New Treasures: Assail by Ian C. Esslemont

New Treasures: Assail by Ian C. Esslemont

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Assail Ian C Esslemont-smallSteven Erikson made a name for himself with his 10-volume Malazan Book of the Fallen series, acclaimed by many as the finest heroic fantasy series of the last few decades. He co-created the world of Malaz with a member of his gaming group, Manitoba author Ian C. Esslemont, who for the past four years has been writing his own novels in the same setting, starting with Night of Knives (2010).

Esslemont has built his own fan base over the years, and the sixth and final novel in his Malazan series, Assail, arrived in hardcover and trade paperback last week.

Tens of thousands of years of ice is melting, and the land of Assail, long a byword for menace and inaccessibility, is at last yielding its secrets. Tales of gold discovered in the region’s north circulate in every waterfront dive and sailor’s tavern, and now countless adventurers and fortune-seekers have set sail in search of riches. All these adventurers have to guide them are legends and garbled tales of the dangers that lie in wait — hostile coasts, fields of ice, impassable barriers and strange, terrifying creatures. But all accounts concur that the people of the north meet all trespassers with the sword. And beyond are rumoured to lurk Elder monsters out of history’s very beginnings.

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The Citadel of Dinant, Belgium

The Citadel of Dinant, Belgium

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The citadel towers over the town of Dinant.
The citadel towers over the town of Dinant.

When we think of the Western Front during World War One, we tend to think of the static killing grounds of trench warfare. While this was true for many grueling years of war, during its first months in 1914, WWI was a war of movement.

The German offensive in August 1914 involved a sweep through Belgium in an attempt to take Paris and knock France out of the war before its ally, Russia, could mobilize. What the Germans didn’t expect was the fierce resistence put up by the Belgians. Its small but determined army slowed down the German advance, aided by a string of outdated but stubbornly defended forts.

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25 Ways to Support (Indie) Authors

25 Ways to Support (Indie) Authors

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Has this thought ever walked across your brain: My friend wrote a book. What now? It ain’t selling and I want to help.

Well, bless your soul, dear heart. You are a darn good friend. Here are a few suggestions on how to bump up your friend’s confidence and sales.

1. Give the author your money. Buy the book.

Patty cat's paw

2. Give them more money. Buy the book as a gift, too.

Give them money

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Deserts and Oases: Exploring Runebound – The Sands of Al-Kalim

Deserts and Oases: Exploring Runebound – The Sands of Al-Kalim

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Sands_dwarf
Forget garden gnomes: Those pesky dwarves get everywhere. Even the desert!

The Sands of Al-Kalim is one of the ‘big box’ expansions for Runebound. As opposed to the smaller, ‘card-only’ expansions, these come with a new board. You lay this board over the original game board and it completely changes the terrain. Islands, the frozen north: you get the idea. There are also other components that add to the mechanics, encounters, etc.

Not surprisingly, The Sands of Al-Kalim adds a desert/Ali Baba type of theme to the base game. There are several game play modifications (boy, does exhaustion become a factor!) such as choosing to move at day or night.

But one fundamental change is when you move onto a hex with an Adventure Counter. Now you have two additional options. You can roll the Story die or possibly undertake a Legendary Adventure.

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Art of the Genre: When an Old School Mind Learns How to Play D&D 5th Edition

Art of the Genre: When an Old School Mind Learns How to Play D&D 5th Edition

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5E Players Handbook CI remember when I first played Basic D&D, then the first time I played AD&D, then 2nd Edition AD&D, and finally 3rd Edition D&D right around the turn of the millennia.  By the time 4th Edition came around, I no longer had a regular gaming group and didn’t care to reinvest my time, money, and shelf space in yet another iteration of Dungeons & Dragons.

Still, that didn’t stop me from continuing on with the hobby, from 3.5 to Pathfinder, and finally all the way back to my renewed love of the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons some time around 2010.  When I heard that Wizards of the Coast would be rolling out another edition of D&D in 2014, this one initially referred to as ‘Next’ and now 5th Edition, I wasn’t much into the idea of vesting time in it, but after having skipped over 4th Edition, I did feel a need to at least see what the new concepts were about.

Thankfully, I’ve had a chance to first preview the content of the 5th Edition Starter Set box and finally the initial release of both the 5th Edition Player’s Handbook and the first campaign adventure, Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

In today’s Art of the Genre, I’ll be looking over the Player’s Handbook as my well-aged brain tries to grasp what WotC and 175,000 test gamers thought D&D should look like circa 2014.

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Ancient Worlds: How it Ends

Ancient Worlds: How it Ends

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Jason_and_Medea_-_John_William_WaterhouseToday, we’re concluding our wanderings through the Mediterranean with Jason and the Argonauts as we look at the major tropes explored in Apollonius’s Argonautica.

A beginning, like an ending, is a very delicate time.

End The Blair Witch Project in just the right place and it’s a short film about three kids who filmed their uneventful camping trip. Cut Old Yeller early and it’s a charming story about a boy and his dog.

Take out the majority of the story of Jason and Medea and it’s a rip-roaring adventure with a strong side of romance.

You have to feel bad for Apollonius. As much as I joke that the work ought to be called “Medea and the guys she got a ride from”, it really is the Argonautica. It is supposed to be the story of the Argonauts, led by Jason. Unfortunately the whole of the story doesn’t cooperate. Once Medea arrives in the myth, she takes over and pushes all the other actors to the sides of the stage.

The author had a similar problem with Heracles, but myth provided a way out. And while Greek audiences would tolerate a lot more play with mythological canon than any modern audience would (wait, who am I kidding, they just made another Hercules movie), there wasn’t a way to remove as critical a character as Medea.

Once Euripides has done a play on your life, you’re kind of a big deal.

