Black Gate – Page 930 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Dodging Molten Rock and High Voltage: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Six: Lens of Death

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Thomas Parker Comments 0 Comment

Congratulations on squeezing a dime out of your notoriously stingy dad, and successfully ditching your twerpy kid brother on the way to the show. You’ve proven your worthiness and can now lean back and enjoy today’s chapter of The Adventures of Captain Marvel, “Lens of Death.” (You can’t put your feet up, not just because you’d get in trouble with the ushers, but because the floor is so sticky you’d leave your shoes behind if you tried.)

By this point, mid-way through the serial, the filmmakers know that attention spans are waning, so we’re down to a mere two title cards to catch up those who dozed through last week’s episode (which we covered here). “The Scorpion – Forces Owens to lead Billy Batson into the Harrison mine tunnel.” “Captain Marvel – Unmasks the Scorpion and finds a loud speaker concealed in a dummy.” Now say the magic name and gain the fabulous power of forgetting all the chores that are waiting for you at home!

A flashback to last week’s searing cliffhanger shows an increasingly agitated Captain Marvel trying to find a way out of the Harrison mine as the Scorpion and his stooges turn the power of the lenses on the entrance, melting the rock and sending a river of steaming lava gushing through the tunnels. Trapped, the World’s Mightiest Mortal backs against a wall, a look of dismay on his face. (Our hero certainly can’t be frightened – he just knows that it’ll be a big pain getting that tight-fisted old Shazam to pop for the bill if this costume needs to be dry-cleaned.)

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Dark of the Moon by P. C. Hodgell

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 6 comments

“Just once, why can’t we have a simple crisis?”

Jame from Dark of the Moon

P. C. Hodgell’s Dark of the Moon (1985), a swift-paced dual narrative of twins Jame and Tori Knorth, is the sequel to her awesomely-amazing-why-haven’t-you-read-it-yet first novel, God Stalk (see my Black Gate review here). Jame, heroine of the first book, is racing into the west to find her brother while Tori, High Lord of the Kencyrath, is racing south to bring his army to bear on a threat that could destroy the world.

Hodgell wrote God Stalk as an introduction for her heroine Jame and to be sure she could write a full-length novel. To ease readers into the complex and madly elaborate world of Rathilien, she set it in the deliberately Leiberesque city of Tai-Tastigon. Like Leiber’s S&S, Hodgell’s moves easily from the grim to the funny and back without dissonance in an intimately scaled, fantastical urban playground.

But Hodgell had already planned a story of vaster scope about Jame and the Kencyrath which is only hinted at in God Stalk. The Kencyrath were bound to their god in order to fight Perimal Darkness, the embodiment of evil and chaos, and had been waging that battle for millennia. The war and the consequential flight of the Kencyrath to the world of Rathilien is always lurking beneath the surface of the story, but it’s never the driving force, the focus being on Jame’s adventures and efforts to understand the true nature of the world’s gods.

With Dark of the Moon, Hodgell and Jame leap out of the familiar shallows of Tai-Tastigon and its plethora of cults, sects, and secret societies, into the depths of full-blown epic fantasy. The ages-long struggle against Perimal Darkness moves to center stage and Jame emerges as possibly the most important figure in the war.

I’ve read that some fans of God Stalk were put off by the epic scale of Jame’s new adventure. I admit that in 1985, when I first read DotM, I was a little disappointed when I realized that Tai-tastigon was fading behind her, but within a few pages Hodgell had me hooked. High in a snowy mountain pass, Jame and her companions are confronted by something like a nasty pack of wolverines, a shapechanging enemy out of legend, and wonderfully miscast magic. This book charges into motion and never lets up. This is my fifth or sixth reread of this book and it thrills every time.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of D&D is Not Right for Lankhmar [and Most Other Fiction Settings]

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Scott Taylor Comments 13 comments

I, like many folk of my age, category, and interest set, have many fond memories of Waldenbooks. I mean, as a kid there were basically two things you could be guaranteed were fun at any U.S. mall: Kay-Bee Toys and Waldenbooks. They were two oases in a desert of clothes outlets and anchor stores that your mother dragged you to on far too many occasions. Still, being able to go to those two stores somehow made it all worthwhile and I weep for the youth of today (and myself for that matter) that malls have now become all clothing & eateries, as both those wonderful chains are gone forever.

