Black Gate – Page 924 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Fantasy and Roleplaying Games

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 Jon Sprunk Comments 0 Comment

My loves for fantasy stories and RPGs (roleplaying games, not rocket-propelled grenades…) have been intertwined since I was a young child. I discovered them both at about the same time and have pursued both throughout my life.

I still remember the day I was in a hobby store with my family. I was eight years old and I saw this game in a blue box with a dragon on the front. It was called Dungeons and Dragons, which sounded pretty damned cool to me. I begged my father to buy it and he resisted, saying it was a game for college-age people, but I refused to relent. And so we went home with that box.

My father ran the game for my brother and I, and my memories of those initial adventures into goblin-infested dungeons still remain vivid and precious more than thirty years later. Soon, I was running D&D games for my friends, leading them into insidious dens of evil where they slew monsters and collected epic treasures.

At the same time, I was tearing through anything fantasy-related I could get my hands on. My father’s library didn’t have much fantasy, but his copy of Kothar and the Wizard-Slayer was the gateway to Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, and so many others. I was, admittedly, insatiable.

And it continues to this day. I still get together with a few friends every month or so to sit around the table and slay imaginary beasts. I’m quite fortunate that my wife is a gamer, too. (The family that slays orcs together, stays together.) We’re currently running a campaign in the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire system, and I’ve already pre-ordered the newest edition of Dungeons and Dragons in anticipation of the many hours of enjoyment it will bring.

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Reading the Entrails

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 Matthew David Surridge Comments 6 comments

The Lord of the Rings Browsing about the Internet recently, I stumbled on something that interested me. Several things, actually. Specifically, the results at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database of various Locus audience polls; more specifically, the results of the all-time polls in the fantasy field. I was struck by how some things stayed constant across the years, and how some other things have changed.

Now, it’s important to be wary of making overly-sweeping statements about the fantasy field based on these polls. These are things that can be compared with one another; I don’t know if they can be said to have weight beyond that. But, given that, what can one take away from them?

Let me be precise about what I’m looking at. The polls that interest me are the 1987 poll for best all-time fantasy novel, the 1987 poll for best all-time fantasy novelist, the 1998 poll for best fantasy novel before 1990, the 1998 poll for best all-time fantasy novelist, the 1999 poll for best all-time fantasy author, and the 2012 poll for best fantasy novel of the 20th century (John O’Neill wrote about that last poll for Black Gate). There are also all-time polls for science fiction, and some older polls that just asked the Locus readership for best all-time author or novel without specifying genre; I’m interested in fantasy, though, so that’s what I’m focusing on.

You can see some constants in the rankings of the books, but also movement. Some books and authors fell out of favour, some maintained their positions, and a few new titles emerged over time. So together the lists are potentially a glimpse of how attitudes to the genre developed over the course of twenty-five years among fans.

But even assuming that the poll respondents represent a group relatively knowledgeable about fantasy, do the polls say more about fantasy or more about the Locus readership?

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Celtiberian Treasures at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 Sean McLachlan Comments 1 comment

Silver pectoral from the 3rd or 2nd century BC.

Madrid is famous for its vast collection of art and antiquities, and the biggest museum news from Spain’s capital this year is the reopening of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional. It was closed for refurbishment for several years and madrileños were beginning to wonder if they were ever going to get their archaeological museum back.

Earlier this year, it finally reopened and having just moved back to Madrid I made a beeline to go see it.

It was worth the wait. The old museum, with its poor lighting and antiquated displays, is no more, replaced by a more open, modern floor plan that reminds me of the 2009 redesign of the Ashmolean in Oxford. The signage has improved, with detailed texts in both Spanish and English, and the arrangement of the artifacts is easier on the eye.

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Future Treasures: The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry, edited by Sean Wallace

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

I hear reports from several quarters about an upcoming anthology of great interest to Black Gate readers: The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry, a generous collection of swords & sorcery edited by uber-editor Sean Wallace.

