ve got to read this!” And so we did, because we were simply ravenous for more fantasy goodness.

Fritz Leiber was different. I’d, of course, seen his name, both in Gygax’s Appendix N and in the very text of the hallowed J. Eric Holmes-edited D&D rulebook, but – strangely, in retrospect – I can’t recall anyone’s ever recommending him to me the way they had with other seminal fantasy authors. Instead, I had to find him for myself.

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Marvel Casts Luke Cage

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

I’ve been following the news surrounding Marvel Entertainment’s upcoming Netflix shows with a great deal of interest. Originally announced last November, the plan is for Netflix to launch four live-action dramas focused on Marvel’s street-level heroes, leading to “a mini-series programming event” that will rival the blockbuster Avengers. Quoting from the press release:

Led by a series focused on Daredevil, followed by Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, the epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking Netflix members deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Netflix has committed to a minimum of four, thirteen episodes series and a culminating Marvel’s The Defenders mini-series event that reimagines a dream team of self-sacrificing, heroic characters.

Like many Marvel fans, I’ve been very intrigued by the possibilities of a gritty, realistic TV series focused on some of the most popular characters in the Marvel canon. A big reason for all the excitement is the collaboration of Marvel and Netflix; the latter has a stellar rep based on the ground-breaking House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey. Daredevil is already underway, with episodes set to premiere in May 2015. It will be followed by Jessica Jones, which stars Krysten Ritter (Veronica Mars, Breaking Bad) as a retired superhero with post-traumatic stress disorder working as a private detective in New York. Jones was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos for the excellent (and underrated) comic Alias (2001-2004), the flagship title in Marvel’s adult MAX imprint.

A recurring character in Alias was Jones’s boyfriend — none other than Luke Cage, one of the most famous superheroes of the 70s and 80s. Cage first appeared in Marvel’s Hero For Hire #1 in June 1972, and it’s believed he’ll guest-star first in Jessica Jones before spinning off into his own series. Yesterday Marvel announced that Cage would be played by Mike Colter, who’s currently playing a drug kingpin on The Good Wife.

There’s been lots for superhero fans to talk about in the last few weeks. Our latest Marvel news was the announcement that Benedict Cumberbatch was confirmed to play Doctor Strange.

Future Treasures: Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Kelly Link is one of the most exciting writers working in fantasy today. Her previous short story collections, Stranger Things Happen (2001), Magic for Beginners (2006), and Pretty Monsters (2008), are some of the most acclaimed fantasy books of the century. Her short stories have won a Hugo, three Nebulas, and a World Fantasy Award.

Her time these days is taken up with publishing award-winning novels and collections through her publishing company, Small Beer Press — books like Sofia Samatar’s World Fantasy Award winning A Stranger in Olondria, Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters, and Nicole Kornher-Stace’s upcoming Archivist Wasp.

But I’m delighted to see that she has another collection in the works. Get in Trouble will be published in hardcover by Random House in February, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as “a national treasure.” Now Kelly Link’s eagerly awaited new collection — her first for adult readers in a decade — proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.

Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers.

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Swords & Sorcery Gold from a Master of Horror: Far Away & Never by Ramsey Campbell

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 2 comments

Ramsey Campbell is considered one of the most important and skilled writers of horror fiction. His earliest stories, Lovecraft pastiches, were collected and published by Arkham House as The Inhabitants of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants (1964) when he was only eighteen. Within a few years he was routinely being nominated for, and often winning, various major awards for his original works of contemporary horror such as The Doll Who Ate His Mother (1976) and The Parasite (1980). He has also edited and co-edited several stellar collections of horror stories, including New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1980).

Any connoisseur of fine fright-fiction should know all that. But did you know he spent a bit of his considerable literary energies composing some top-notch sword & sorcery stories in the late seventies? Well, he did. The slim volume Far Away & Never (1996) from Necronomicon Press collects the seven heroic fantasy stories he wrote back in the seventies. Six are set on his mythical world Tond; four are about the mercenary and adventurer, Ryre. All of Ryre’s tales were published in Andrew Offutt’s terrific Swords Against Darkness anthologies.

In the highly informative forward, Campbell explains how he created the world of Tond. It first appeared in an excerpt of The Revelations of Glaaki, his contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos library of invented blasphemous tomes, in the story “The Inhabitant of the Lake.” Infatuated with Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Abominations of Yondo,” he was determined to use Tond for a complete story, resulting in “A Madness from the Vault.”

Campbell found himself revisiting Tond when he wrote “The Stages of the God” and “The Song at the Hub of the Garden,” both somewhat dreamy stories of characters seeking refuge and finding nothing they expect. Both are infused with a hazy dreaminess redolent of Clark Ashton Smith’s stories. “Hub” is more of a story than “Stages,” and more enjoyable, but neither is particularly memorable.

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A Fond Farewell to Stephen Colbert and Craig Ferguson, Fellow Fantasy Aficionados

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 Nick Ozment Comments 0 Comment

“We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad… You must be, or you wouldn’t have come here.” — The Cheshire Cat

This past week marked the end of two of the most original TV programs of the last decade: The Colbert Report (2005-2014) and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005-2014).

They challenged conventions, shook up the status quo, thumbed their noses at Big Brothers both political and corporate — all while wearing a healthy Cheshire Cat grin. I also want to thank them for not shying away from sharing their love for the genres of wonder.

We wish to bid them a fond farewell, but since we here at Black Gate are focused on fantasy and speculative fiction, I won’t pay tribute to all the ways Stephen Colbert and Craig Ferguson were innovative, iconoclastic, and unique in the realm of late-night talk shows. There is plenty of that going around. Instead, I’ll just note how both hosts shared an appreciation for fantasy and science fiction.

Ferguson first. He took the late-night talk show format and deconstructed it, creating a sort of parody of the genre in a way similar to how Pee Wee Herman created a parody of a manic children’s variety show. To lampoon the obligatory sidekick, he brought in Geoff Peterson, a talking robot skeleton. Geoff made such a funny sidekick, in fact, that the one-off joke became a staple of the show.

Ferguson, that Scottish raconteur, is an avowed and devoted Whovian. For most of the show’s run, sitting on his desk next to his rattlesnake drink mug could be seen a scale model replica of the TARDIS (just like the one I got from my wife last Christmas!). When asked by guests about it, he unabashedly declared his love for the Time Lord.

Stephen Colbert, though… Black Gate readers, I can confidently say that he is one of us…

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Frodo Baggins, Lady Galadriel, and the Games of the Mighty

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 Adrian Simmons Comments 6 comments

A classic image. Iconic. Frodo Baggins, Hobbit of the Shire, offering the ring of power to Galadriel, Elven Queen of Lothlórien.

Ralph Bakshi version:

Peter Jackson version:

Yet, as is often the case in JRR Tolkien’s writings, things are not quite what they appear. Allow me to bullet point the bites Mr. Baggins has had to take out of the crap sandwich served up to him by fate up to this point.

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