Black Gate – Page 926 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

In Praise of Paperbacks

Thursday, June 12, 2014 Thomas Parker Comments 17 comments

First, a disclaimer. The Luddite rant that follows is my personal view only. I acknowledge the many benefits and advantages of electronic reading devices and to all of the people (many of them dear friends of mine) who would never think of parting with their Kindle, iPad, Nook, or whatever, this is in no way a judgment or condemnation of you or your reading preferences. It is simply about me and my preferences. Now, let the rant begin.

I teach elementary school, and when I began that job, ten years ago, I was faced with the “problem” of what to do with my summers. Yardwork? Get the garage in order? Any of the thousand other home projects that clamor for attention during the working week and never get done for lack of time or energy? Attractive as these options are, I quickly hit upon the happy idea of passing my summers in the same way I did as an adolescent, in reading through as many SF/fantasy paperbacks as I possibly could in the allotted time. Though age does take its toll, and gone are the days when I had the stamina to read The Chessmen of Mars or Have Spacesuit, Will Travel through in a single sitting, as I did when I was thirteen, I still manage to do all right. The choice to spend my extended vacations reliving those great days of blissful, carefree reading is one of best I’ve ever made.

A couple of summers ago, having just finished one book (I think it was one of E.C. Tubb’s Dumarest of Terra novels), I looked around for my next read. There on the shelf was a paperback copy of The Stars Are Ours by Andre Norton. My copy is a 40 cent paperback, published by Ace in 1954. The book is great fun and I quickly zipped through it.

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Future Treasures: Grudgebearer by J.L. Lewis

Thursday, June 12, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

J.F. Lewis is the author of the Void City novels, about a vampire who runs a strip club and suffers from short-term memory problems.

With Grudgebearer, the first volume of the Grudgebearer trilogy, Lewis turns to more classic second-world fantasy with a setting full of action, adventure, and carnivorous elves…

Kholster is the first born of the practically immortal Aern, a race created by the Eldrennai as warrior-slaves to defend them from the magic-resistant reptilian Zaur. Unable to break an oath without breaking their connection with each other, the Aern served the Eldrennai faithfully for thousands of years until the Sundering. Now, the Aern, Vael, and Eldrennai meet every hundred years for a Grand Conjunction to renew their tenuous peace.

While the tortures of slavery remain fresh in Kholster’s mind, most of the rest of the world has moved on. Almost six hundred years after the Sundering, an Eldrennai prince carelessly breaks the truce by setting up a surprise museum exhibit containing sentient suits of Aernese armor left behind, never to be touched, lest Kholster kill every last Eldrennai. Through their still-existing connection with their ancient armor, the Aern know instantly, and Kholster must find a way to keep his oaths, even those made in haste and anger. While Kholster travels to the Grand Conjunction with his Freeborn daughter and chosen successor Rae’en, his troops travel by sea, heading for war.

Grudgebearer will be published on September 2 by Pyr Books. It is 400 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent articles on upcoming books here.

Can Writing Be Taught?

Wednesday, June 11, 2014 Jon Sprunk Comments 4 comments

For those who regularly read articles and blogs about writing, this is probably a question you’ve seen raised before. Can a person be taught how to write well, or is it an inborn talent? Good old nature-vs-nurture.

Once upon a time, I firmly believed you’re either born with writing talent or you’re not, and I was afraid my own skills were only mediocre. Oh, I could spin out some decent prose and even a little poetry, but I didn’t feel I was a good storyteller and that meant I never would be.

Mainly that was because I’m a self-made author. I took a couple creative writing courses in college, but they didn’t help much, and so I kept on believing that writers were born, not made.

This view changed slowly, reflecting my own path. It took me almost twenty years to go from bright-eyed kid writer to published author with a multi-book contract, and often that progress was hard for me to see. But the difference between my first attempted novel and my first published novel, almost two decades later, is like night and day. Somewhere along the line, I had learned how to tell a complete story, and well enough for someone to pay me to publish it.

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A Reconstructed Celtic Village in Spain

Wednesday, June 11, 2014 Sean McLachlan Comments 0 Comment

Typical Cantabria house of the late pre-Roman period. — Typical Cantabrian house of the late pre-Roman period.

When the Romans marched into the Iberian Peninsula 218 BC, they found it to be a patchwork of small Celtic kingdoms and tribes, each with its distinct local traditions, but sharing the same overall culture.

Like with the other Celtic peoples they faced, the Romans met fierce resistance, and didn’t fully conquer the peninsula for 200 years. The last holdouts were the mountain tribes of northern Spain–the Cantabri, the Astures, and the Gallaeci. They have left their names as three of Spain’s northern provinces–Cantabria, Asturias, and Galicia. In a bitter war from 29 to 19 BC, the Emperor Augustus brought these tribes to heel and took their land for the empire.