This is a reprint collection with contributions from Black Gate writers Matthew David Surridge (his popular S&S epic “The Word of Azrael” from Black Gate 14), James Enge (“The Singing Spear,” one of my favorite Morlock stories), Chris Willrich, Jay Lake, and Richard Parks, as well as K.J Parker, Tanith Lee, Scott Lynch, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Aliette de Bodard, Mary Robinette Kowal, N.K. Jemisin, Saladin Ahmed, and many others.

Here’s the book description:

This is a stellar collection of short fantasy fiction from authors who have made an impact over the last decade, along with some bestselling favourites. These stories of life-and-death struggles and magical force, used for good and evil, by Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Tanith Lee, George R. R. Martin, Naomi Novik, K. J. Parker, Carrie Vaughn and many others provide thrills and entertainment aplenty.

This is the third Mammoth Book anthology edited by Sean, following The Mammoth Book of Steampunk (2012) and the upcoming Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures (Sept 18, 2014). The Mammoth Book line has produced some really great anthologies over the year — so many that I’ve almost lost count. But if you’re looking for suggestions, I might start with The Mammoth Book of Vintage Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1950s, The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction, and the Mammoth Book of Short Fantasy Novels.

The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry contains 25 stories, most written in this century. Despite the mention in the description above, I see no contribution from George R. R. Martin in the Table of Contents — but since most of George’s short fiction is in print and readily available in other outlets, that’s not a big deal.

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The Life and Times of a Midlist Author

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 D.B. Jackson Comments 4 comments

Late last summer, I was interviewed by Garrett Calcaterra for a Black Gate article on the writing life of midlist authors. That article, which also drew upon interviews conducted with Patrick Hester, Wendy Wagner, and M. Todd Gallowglas, can be found here and is still worth reading.

But I thought it might be interesting, a year later, to revisit the life of at least this midlister to see how things are going. A bit of background first: Under my own name, David B. Coe, I have been writing professionally for twenty years now, and I’ve been a published author for seventeen. “What’s the difference?” you ask. Well, I signed my first publishing contract and received my first (microscopic) advance in the summer of 1994. But that first book needed to be edited, revised, edited again, revised again, copyedited, and proofed. And it needed to be fitted into the already crowded publishing schedule of Tor Books. It finally was released in May 1997.

Which brings us to the first of many hard truths about the publishing industry: It moves at its own, sometimes glacial, pace. Yes, this is one reason why some writers grow so impatient with the business that they turn to self-publishing, which offers more immediate gratification for those who are eager to see their work in print. But for more reasons than I can go into today, that is not a path I have chosen to follow.

Writing now as D. B. Jackson, I am the author of the Thieftaker Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy series set in pre-Revolutionary Boston. The first two books, Thieftaker (Tor Books, 2012) and Thieves’ Quarry (Tor Books, 2013), have been received very well critically and did well enough commercially that Tor bought two more books from me. The first of these, the third in the series, is called A Plunder of Souls and it drops on July 8, 2014. (Please buy it. In fact, feel free to buy a few copies; they make great gifts and come in an attractive package complete with artwork by Chris McGrath. We now return to our regularly scheduled blog post . . .)

The fourth Thieftaker novel, Dead Man’s Reach, will be out next summer. And here we come to hard truth number two: For most full-time writers not named Martin, Gaiman, or Rothfus, one release per year is not enough to make a living. Most of the writers I know have a couple of projects going at once. I’m no exception.

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A Date with the Scorpion: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Seven: Human Targets

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 Thomas Parker Comments 0 Comment

Okay boys and girls, settle down. Before watching newsreel footage of Winston Churchill walking through the ruins of London or thrilling to the terrifying spectacle of Lon Chaney Jr. changing into a human Scottish Terrier in The Wolf Man, let’s Join Billy, Betty, the Scorpion, and the rest for this week’s chapter of The Adventures of Captain Marvel, “Human Targets.”