Yet I digress, as I’m writing today to speak a bit about a book I well remember purchasing at Waldenbooks back in probably 1987 (although the book’s production date is 1985). This gaming campaign setting, Lankhmar: City of Adventure, was produced by TSR after it acquired the license to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd & Gray Mouser universe and it does an admirable job detailing the base game mechanics for driving a square peg (Swords & Sorcery) into a round hole (Dungeons & Dragons).

I was too young at the time to properly see this problem and simply enjoyed the game for what it was, another cool setting to have my characters visit (and more importantly steal Nehwon Throwing Daggers, which did 1D6 damage instead of the 1D4 of normal D&D daggers). This was also one of the more interesting cities designed by TSR, in that it is not only huge, but it has a series of square ‘blocks’ that are empty in the map and can be filled in by the DM to customize the city to your personal campaign.

Still, as I look at this large 95-page supplement today, I’m saddened by the thought of what could have been if this kind of development and money had been focused in the right direction. To me, Lankhmar falls well short of the mark because the world of Leiber is inherently NOT D&D, and therefore trying to statistically recreate Fafhrd & Mouser, or anyone or anything else in that universe, is going to fall dramatically short. It is for the same reason that Pete Fenlon developed Rolemaster, and thereafter Middle-Earth Role-playing, because he couldn’t play the world of Tolkien using the table-top mechanics of Gygax’s gaming opus, D&D.

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A Strong Case That We’re Living in a Golden Age of Horror: The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Six

Tuesday, June 24, 2014 James McGlothlin Comments 1 comment

If you haven’t heard, we’re currently in a golden age of horror fiction, especially for short story fiction.

At least that seems to be the consensus of those “in the know.” I personally don’t claim to have a comprehensive grasp of the current field. But if Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Six is any indication, I’m in strong agreement that we are indeed in a great time for short horror fiction.

If you’re not familiar with Ellen Datlow’s editorial work, where have you been? Datlow has a long list of science fiction and fantasy anthologies in her resume. But in recent years, her name is often most associated with some of the best horror anthologies around, such as Lovecraft Unbound and Supernatural Noir.

In addition, Datlow has been publishing The Best Horror of the Year series through Night Shade Books for a few years now. This year marks volume six, and I think this is probably the best one yet. This is a really terrific anthology that makes a strong case that we are definitely living in a golden horror age.

I say this alongside a clear confession of my own personal horror bias. I don’t really consider myself a die-hard horror kind of guy. I’m a huge fan of H. P. Lovecraft, T. E. D. Klein, and Laird Barron. I love that flavor of horror — the sort of “cosmic horror” that doesn’t leave you depressed, but rather hungry for more. I’m not really into splatter-punk, ghost stories, psychological horror, slasher stories, or whatever.

But even though there is a plurality of horror styles in The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Six, I find that I really love the overwhelming majority of the stories. There are just some excellent writers here who have really mastered the craft of short story horror. Let me highlight a few, and give you a sense of the different kinds of stories within.

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Robed Figures and Snake-headed Staves: Lawrence Schick on Napoleon’s Pyramids

Tuesday, June 24, 2014 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Over on his blog Of Swords and Plumes, Lawrence Schick takes a look at the Ethan Gage Adventures, a promising new historical action series from William Dietrich.

The series is set in the Napoleonic era, and is clearly modeled, at least in part, on George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels. Like Flashman, the hero is a self-described amoral rogue who gets drawn into every major fracas of his time. But Dietrich’s books are no mere homage to Fraser, as they have their own distinctive tone; Dietrich is pulpier than Fraser, and has fewer qualms about embroidering on history in the pursuit of outlandish action scenes or occult overtones.