“Cantabri” means “mountain people.” They were an isolated and independent-minded culture living a mostly pastoral lifestyle. Several of their villages and cemeteries have been excavated and the regional government has also built a reconstructed Cantabrian village. The Poblado Cántabro at Cabezón de la Sal, an hour’s train ride from the regional capital Santander, gives the visitor an insight into the lives of these ancient people.

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Vintage Treasures: The Great Steamboat Race by John Brunner

Wednesday, June 11, 2014 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

John Brunner is one of my favorite writers. He wrote one of the finest SF novels I’ve ever read, the Hugo Award-winning Stand on Zannibar, and over a career that spanned 40+ years he produced nearly 60 SF novels and 15 short story collections.

I have virtually all of his SF output, but a few months ago I stumbled on a Brunner novel unknown to me: The Great Steamboat Race, published in a premium trade paperback edition by Ballantine in 1983. Based upon the true story of an epic race between the steamboats Natchez and Robert E. Lee down the hazardous Mississippi River on the July 4th 1870 weekend, The Great Steamboat Race is a massive historical saga and a significant departure for Brunner. It’s the only book like it in his catalog and Ballantine obviously sunk some money into the production — it’s packaged very much like a historical bestseller.

A decade before it appeared, a virtually unknown sword & sorcery writer named John Jakes escaped midlist obscurity by turning from SF and Fantasy to historical fiction with his novel The Bastard. That single novel made Jakes one of the most popular writers in America and the series that grew from it, the Kent Family Chronicles, eventually sold 55 million copies (to put that in perspective, that’s roughly twice George R.R. Martin’s sales for all the volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire.) Jakes’s success inspired many of his fellow SF writers to experiment with straight historical fiction, including Robert Silverberg (with Lord of Darkness, 1983) and a handful of others.

Although The Great Steamboat Race was well-reviewed, it was not a success. It was never reprinted in mass market paperback (although copies of the trade paperback edition are easy to find, even today) and John Brunner returned to writing SF and fantasy. He never wrote another historical novel.

The Great Steamboat Race was published by Ballantine Books in February, 1983. It is 568 pages, originally priced at $7.95. New copies are available on eBay for roughly the same price today.

Scenic Dunnsmouth

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 James Maliszewski Comments 2 comments

I have a complicated relationship with adventure modules.

As a someone introduced to Dungeons & Dragons during the Fad Years of the late ’70s to early ’80s, TSR Hobbies was only too glad to satiate my appetite for all things D&D with a steady diet of ready-made scenarios to inflict upon my friends’ characters. I had a lot of fun doing so and, even now, more than three decades later, some of the fondest memories of my youth center around the adventures those modules engendered. Having spoken to lots of roleplayers over the years, I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that one of the most important functions of TSR’s modules was creating common experiences that gamers across the world could share. To this day, I can mention the minotaur in the Caves of Chaos or the juggernaut from Acererak’s tomb and players of a certain vintage know exactly what I mean, because they, too, have had to deal with these threats.

At the same time, there’s a part of me – a snobbish part of me, I suppose – that looks down my nose at “pre-packaged” scenarios, seeing them as the adventure design equivalent of fast food. This elitist part of me prefers “home made meals,” created by the referee from hand-picked ingredients and prepared using original recipes. Anything less than that is a concession, whether it be to mere practicalities, such as time, or something far worse, such as a lack of imagination. Such pomposity wonders, “If you can’t be bothered to make up your own adventures, why would you dare to present yourself as a referee?”

I’ve favored each of these positions, to varying degrees, at different times in my life. It should come as no surprise that the “adventure modules are for the unimaginative” position was something I adopted most strenuously in my later teen years, whereas the “Cool! Queen of the Demonweb Pits!” position was what I adopted earlier. Nowadays, I’m more fond of adventure modules than I have been in quite some time, in part, I think, because there are a lot of really good ones being produced these days. A good example of what I’m talking about is Zzarchov Kowolski‘s Scenic Dunnsmouth, published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess in Finland.

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A Bomb on a Plane: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Four: Death Takes the Wheel

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 Thomas Parker Comments 3 comments

All right, you kids — put those squirt guns away and stop throwing that popcorn; it’s time for this week’s exciting chapter of The Adventures of Captain Marvel. Today’s thrilling episode: “Death Takes the Wheel.”

Three title cards should bring any late arrivals up to speed. “The Scorpion – Sends his men to Oak Mountain Lodge for Carlyle’s lens.” “Billy Batson – Tries to beat them to the Lodge in his plane.” “Whitey – Fails to warn Billy that his plane will blow up at one minute past eight.” Now, speak the magic word and gain the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of… whew! I’m bushed. Never mind the rest; let’s get started!

