Ancient Worlds: About Face, Forward March

Ancient Worlds: About Face, Forward March

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The long flowing gown is a critical component to any young witch's wardrobe. Color is important too. Rose? Still good. But just wait a few more scenes...
The long flowing gown is a critical component to any young witch’s wardrobe. Color is important too. Rose? Still good. But just wait a few more scenes…

My apologies, folks. This week is going to be more brief than usual. You may have heard that we had some excessively exciting weather last night here in Wisconsin. That means little sleep for anyone in my house and a shortage of brain power today.

Having decided for Jason and his men over her father, Medea provides him with a potion that will allow him to harness the fire-breathing bulls and sow the dragon’s teeth. These teeth spring up into an army, but Medea gives him the clue to toss a rock into their midst and they cut each other to pieces.

Jason is successful, but the fleece still isn’t in his hands. After a sleepless and frightened night, Medea realizes that A) there is no way her father is going to give it up and B) he probably knows that she is responsible for Jason’s feats. So she flees the palace, returns to the Argonauts, and promises to lull the serpent that guards the fleece. They can then make off with it, provided that they promise to take her with them.

Once their absence is noticed, the Colchians give chase. Medea’s brother Aspyrtus catches them in the Adriatic. Talks ensue and a bargain is reached: the Argonauts can keep the fleece, as they won it fair and square. The real point of contention is Medea. Since no deal can be reached, they both agree that she should be deposited in a temple of Artemis until a third party can judge whether she should be returned to her father or given to the Argonauts.

And here it gets trope-tastic, as Medea executes what is, in this work, a pretty inexplicable face-heel turn.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1951: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1951: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy Science Fiction December 1951-smallGalaxy’s December issue hit newsstands with a holiday cover: Santa Claus smoking a pipe on an alien world in a restaurant patronized by humans and aliens. This was a very strong issue and I loved it.

There are other Galaxy stories I would place above those in this issue, such as Bradbury’s “The Fireman” or anything by Poul Anderson, but the contents of December 1951 are amazing. I couldn’t even pick a favorite story. Authors include Damon Knight, Fritz Leiber, and Jack Vance, so that might be part of the reason for its greatness.

“World Without Children” by Damon Knight — George is the last recorded birth for humanity, and even though that was 200 years ago, people still refer to him as The Child. The birth prohibition is firmly in place to prevent overpopulation — a reasonable precaution since scientists have figured out a way to extend a human lifespan by fifty times.

But even if it were repealed, very few of the populace would have the ability to procreate. George is part of a small group of individuals who realize that the trade-off for longevity was sterility, and since they cannot convince the government to take action, they plan to start an underground birthing organization.

The story seemed to start out a bit slow, but it soon moved into a cloak-and-dagger, resist-the-all-powerful-government thriller. I’m not sure if I liked the ending, though. It seemed too upbeat after everything else that took place.

“A Pail of Air” by Fritz Leiber — The earth has been ripped free from its orbit around the sun by the gravitational pull of a dark star. One family works together to survive in the frozen world.

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Tarzan-on-Demand: Tarzan and the Great River (1967)

Tarzan-on-Demand: Tarzan and the Great River (1967)

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Tarzan and the Great River DVD warner archive coverTarzan and the Great River (1967)
Directed by Robert Day. Produced by Sy Weintraub. Starring Mike Henry, Jan Murray, Rafer Johnson, Manuel Padilla Jr., Diana Millay.

Other Tarzan MOD DVD reviews: Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, Tarzan the Magnificent, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (plus the Fritz Leiber novelization).

The second Tarzan movie starring former NFL linebacker Mike Henry as the Ape Man, Tarzan and the Great River (available through Warner Archive, WB’s manufacture-on-demand division) reached theaters a year after the previous installment, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, but was shot directly after it on location in Brazil. Producer Sy Weintraub continued to emphasize a modern Tarzan with aspects of the globe-trotting James Bond films, but Tarzan and the Great River eases back on military machinery and super villains and instead targets a stripped-down jungle chase story that Edgar Rice Burroughs would have found familiar. This doesn’t end up making for a better film, unfortunately.

Tarzan and the Great River opens with its most overt gesture toward the espionage movies of the era: Tarzan receives a summons from across the globe, and dressed in a snappy suit arrives in Brazil at the behest of an old friend, a professor at a zoological garden. The professor needs Tarzan to investigate a growing Jaguar Cult in the Amazon that has started to enslave local tribes. But while Tarzan takes the time to meet some of his African animal friends who reside at the zoo, the professor ends up dead on the poisoned claws of one of the cult’s wicked jaguar cubs. Tarzan now has vengeance on his mind as he travels deep into the Amazon rainforest to locate the cult’s leader, the cruel Barcuna (Rafer Johnson), in the company of the chimp Cheetah and the lion Baron. (The same animal performers who played “Dinky” and “Major” in the previous film.)