Dietrich’s hero, Ethan Gage, is an American frontiersman, a gambler and opportunist who finds himself in Europe after attaching himself to Ben Franklin during his term as Ambassador to France. After Franklin’s return to the States Gage hangs on in Paris, playing the “Franklin’s man” card in the salons of the Revolutionary elite, charming the ladies with his tales of the American savages and doing parlor tricks with that new scientific toy, electricity.

In classic pulp fashion, Gage wins a mysterious Egyptian amulet in a game of cards, refuses to sell it to an ominous foreigner, and is soon being pursued through the Parisian night by mysterious robed figures led by a man with a snake-headed staff. That pretty much roped me in right there: equip your villain with a snake-headed staff, and I’m sold.

Lawrence’s most recent article for us was Compiling The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, on his upcoming anthology from Pegasus Books. Read his complete review of Napoleon’s Pyramids here.

Napoleon’s Pyramids was published in paperback by Harper on April 24, 2012. It is 400 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback, and just $1.99 for the digital version. The sequel is The Rosetta Key and the most recent volume, The Three Emperors, brings the series to seven volumes.

Future Treasures: Stories of the Raksura by Martha Wells

Tuesday, June 24, 2014 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Martha Wells’s Books of the Raksura trilogy — The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, and The Siren Depths — have captivated readers around the world. In Stories of the Raksura: Volume One: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud, she returns to the world of Raksura with a pair of exciting novellas.

In “The Falling World,” Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud Court, has traveled with Chime and Balm to another Raksuran court. When she fails to return, her consort, Moon, along with Stone and a party of warriors and hunters, must track them down. Finding them turns out to be the easy part; freeing them from an ancient trap hidden in the depths of the Reaches is much more difficult.

“The Tale of Indigo and Cloud” explores the history of the Indigo Cloud Court, long before Moon was born. In the distant past, Indigo stole Cloud from Emerald Twilight. But in doing so, the reigning Queen Cerise and Indigo are now poised for a conflict that could spark war throughout all the courts of the Reaches.

Stories of Moon and the shape changers of Raksura have delighted readers for years. This world is a dangerous place full of strange mysteries, where the future can never be taken for granted and must always be fought for with wits and ingenuity, and often tooth and claw. With two brand-new novellas, Martha Wells shows that the world of the Raksura has many more stories to tell…

Read Martha’s complete Nebula-Award nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer right here at Black Gate, and her article on the Raksura series, How Well Does The Cloud Roads Fit as Sword and Sorcery? Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two will contain two more novellas; it is not yet scheduled.

Stories of the Raksura will be published by Night Shade Books on September 2, 2014. It is 240 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and digital format.

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in May

Monday, June 23, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The most-read piece of fiction on the Black Gate blog last month was our exclusive excerpt from The Alchemist’s Revenge by Peter Cakebread, the first novel from the co-author of the role playing games Airship Pirates and Clockwork & Chivalry. The first volume in the Companie of Reluctant Heroes takes place in a 17th century that didn’t quite happen, in a nation torn apart by civil war.

When an embittered mercenary agrees to escort a grieving widow to visit her husband’s grave, little does he realize the dangers they will face. This is the story of their struggle through a country divided. As they journey through tainted lands, ravaged by alchemical magic and giant clockwork war machines, they are reunited with old friends and stalked by sinister foes. The reluctant heroes band together in this tale of loss and despair, of redemption and friendship, and ultimately, of retribution and revenge!

“Stand at Dubun-Geb,” Ryan Harvey’s second tale of Ahn-Tarqa, returned to the setting of “The Sorrowless Thief,” for another heroic fantasy packed with adventure, swordplay, and weird magic. It took second place this month.

Steven H Silver’s tale of the strange astral adventures of Hoggar the Cremator, “The Cremator’s Tale,” continued its run at the top of the charts, taking third place.

Also making the list were exciting stories by Janet Morris and Chris Morris, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Michael Shea, David Evan Harris, Aaron Bradford Starr, Joe Bonadonna, John C. Hocking, E.E. Knight, David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna, Jason E. Thummel, Jon Sprunk, John R. Fultz, Dave Gross, and Harry Connolly.