In a flashback to the end of last week’s segment, a grinning Billy wings his way to Oak Mountain Lodge to retrieve the lens from Carlyle’s safe, blissfully unaware that an “atmospheric exploder” has been planted in his plane, while an agitated Whitey (there were a lot of them around in the 40’s) desperately tries to radio a warning to his friend. Neither he nor Billy knows that the plane’s radio wires have been cut.

As the time for detonation approaches, Billy glances down and sees the dangling wires; he reaches down and twists them together, restoring the connection just in time to hear Whitey say, “There’s a bomb wired to explode in your plane at one minute past eight! Bail out!”

On hearing this, Billy wastes no time in saying “Shazam!” Now transformed into Captain Marvel, he immediately opens the door and leaps from the plane, showing solidarity with all those who have ever been presented with a warmed-over airline turkey meal or an in-flight movie starring Rob Schneider. The airplane explodes (hope your insurance was paid up, Billy) and Captain Marvel flies away unhurt.

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The Constant Tower by Carole McDonnell

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 4 comments

When I started my blog (Swords & Sorcery: A Blog), one of my goals was to force myself to read new fantasy. I knew I’d get bored pretty quickly if all I did was write about books and stories I’d read many times. As a fan, it’s too easy to allow oneself to get comfortably caught up in a cycle of reading and rereading the same old dusty stack of Howard, Leiber, and Moorcock. My newer go-to books include Norton, Saunders, and Wagner, but most of their books are still between thirty-five and fifty years old.

Like any other person writing, I also wanted people to read my work. Another article about “Queen of the Black Coast” or “Adept’s Gambit” out in the universe was going to bore most readers as much as it would me while writing it. This meant finding my way back into the thicket of current heroic fantasy, which I’d stopped reading a long time ago.

Turns out I picked about the perfect time to start reading heroic fantasy again, as there was an exciting revival taking place. One discovery I made was Milton Davis and the tremendous efforts he was making to write and publish sword & soul stories. My interest was piqued by the idea that someone was doing something different in the genre, not just regurgitating the same heroic fantasy tropes that have been done to death.

When I went from looking at the amazing cover of his and Charles Saunders’s anthology Griots and actually reading the contents (reviewed at my site), I was hooked. Other than Davis and Saunders, I didn’t recognize any contributors to the collection. Several really grabbed me, but the story that I liked best was “Changeling,” a tale of daughterly duty and sibling jealousy by Carole McDonnell.

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New Treasures: Dead Man’s Hand edited by John Joseph Adams

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

John Joseph Adams is having a good year.

Back in April, he was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor, Short Form (his seventh nomination), for his work as editor of Lightspeed, Nightmare, and anthologies like The Apocalypse Triptych.

That’s not his only triumph this year — far from it. His popular anthology Robot Uprisings (co-edited with Daniel H. Wilson) was released on April 8, and the special Women Destroy Science Fiction issue of Lightspeed has just arrived, and is being recognized as a landmark issue.

But the JJA project I’ve most been looking forward to this year is his original anthology of Weird Western tales, featuring brand new stories from Alastair Reynolds, Joe R. Lansdale, Tad Williams, Seanan McGuire, Tobias S. Buckell, David Farland, Alan Dean Foster, Jeffrey Ford, Laura Anne Gilman, Fred Van Lente, Walter Jon Williams, and many more.

Dead Man’s Hand was published by Titan Books on May 13. It is 409 pages, priced at $16.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. Read more details — and the complete book description — in my April 13 Future Treasures post.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Collector the Barbarian’s Corner: Hunting the 1978 TRASH COMPACTOR MONSTER

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 Nick Ozment Comments 6 comments

Of course you’ll recall the Death Star scene in Star Wars when our stalwart heroes escape the Storm Troopers by blasting open a panel, jumping down a chute, and landing in a trash compactor.

Han Solo declares:

“The garbage chute was a really wonderful idea. What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!”

And then the walls start closing in. But not before our heroes discover that there’s something else in that there garbage, leading Luke Skywalker to observe:

“There’s something alive in here!”

…That is, another life form besides a princess, a farm boy, a space pirate, and his wookiee sidekick. Something that is only glimpsed — specifically, a tentacle and a single eye stalk.

God, I loved that scene.

What was that thing? It is usually simply referred to as the trash compactor monster, but seeing as how virtually every aspect of the Star Wars universe has been fleshed out via franchise tie-ins, it turns out it’s a “dianoga.” According to Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki, it is not unique: dianogas “could be commonly found in trash compactors, garbage pits and sewers” and are “sometimes referred to as a garbage squids, sewer squids, or trash monsters.”

I had the original 1978 trash compactor set. Essentially a plastic box, it had a knob that rotated a screw to make one wall close in. In lieu of garbage, it was loaded with colorful bits of foam. When the foam, along with a couple of your favorite action figures, was sufficiently compacted, the door would pop open, spelling freedom for whomever you’d tossed in there.

It also came with the monster.

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