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May Short Story Roundup

May Short Story Roundup

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oie_1662641OEwJwWbpMay’s come and gone by several weeks, but I’m only just getting to the short fiction review now because, well, I was busy with stuff. I’m glad I’m finally getting around to it, though, because there were some really ace stories last month and I hope I can convince you to check them out for yourselves.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine #28 starts off with “The Witch of Anûn” by Raphael Ordoñez. It’s the third story of his I’ve read in the past year (both reviewed here at BG previously), all set on the world Antellus, a “paleozoic counter-earth at the cosmic antipodes.”

Cuneaxe has brought his daughter, Una, to a thaumaturge to cure her of an “infestation.” When this fails, he is sent to a temple in the swamps. The clerics there send him in search of the titular witch. Willing to do whatever’s necessary to save his daughter, Cuneaxe journeys to the witch’s home. There he will meet danger he is willing to face and a deal he’d rather not.

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Gygax Magazine #4 Now Available

Gygax Magazine #4 Now Available

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Gygax Magazine 4-smallIt’s been terrific to see Gygax Magazine maintain a regular quarterly schedule, especially after an occasionally bumpy start last year. 2014 has been much better — two issues so far, and we’re not even halfway through the year.

That’s not all that’s terrific about Gygax. Under Art Director R. Scott Taylor (author, editor, and BG blogger extraordinaire), the art in the magazine has really blossomed. The cover for issue 4 is by none other than my fellow Ottawa native Denis Beauvais, another entry in the famous chess series he did for Dragon magazine in the early 80s. And a fabulous piece it is, too (click on the image at left for a mega-sized version).

The interior art is just as lush, and it’s produced by folks who should be familiar to Black Gate readers, including the talented Chuck Lukacs, who illustrated every one of James Enge’s Morlock the Maker stories for us (including his now iconic portrait for “Turn up This Crooked Way.”) Other artists you may recognize include Russ Nicholson (Fiend Folio, Fighting Fantasy), Chris White, Michael Wilson, and many others.

The non-fiction is just as captivating as the art. It includes a new Top Secret adventure by the game’s creator, Merle Rasmussen, an intriguing article on Vancian verbalizations for 13th Age by Ed Greenwood, Leomund’s Secure Shelter by Lenard Lakofka, The Necromancer’s Cookbook by Dave Olson, an article on Djinn by RuneQuest 6 Lawrence Whitaker & Pete Nash, and much more. There’s also comics from Aaron Williams (Full Frontal Nerdity) and Rich Burlew (The Order of the Stick.)

Gygax Magazine #4 is edited by Jayson Elliot and published by TSR.  It is 70 pages (including a gatefold map), priced at $8.95. It’s currently available in PDF format, and in print format before the end of the month. Order directly from the website. We last covered Gygax Magazine with Issue #3.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: New Treasures: The Game’s Afoot (Wordsworth)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: New Treasures: The Game’s Afoot (Wordsworth)

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Wordsworth_GamesAfootOur fearless leader, John O’Neill, has been reviewing entries in Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural series: with emphasis on the supernatural end. So…I figured I’d look at one of the mystery entries.

Sherlock Holmes: The Game’s Afoot, offers twenty new tales of the world’s first private consulting detective. The real mystery is why I couldn’t find a single reference to this book anywhere on Wordsworth’s website. Curious, indeed.

Sherlockian pastiches are meant to emulate the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original tales. As opposed to parodies, which spoof Holmes.

With the explosion of self-publishing, the quality of pastiches has come to vary wildly. There is quite a bit of dreck out there and the days of buying every Holmes story listed on Amazon are long gone.

The eleven authors who contributed to this collection worked hard to create the same kind of atmosphere Conan Doyle did. David Stuart Davies is the editor of this Wordsworth series and is a well-respected Sherlockian. He includes three of his tales. June Thomson, John Hall, Dennis O. Smith … there are some well-respected Sherlockian names in this collection.

 

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Were These the 10 Best Ghost Stories as of 1927?

Were These the 10 Best Ghost Stories as of 1927?

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photo 1In 1927, Funk & Wagnalls Company published a 10-volume set titled The World’s One Hundred Best Short Stories. Edited by Grant Overton, each small (about 4” by 6.5”), red, hardbound book had a distinct sub-heading: V1. Adventure, V2. Romance, V3. Mystery, V4. Love, V5. Drama, V6. Courage, V7. Women, V8. Men, V9. Ghosts, V10. Humor.

Before I get to the meat-and-potatoes of this post (and if you think that would be volume 9, you would be eerily correct), a couple random observations about the series overall…

First: what an idiosyncratic parsing of genres! Four or five of them would be recognizable genres today, but I’ve yet to see a “courage” section in any bookstore.