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Robert A. Heinlein Predicts the Future… of 2000!

Robert A. Heinlein Predicts the Future… of 2000!

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Robert A HeinleinThe February, 1952 issue of Galaxy opens with two articles, and I don’t usually cover articles when I’m reviewing the fiction of each issue. In this case, I couldn’t resist commenting on Robert A. Heinlein’s article: “Where To?”

The first article is by L. Sprague de Camp, commenting on how science-fiction predictions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries failed on many levels. So it is ironic, I think, that it’s is followed by Heinlein’s, which gives its own point-blank predictions for the future. Heinlein feels that by comparing the present (that is, 1952) to the past (1900), he can reasonably predict what the future (2000) would look like.

Heinlein believes that the curve of human achievement — advances in science, technology and transportation, for example — is one that will rise with increased steepness. And in a graph he provides, it reminds me of an exponential increase (no numbers are shown, so that’s just a guess on my part).

Heinlein’s predictions fall into two categories — achievements that are probable and things we won’t get any time soon, if ever. He was almost 100% correct (or arguably perfect) on the items we would not achieve by 2000: time travel, traveling faster than the speed of light, control of telepathy or E.S.P. phenomena, “radio” transmissions of matter, real understanding of what “thought” is and how it is related to matter, scientific proof of survival after death, manlike robots with manlike reactions (Asimo, the Honda robot wasn’t introduced until late 2000), and a permanent end to war. One item that’s arguable is laboratory creation of life, depending on whether or not cloning counts.

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Lou Anders: Why I Write What I Write How I Write it

Lou Anders: Why I Write What I Write How I Write it

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Frostborn with BlurbIf you haven’t heard yet, award-winning editor and art director Lou Anders’s new book has hit the shelves, and it’s causing quite a stir. It’s already chalked up a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and critical acclimation from a whole host of additional outlets. I thought it high time to sit down with Lou so he could tell Black Gate readers what his book was all about! Take it away, Lou.

I’ve always loved fantasy stories. As a child, I read The Hobbit over and over. One of my most prized possessions is a large, coffee table edition of Tolkien’s original version, featuring concept art and production stills from the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated musical television special. It was given to me by my uncle’s family, and I still have it today, dust jacket and everything! I studied the lavish illustrations for hours on end and taught myself to draw the Goblin King. It was the first in a large collection of Middle Earth-related volumes.

When I wasn’t reading, I painted miniature figures. I had a huge, faux-grass covered table in my bedroom where I’d assembled an entire army of Riders of Rohan versus orcs and half orcs. My friends and I played Dungeons & Dragons on weekends (guess who was the game master?) and my best friend and I watched Star Wars over a hundred times easy. I read everything I could get my hands on by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, and Fritz Leiber. I even built a round wooden shield out of a barrel top (it was heavy!) and used a staple gun to attach strips of thin metal to craft an outfit out of canvas.

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R.I.P. Robin Williams (1951-2014)

R.I.P. Robin Williams (1951-2014)

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aladdin genie

Mork has returned to Ork; the Fisher King has departed; the Genie, after granting us the wish for laughter, is gone.

Robin Williams died Monday, an apparent suicide. The Great Jester of my parents’ generation had been battling severe depression in recent months, according to his manager. Those who have followed Williams’s decades-spanning career know that this demon was the dark side to his manic comic talent. Ironically, while he so often made us laugh, there was no healing humor left for himself yesterday. The Jester has exited the stage, leaving an echo of laughter as the curtain falls on this tragic final act.

Here is part of what James Lipton, host of Inside the Actor’s Studio, had to say in remembrance of Williams Monday evening on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell:

I asked him If heaven exists what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?, and this is what Robin Williams said to me: “‘There’s seating near the front. The concert begins at five; it will be Mozart, Elvis, and one of your choosing.’ Or, to know that in heaven there’s laughter. That would be a great thing, just to hear God say, ‘Two Jews walk into a bar…'” And look where he went with that. In fifteen different directions at once. You know, I suppose everybody has said it already, and I’m the last to say it: we are dealing with a real-life pagliacci. This is the clown who laughed, who cried. This the clown who cried, at last, in life, and who breaks our hearts. But in the end…in the end, as so many comedians are, Robin was pagliacci. 

Introducing… Klingon Beer!

Introducing… Klingon Beer!

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Can-n-Pint-2With all due deference to responsible drinking, I find it my enviable (?) duty to inform Black Gate’s readership of a significant development in the parallel universes of Star Trek and craft brewing. Yes, I’m referring to Klingon Warnog, available from Tin Man Brewing out of Evansville, Indiana, and released just a few weeks back on July 26, 2014.

Tin Man’s own site has precious little to say on the subject:

Tin Man Brewing was contracted by the Federation of Beer to develop and brew Warnog, and we are exceedingly proud to brew beer for the Star Trek universe.  The Federation of Beer is responsible for distribution and marketing for the Warnog brand and can provide the most accurate information regarding availability.  For further information, please contact the Federation of Beer (www.federationofbeer.com)

As for the Federation of Beer, which one must suppose is where James T. Kirk spent most of his academy days, they claim their Warnog is available only in Alberta, Canada, which directly contradicts the news release provided by StarTrek.com, whose staff provided this write-up:

All we can say is… Qapla’! Klingon Warnog beer will at long last be available in the United States the week of July 28, via The Federation of Beer and Indiana-based Tin Man Brewing Company. The Star Trek-themed beer, a high-quality Roggen Dunkelweiss, or Danish Rye Beer, will be available at select liquor stores and bars in Indiana and Washington State. Klingon Warnog Ale is brewed to capture the warrior essence of the Klingon culture with its bold and unique taste.

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