We begin with two terse title cards that will bring everyone up to date. “The Scorpion — Tricks Bentley and Fisher into revealing the hiding place of their lenses.” “Captain Marvel — Saves Bentley’s lens and hurries to Fisher’s estate.” Now speak the wizard’s name and let his arcane arts give you powers so great that you need never fear for your lunch money again!

In a flashback to last week’s episode, we see Captain Marvel arrive at Fisher’s “estate” (to me it just looks like a big house that needs painting and must be hard to heat) and break down the door as the Scorpion hides behind the drapes. When he grabs the lens, the World’s Mightiest Mortal is knocked out by Fisher’s electrical protection apparatus. He drops to the floor, joining the unconscious Whitey and the dead Fisher.

The Scorpion pries the lens out of Captain Marvel’s hand and hightails it out of there. (Only the most cynical child would say that the fabulous artifact of the lost Scorpion Dynasty looks like a painted wooden dowel with shiny stickers stuck on each end.)

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Ancient Worlds: If Your Family Tree Doesn’t Branch…

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 Elizabeth Cady Comments 0 Comment

circe-animals — This woman leads a good life.

It has been a frustrating few weeks around here.

What I want to do is spend the time not tied up in other obligations writing or working in the garden. What I’ve gotten over the last month is a seemingly endless series of storms (not common in Wisconsin in June; we go more for blizzards than twisters up here), obligations, shenanigans and chaos, and just when I think I’ve got twenty minutes to myself, a minor family crisis pops up.

Which makes this week’s topic – Medea’s visit to Circe – feel particularly apt.

Bear with me, that’s not as brutal a segue as it initially seems.

When we left off our discussion of the Argonautica, Medea had made the startling decision to murder her brother. Well, technically, Jason murdered him, but Jason isn’t the brains of anyone’s operation.

Jason couldn’t find the brains of the operation.

Jason is dumber than a box of hair.

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True North

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 James Maliszewski Comments 6 comments

The hobby of tabletop roleplaying games was born in the American Midwest, but very quickly spread beyond the wargames clubs of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Forty years after the publication of Dungeons & Dragons, RPGs are played and enjoyed throughout the world. Many countries outside the United States can rightly boast of their own roleplaying games and designers, some of which, such as Britain’s Warhammer games, have arguably proved as influential as D&D. Since today is Canada Day, I thought it fitting to post a short tribute to two Canadian roleplaying game designers whose work, while perhaps not as widely known as that of Arneson and Gygax, is nevertheless worthy of note, particularly by those of us who have come to appreciate and indeed prefer what has come to be called “old school” gaming.

As everyone interested in such things knows by now, Dungeons & Dragons first appeared in 1974. The originality of its concept inspired others to create similar games of their own, the first being Ken St. Andre’s Tunnels & Trolls, published in 1975. Many more followed, including Chivalry & Sorcery, written by two wargamers at the University of Alberta, Edward E. Simbalist and Wilfried K. Backhaus. C&S was published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1977 and owes its existence to some questions Simbalist and Backhaus asked after playing D&D, as they explain at the start of the rulebook:

Chivalry & Sorcery began innocently enough with a discussion about the vacuum that our characters seemed to be living in between dungeon and wilderness campaigns. In the Fantasy Wargames Society of the University of Alberta a degree of dissatisfaction emerged over the limited goals that were available to our characters. The solution was to develop an all-encompassing campaign game in which dungeon and wilderness adventures were just a small part of the action.

Initially called Chevalier, Simbalist admitted in an interview that Chivalry & Sorcery was “a D&D clone in some respects.” The pair even intended to pitch the game to TSR for publication, but chose instead to work with FGU. Chevalier “contain[ed] all of the seeds that would soon spring forth as Chivalry & Sorcery,” which Simbalist believed was “a dramatic departure from the slash and hack approach to RPG that existed in those early days.”

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Rat Queens, Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 MichaelPenkas Comments 2 comments

I’ve seen this title compared to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tank Girl, and Lord of the Rings. But honestly, it seems to be nothing more or less than a homage to Dungeons & Dragons. Not the novels or the cartoon show or the (ugh!) movie. It’s a homage to the game we played, complete with fighter/magic-user/thief/cleric four-member parties, healing spells as plentiful as aspirin, random monster encounters, and characters who talk more like a group of suburban teenagers than mercenaries in a pseudo-mideval age.