Second: I wonder what distinguishes stories of “love” from stories of “romance”? My first thought was that maybe “romance” was being used in an earlier sense — as describing literature like the tales of King Arthur and stories that we would today classify as “fantasy.” Nope. A brief perusal was enough to see they’re romance stories in the modern sense.

Third: “Drama” here is meant to denote what we’d probably just deem mainstream or literary fiction. That volume includes stories by Kathleen Norris, Stephen Crane, and Guy de Maupassant (“The Necklace”, one of my first introductions to “literary fiction” in school — a story that fostered the oft-reinforced impression that “literary” fiction has to be depressing). “Drama” as it is used today — and back then too, for that matter — denotes stage scripts, at least in literary studies. Come to think of it, “drama” as Overton applied it to short stories back in 1927 is how it is now used in classifying films.

Okay, enough of the general observations. What really piqued my curiosity, when I came across these little volumes in a box dropped off at the bookstore where I work, was that ninth volume. Ghosts.

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Future Treasures: The Godless by Ben Peek

Future Treasures: The Godless by Ben Peek

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The Godless Ben Peek-smallI’ve been covering a lot of new and upcoming anthologies recently — from John Joseph Adams’s Dead Man’s Hand to Jonathan Strahan’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 8 and George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois’s massive Rogues. Nothing wrong with that. But every once in a while, I like to settle down with something a little more weighty. Not just a quick read, but a genuine fat fantasy with an epic scope, huge cast of characters, and intriguing premise. Ben Peek’s The Godless, the first installment of a new series, weighs in at 562 pages and looks like it will fit the bill nicely.

The Gods are dying. Fifteen thousand years after the end of their war, their bodies can still be found across the world. They kneel in forests, lie beneath mountains, and rest at the bottom of the world’s ocean. For thousands of years, men and women have awoken with strange powers that are derived from their bodies. The city Mireea is built against a huge stone wall that stretches across a vast mountain range, following the massive fallen body of the god, Ger.

Ayae, a young cartographer’s apprentice, is attacked and discovers she cannot be harmed by fire. Her new power makes her a target for an army that is marching on Mireea. With the help of Zaifyr, a strange man adorned with charms, she is taught the awful history of ‘cursed’ men and women, coming to grips with her new powers and the enemies they make. Meanwhile, the saboteur Bueralan infiltrates the army that is approaching her home to learn its terrible secret. Split between the three points of view, the narrative of Godless reaches its conclusion during an epic siege, where Ayae, Zaifyr and Bueralan are forced not just into conflict with those invading, but with those inside the city who wish to do them harm.

The Godless will be published on August 19 by Thomas Dunne Books. It is 562 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition.

New Treasures: Adventure Tales #7

New Treasures: Adventure Tales #7

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Adventure Tales 7-smallHurrah! Hurrah! The latest issue of Adventure Tales has arrived! And a spectacular issue it is.

It starts with the cover, a reprint of my all-time favorite Planet Stories cover. I’ve always wanted to know who painted it — and I still don’t know, as the cover artist remains uncredited. (Maybe nobody knows? Sadly, that’s entirely possible.)

It’s been a long, long time since we’ve seen an issue of Adventure Tales, Wildside Press’s flagship magazine of pulp reprints. And speaking as a magazine publisher who thought he was doing well putting out one issue a year, that means something. Here’s an explanatory snippet from John Betancourt’s (anonymous) editorial:

We are, as usual, managing to keep to our “irregular” schedule with an issue that’s “only” 4 years in following the last one. Hopefully that won’t happen again. (Blame the economy… we’ve had to focus on things that actually make money, rather than the publisher’s time-consuming pulp-magazine hobby!)

I’m hugely appreciative of Wildside’s tireless efforts to keep countless genre authors — many of whom have no other outlet — constantly in print. But having said that. I still vote for more issues of Adventure Tales. Let’s hear it for time-consuming pulp-magazine hobbies! They make the world go round.

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At the Mountains of Merchandise

At the Mountains of Merchandise

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Legends of Cthulhu

Three forty-something toy-industry veterans have formed their own company, Warpo, dedicated to creating retro action figures. Their first product line? The Legends of Cthulhu series, featuring Spawn of Cthulhu, Cultist, Deep One, and Professor figures:

We always felt that Lovecraft’s worlds were deserving of their own action figure line and what better time period than the late 70’s / early 80’s when his work first began its modern-day resurgence … The result is our interpretation of what a major toy company in that era would have done with these characters and how a creative team of the period would have translated H.P. Lovecraft’s stories into a mass-market children’s toy property.

In keeping with the early 80s ethos, Warpo hired Eddy Mosqueda, who worked on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Masters of the Universe, for the figure sculpts. For the blister-pack art, they engaged the talents of Ken Kelly, who painted some of the most incredible art ever to adorn a backing card; just check out the packaging he did for Micronauts and the Dungeons & Dragons toy lines.

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