If you haven’t sampled the free adventure fantasy stories offered through our Black Gate Online Fiction line, you’re missing out. Here are the Top Twenty most-read stories in May.

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New Treasures: Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century Volume 2: 1948 – 1988: The Man Who Learned Better, by William H. Patterson

Monday, June 23, 2014 John ONeill Comments 8 comments

In 2003, I was on a panel on classic SF and fantasy with Charles N. Brown, the esteemed editor of Locus, when the conversation turned to Robert A. Heinlein (as it does).

I don’t know much about Heinlein, really. I read a small handful of his books when I was younger, but I was never really a fan. I was more an Asimov guy. Brown however, was a dedicated Heinlein reader, and when Heinlein died in 1988, Brown famously wrote that there had never really been “the Big Three SF writers,” (meaning Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein.) There had only ever been Heinlein, towering over the field.

Heinlein’s first novel, For Us, The Living, written in 1939 but unpublished until 2003, would appear later that year. I had received an advance proof, but I hadn’t read it. Brown had, however, and the book was major news. The rest of us on the panel deferred to Charles as he smoothly warmed to his topic, lecturing the assembled crowd on the importance of the novel in Heinlein scholarship, and indeed, to literature itself.

“The thing to remember,” Charles said, “is that Heinlein never intended the novel to be published –”

“Yes he did,” I said.

Charles looked startled. He seemed to have forgotten that there was anyone else on the panel. He looked around, obviously annoyed at the interruption.

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Weird of Oz Travels Ahead Three Weeks in Time, Finds Himself in New House

Monday, June 23, 2014 Nick Ozment Comments 2 comments

My wife and I just bought a house, so for the next couple weeks we will be moving and unpacking. Hopefully, it’s a haunted house! (But if it is, please let it be only in a benevolent way — not one of those houses where the haunt tries to turn the husband into an ax murderer or anything, or goes sucking the children into television sets. I just don’t have time for that.) The Weird of Oz — yours truly — will be taking a brief hiatus, returning with a new column on July 14.

In the meantime, I thought I’d tell you — here in my 70th post for BLACK GATE — what a pleasure it is to be a part of this team and to share, discuss, and debate with this fantastic (in all senses of the word) community. With the phenomenal growth of BG’s visitors, it is also gratifying to know that so many readers are seeing one’s output! I will continue to do my best to inform and entertain.

As for what I have in the works for future posts, I’ll be resuming my blogging of the ‘80s DC comic book Arak at some point, I promise. But there will also be book and film reviews in the mix, as well as new installments of “Collector the Barbarian”, highlighting vintage toys from our childhood that I’ve been hunting down — toys and games of the fantasy, sci-fi, and horror variety that have become collectible.

Finally, here’s a little peek into the column-writing process: these are a few “leads” I’ve typed up for potential posts, with commentary from the internal editor included…

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Meet Nero Wolfe

Monday, June 23, 2014 Bob Byrne Comments 11 comments

In 1926, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle penned his last Holmes tale, The Adventure of the Retired Colourman. Rex Stout, a fan of those tales, would shortly create a detective who would not only evoke memories of Holmes, but who would cast his own (gargantuan) shadow: Nero Wolfe. The seventy-four stories, written over forty-one years, would be collectively known as the Corpus, akin to the Sherlockian Canon.

Nero Wolfe lives in a New York City brownstone with Archie Goodwin, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Horstmann. This boys’ club (Wolfe makes Holmes look like a romantic) is a self-contained unit, with Wolfe and Archie solving crimes, Fritz cooking and taking care of the household chores, and Horstmann assisting Wolfe with his hobby, the cultivation of orchids in a rooftop greenhouse.

Archie often comments on the beauty of the orchids, which is a far cry from the thoughts of General Sternwood in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep: “Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.” Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe, I guess.

Because the characters do not age, the stories all have a comfortable familiarity about them. Also, they are set contemporary to their writing, so while in a Holmes tale, it is ‘always 1895’, the Wolfe stories feel much more like modern mysteries, even though some are over seventy-five years old.

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