The Rat Queens are a team of four adventurers. Violet is a dwarven fighter who worries a bit too much about her image. Hannah is an elven mage whose necromancer parents occasionally nag her on a scrying device that looks suspiciously similar to a cell phone. Dee is a human, an atheist, and a cleric (because nobody cares who you pray to, as long as your healing spells still work). Betty is a smidgen (because the Tolkien estate owns the term “hobbit” and the Dungeons & Dragons estate probably laid some claim to their alternative term “halfling”) thief who sounds just like someone whose diet consists of drugs and candy. Together, they kill monsters for money, then spend that money on alcohol and drugs (which gets them into more trouble than the monster killing).

The story opens with the Rat Queens (and four other four-member adventuring teams) being arrested for wrecking the city of Palisade on a drunken bender. To avoid a stint in the dungeon, they are each given a quest. On their way to murder a pack of goblins, the Rat Queens are waylaid by an assassin, then a troll. When they fail to find any goblins in the area, they realize that they’ve been set up. Returning to Palisade, the Queens discover that the other teams were similarly ambushed and many of them are dead. What follows are more fights with assassins, a troll army, and the mystery of who hired the assassins to kill the adventurers. Many people die and the survivors get totally wrecked at a party.

Rat Queens is a fairly new series (only six issues out so far), with the first five issues already collected in a trade paperback titled, Sass and Sorcery. The stories in these issues start with fairly conventional fantasy plots, then twist them into bizarre new shapes. There is a lot of profanity, a lot of drinking, and some drug use, so it’s not an all ages book by any stretch of the imagination, but well worth its low introductory price ($9.99) for anyone who grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re looking for a comparison, instead of Lord of the Rings meets Bridesmaids, how about Knights of the Dinner Table meets Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas?

Rat Queens, Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery is written by Kurtis J Wiebe, illustrated by Roc Upchurch, and available in both print and digital formats. Find out more about this series (including preview pages and where to order a copy) at Image Comics.

Changa’s Safari: Volume 2 by Milton Davis

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 2 comments

I read fantasy — and swords & sorcery in particular — because it’s fun. Like most middle-class Americans I lead a very safe life, which I’m very happy about, but from which I sometimes like to take a break. Occasionally I need to hear the whoosh of a sword just missing Conan’s head, to peer down into the dark alleys of Tai-tastigon from the rooftops of strange gods’ temples, to smell the fires of Granbretan’s vile sorceries. Sometimes I need to get out of my content, comfortable place and journey to places unknown and fantastic.

Milton Davis, sword & soul maven, delivers exactly that kind of trip in Changa’s Safari: Volume 2 (2012). The story of swashbuckling merchant Changa Diop traveling the 14th century Indian Ocean, it continues the adventures of Changa’s Safari: Volume 1 (2010), which was reviewed by Charles “Imaro” Saunders on Black Gate several years ago.

Once a prince of the Bakongo, Changa was sold into slavery when his father was killed by the sorceror Usenge. He was rescued from the slave-fighting pits of Mogadishu by a kindly merchant. His rescuer, Belay, taught him how to be a trader and eventually made him his heir.

Vol. 1 tells of the arrival of a great Chinese fleet off the East Africa coast and Changa’s journey alongside it back to China with his own fleet. There he confronts — boldly and with plenty of sword flourishing and magic — all manner of things you’d hope to meet in this kind of story: evil demigoddesses, pirates, conniving courtiers, and a Mongol horde. You know, the good stuff.

Volume 2 picks up a short time after Changa and his ships have left China for home. Home is Sofala, once a prosperous port in present-day Mozambique. It’s a long way from the Straits of Malacca (where the book opens with a tremendous multi-ship battle against Sangir pirates) to Sofala, which leaves a lot of room for adventure.

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