Black Gate – Page 929 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

To The Dark Tower He Came: Warlock of the Witch World by Andre Norton

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 2 comments

In my previous reviews of Andre Norton’s Year of the Unicorn and Three Against the Witch World, I wrote how exciting it was to discover that a series I had long overlooked was so much fun. I am happy to report that with Warlock of the Witch World (1967), things get even better.

In Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Reginald, Menville, and Burgess, Andre Norton wrote that “the background of most of [Witch World] is based on Celtic and early English folklore. Warlock of the Witch World is a retelling of “Childe Roland.” In the original Scottish ballad, the children of the queen are playing ball. When the daughter, Burd Ellen, dances widershins around the church, she vanishes. Her four brothers learn she has been taken prisoner by the King of Elfland. One by one, her brothers set off to save her, each disappearing in turn until only the youngest brother remains. Armed with a magic sword, he undertakes the quest — his siblings’ last hope.

In Three Against the Witch World, the three children of the dimensionally transported American, Simon Tregarth, and a Witch of Estcarp, Jaelithe, have escaped their homeland to the hidden land of Escore. There, the arrival of the triplets — warrior Kyllan, scholar Kemoc, and witch Kaththea — reawakened dark forces long asleep and reignited a war between the forces of Shadow and Light. By the end of the book, the stage for a final confrontation was being set. Allies for the armies of Light were being sought and marshaled in the magically protected Valley of Green Silences.

…

Read More Read More

A Page-Turning Creepy Thriller: A Review of Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 James McGlothlin Comments 0 Comment

Authority is the second novel in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, which has a very aggressive 2014 publishing schedule. I recently reviewed the first volume, Annihilation. Though I loved the first book, I also found it incredibly frustrating in that it stacked up a lot of mysteries providing little to no answers. As I had hoped, the second volume, Authority, begins to shed some light on some of these mysteries.

The Southern Reach Trilogy centers upon a government agency (i.e. the Southern Reach) that is responsible for investigating, and containing, Area X, an expanse of (presumably American) southern coastland that has been “captured” (in some strange way) by some sort of unexplained anomaly. Whereas the first volume Annihilation centered upon a seemingly doomed expedition that went into Area X, the second volume Authority centers upon the Southern Reach agency itself outside of Area X, out in the real world (presumably our world).

Our main viewpoint character is John Rodriguez, a fairly young bureaucrat and ex-spy, who is the new director of the Southern Reach. Rodriquez goes by the code name “Control,” which is ironic given that he seems to have so little of it throughout the book. We slowly learn that Control has a somewhat tainted vocational track record and that his new appointment to the Southern Reach is perhaps his last chance to redeem himself. But this government job is like no other that Control has had before and he may very well be in too deep for his own good.

Authority seems to pick up where the last book left off. The Southern Reach has recently picked up three survivors from the last mission — which in itself is puzzling since Annihilation seemed to end with possibly only one survivor. Control attempts to piece together the disparate threads of this last mission as well as various other endeavors that the Southern Reach has also been attempting. The revelations we get — what few we do get — are far from satisfying, much less reassuring, for Control.

…

Read More Read More

WEIRD OF OZ: Human Soul for Sale — CHEAP!

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 Nick Ozment Comments 5 comments

No, not mine. But I thought I’d let you know that you can buy a soul on eBay.

In fact, right now there are at least four sellers offering souls at prices that range from “99 cents or best offer” (5 have sold at that price) to a starting bid of $1,500 (no bids on that one yet).

Pretty amazing how cheaply you can acquire a human soul these days. I suppose you would have to pay more if they came with a certified valuation from Sotheby’s or something.

While statements about the benefits of a soul have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, I doubt if anyone is going to bring a charge of false advertising against a soul seller any time soon. The claim that someone can send you a soul is so absurd that it falls under “caveat emptor”: “let the buyer beware.” In most cases, it is surely just in jest, as with the seller who has an opening bid of $7.99 and a “Buy it Now” price of $10.99 for a “used Human Soul ‘cheap’” that, according to the entry in “Item condition,” has been “slightly used and gently tormented.”

…

Read More Read More

What Might Have Been: Steven Bauer’s Satyrday

Monday, June 2, 2014 Matthew David Surridge Comments 5 comments

Satyrday One of the interesting things about going back to the beginning of any tradition is seeing how things might have gone. Seeing, that is, possibilities unexplored and roads not taken. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of what, in retrospect, is an earlier stage of evolution. Sometimes there’s a sense of a missed chance. And then sometimes you can see why things went the way they did.

I’ve written here before about my fascination with underexplored elements in 80s fantasy. In this context I have an elastic definition for ‘80s,’ beginning in 1977 — arguably when the modern mass-market fantasy genre was born, with the publication of Brooks’s Sword of Shannara and Donaldson’s Illearth War — and ending whenever seems rhetorically convenient (I go back and forth, and any ideas in comments about when 80s fantasy ended will be read with interest). Particularly earlier on, there’s an odd mix in these years of idiosyncratic, individual tales alongside a developing commercial genre; in all, a lot of stories trying out techniques and approaches, a lot of writers finding out what works and what doesn’t. We remember, on the whole and more or less, the stuff that works. But sometimes it’s interesting to see the stuff that misfires and see other possibilities for the genre.

Steven Bauer’s Satyrday is mentioned in Clute and Grant’s Encyclopedia of Fantasy, where they call it a satire. I will say up front that I didn’t get that sense from the book and have no idea what it’s supposed to be satirising. It’s a book that mixes animal fable, Greek myth, and the then-emerging fantasy staple of a young boy coming to adulthood by engaging in a quest to defeat a dark lord. A great owl has captured the moon and holds it captive as part of a plot to gain ultimate power. But not far away, a satyr named Matthew has brought up a human boy named Derin, and at the urging of a raven named Deirdre they set out to free the moon and thwart the owl’s schemes. The adventure’s less than compelling, but there are nice passages and if the book doesn’t entirely come together, there’s still an engaging weirdness to the ingredients.

…

Read More Read More

With Apologies to Dopey

Monday, June 2, 2014 markrigney Comments 0 Comment

About thirty-five years ago, I met Greg B., which is to say I also met his muscle-bound D&D character, Dopey. I owe both an apology, and since I am nearly thirty-five years late in doing so, it’s high time I got on with it. In public, no less.

Dopey was an amazing fighter. A real head-slamming, sword-wielding, take-no-prisoners dude. Not all that stupid, either. He was the first high-level character I’d ever bumped into, either as a player or as a ref, and so perhaps it was written in the stars that eventually, Greg and Dopey would join me gaming, and for an adventure in which I was the dungeon master.

And what did I do when that happened? I killed Dopey.

I did it deliberately, too, and I even know why, but I shouldn’t have done it. I even sensed I was in the wrong — call it a vague but unshakable apprehension — right in the very moment. That alone should have been enough to stay my hand. It wasn’t. So much for teenage maturity.

If I knew where Greg B. is today, I’d make the apology directly. Instead, and because it’s the best I can do at this point, I’ll post my story here, and perhaps one of you knows Greg and can direct him to this post.

Here’s how it happened.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Eyes of Amber by John D. Vinge

Monday, June 2, 2014 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

I’m still exploring the box of SF and fantasy paperbacks I inherited from my sister-in-law Mary Dechene after her death last month.

Mary enjoyed bestselling fantasy and she had a fabulous collection. But her library also had many surprises, including some from an age when it wasn’t unusual for a midlist author to have a mass market collection. In 1979 Joan D. Vinge had only two other books to her name, The Outcasts of Heaven Belt (1978) and Fireship (1978), when Signet published her short story collection Eyes of Amber, featuring the Hugo Award-winning title story. Among Mary’s collection was the 1983 Signet reprint, with a fabulous new cover by artist Tom Kidd (at right).

The Universe of the Imagination Awaits You in…

Eyes of Amber — The Hugo Award-winning story of one Earthman trying to play a symphony of civilization to a distant, barbaric world.

To Bell the Cat — What happens to humans facing a true alien encounter when they have already become alienated from each other?

View from a Height — What do you do with the rest of your life when you’re alone on a one-way journey to meet the universe?

Media Man — In the precarious society of Heaven Belt, he sold dreams to a dying people. And he knew his career would be over the day he told them the truth…

The Crystal Ship — The Star Well: Was it two races’ chance for the future or a bottomless pit in which all hope must die?

Tin Soldier — Can love really survive across the spaceways and down through time?

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Gary Gygax’s Role Playing Mastery

Monday, June 2, 2014 Bob Byrne Comments 4 comments

My Dungeons and Dragons roots don’t go back to the very beginning, but I didn’t miss it by much. I remember going to our Friendly Local Gaming Store with my buddy. He would buy a shiny TSR module and I would get a cool Judges Guild supplement.

And I remember how D&D was the center of the RPG world in those pre-PC/video game playing days. And Gary Gygax was IT. It all centered around him. So, I’ve been reading with interest a book that he put out in 1987, less than twelve months after he had severed all ties with TSR.

Role Playing Mastery is his very serious look at RPGing. He included the 17 steps he identified to becoming a Role Playing Master.

If you’re reading this post, you probably know that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson co-created Dungeons and Dragons circa 1973-1974. Unfortunately, it was not a long-lasting partnership and lawsuits would ensue. While both were instrumental in creating D&D, it is Gygax who is remembered as the Father of Role Playing.

…

Read More Read More

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Shadow of Dia-Sust” by David C. Smith

Sunday, June 1, 2014 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

David C. Smith’s 1978 sword & sorcery novel Oron is a classic of the genre. Its success led to four sequels: The Sorcerer’s Shadow (1978), Mosutha’s Magic (1982), The Valley of Ogrum (1982), and the collection The Ghost Army (1983). David’s new short story collection, The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories, includes the first new Oron story in 30 years, “The Shadow of Dia-Sust,” in which the young barbarian helps a dying witch exact an overdue revenge; and takes the first steps on the path that will lead him to the events of Oron. David has graciously offered the complete story to us at Black Gate, as well as an Author’s Note explaining how the story came about. Here’s a brief snippet:

In late 2011, I was invited by Bob Price to write a new story featuring my character Oron as part of a planned anthology of sword-and-sorcery stories. A number of other authors who had written S&S back in the Silver Age of the 1970s and early 1980s were invited, as well — Ted C. Rypel and Adrian Cole and, I think, Keith Taylor, along with others. This would have been an exceptional showcase of talent… however, commercial publishing in the mid 1980s rerouted the fantasy genre away from mythic adventure stories…

“The Shadow of Dia-Sust” chronologically follows the five adventures presented in my 1983 collection Death in Asakad and Other Stories (published under the title The Ghost Army). With this one, I do my best to demonstrate that sword-and-sorcery fiction can be taken seriously — by its writers and by its readers — as a literary (or at least thoughtful) form of mainstream genre storytelling.

We’ve published David C. Smith’s fiction and non-fiction here at Black Gate — including excerpts from his noir thriller Dark Muse and his supernatural pirate dark fantasy novel Waters of Darkness, written in collaboration with Joe Bonadonna.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Vaughn Heppner, Howard Andrew Jones, David Evan Harris, Janet Morris and Chris Morris, John C. Hocking, Michael Shea, Peadar Ó Guilín, Aaron Bradford Starr, Martha Wells, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, C.S.E. Cooney, and many others, is here.

“The Shadow of Dia-Sust” is a complete 14,000-word short story of heroic fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

The Series Series: Dreamweaver Road by Kelly Ann Jacobson

Sunday, June 1, 2014 Sarah Avery Comments 0 Comment

Know what I’ve always wanted to see in a past-lives-intrude-on-present story? A protagonist who finds out about her past lives and, instead of taking that as an immediate mandate to robot out the dubious decisions of her previous selves, tries something new. Were you married to someone in a past life? Okay, but that doesn’t mean you have to marry him again. I mean, what if he was a thug or a dud? If a story’s world dictates that people are supposed to improve themselves, right their wrongs, grow as spirits as they progress through their incarnations, I would like to see reincarnation used for something other than an idiot plot, a transparent cheat on the part of so many authors. If some old decision is going to get remade, it should have to earn the remaking. For pete’s sake, somebody write me a reincarnated skeptic!

And now I have what I’ve always wanted.

If Kelly Ann Jacobson’s sequels to the slender YA volume Dreamweaver Road can keep up what’s working here, we may get to read a story that happens to include reincarnation without being shackled by it. Maybe that’s one of the things that can happen now, in this weird new age when writers like Chabon and Lethem have forced the mainstream to make its peace with genre writing enough so that an MFA candidate at Johns Hopkins can write fantasy openly. The MFA polish also seems to have resulted in a little more music in the sentences than YA novels generally have, which is all to the good.

Our heroine Zoey is a sixteen-year-old farm girl when she comes into her powers. She’s been picking those powers up gradually over many lifetimes, mostly by making mistakes that get her killed. At the book’s opening, she remembers none of those other lives and the mistake she’s looking to set right is one she made just a year ago.

She thinks her quest is to find her best friend, who was stolen away by an unknown enemy that seems to have guessed wrong about which kid had the magic. It’s bigger than that. Much bigger.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Nihal of the Land of the Wind by Licia Troisi

Sunday, June 1, 2014 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

When I first got my Kindle, I imagined it would be a gateway to a whole new way to buy and read books. The ability to browse and download books in a matter of seconds, all from the comfort of my big green chair, was pretty darned appealing — not to mention the host of free samples and complete novels Amazon posts every week.

Well, it didn’t unfold that way. Turns out that, by and large, I still buy and read novels primarily in paperback. And cover art and design have a huge impact on what I pick up every week… and frankly, much of the digital-only fantasy out there just isn’t visually appealing enough for me to bother with.

That’s starting to change, though. Exhibit A: Nihal of the Land of the Wind, the first volume of Chronicles of the Overworld, a bestselling Italian fantasy series by Licia Troisi. I have no idea who painted the cover — and the Kindle version doesn’t tell me — but it is gorgeous (click for a bigger version). Here’s the description.

Nihal lives in one of the many towers of the Land of the Wind. There is nobody like her in the Overworld: big violet eyes, pointed ears, and blue hair. She is an expert in swordplay and the leader of a handful of friends that includes Sennar the wizard. She has no parents; brought up by an armorer and a sorceress, Nihal seems to be from nowhere.

Things suddenly change when the Tyrant takes charge. Nihal finds herself forced to take action when she is faced with the most difficult mission a girl her age could imagine.

Fierce, strong, and armed with her black crystal sword, Nihal sets out to become a real warrior. Readers will be riveted as she forges her powerful path of resistance.

…

Read More Read More