The Series Series: The End Is Nigh: The Apocalypse Triptych, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

The Series Series: The End Is Nigh: The Apocalypse Triptych, edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey

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The End is Nigh John Joseph Adams-smallThe end of the world turns out to be heartbreaking. Who would have guessed?

This anthology of end-of-the-world stories from two dozen big-name and up-and-coming writers is nothing like the Hollywood blockbuster apocalypse experience, all stirring music and flashy effects, tidily wrapped up with a life-affirming ending in under two hours. Nor is it much like the sprawling genre novels of cosmic disaster that we like so much. You could stack the dead characters in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire like cordwood and get a wall longer than Hadrian’s, but we keep reading because there are still characters to root for, and moments of hope for a world that hasn’t altogether ended.

Adams and Howey’s planned three-volume anthology series The Apocalypse Triptych opens with a volume of stories that cover the moment the old world ends. A second volume, The End Is Now, will feature stories set in the midst of the chaos between, and The End Has Come will focus on the beginnings of whatever gets built from the ashes.

The structure of The End Is Nigh shapes a very specific emotional rhythm and, if you try to read the book straight through over a few days, a reading experience unlike any other I’ve had. Each author has come up with a different take on how the world might end, and each story presents a different vision of what the world that’s ending is like.

The viewpoint characters are all deliciously different from each other and their predicaments grow increasingly extreme in their deliciously different and often absurd ways, until the not-so-delicious moment when the worlds and stories end. No matter how funny, juicy, or satirically entertaining the story has been up to that moment, the world’s end hits like a knife to the gut. You’re still reeling when the story slams into its last sentence and ejects you before you can find some way to ask, But what happened next?

And then, dear reader, you turn the page and go through it all again. You try not to get too attached to the main characters, whose odds of survival two weeks past the final paragraph range from pretty slim to definitely toast.

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Sean P. Fodera Threatens to Sue 1,200 Writers Linking to Daily Dot Article

Sean P. Fodera Threatens to Sue 1,200 Writers Linking to Daily Dot Article

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Macmillan Associate Director of contracts Sean P. Fodera
Macmillan Associate Director of contracts Sean P. Fodera (source: MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive)

Macmillan’s Associate Director of Contracts, Sean P. Fodera, who used the ongoing kerfuffle inside SFWA as cover for a sexist attack on ex-SWFA officer Mary Robinette Kowal, has now threatened to sue all those linking to Aja Romano’s article on the topic at Daily Dot (including, presumably, Black Gate).

I have a very good case for a libel suit. I suppose no one noted that I work in the legal profession within the publishing industry, and have taught college courses on the subject… as of now, it looks like the article was “shared” 1,200 times already. That makes each of those sharers a part to the libel, and makes each of them equally culpable in the eyes of the law. I’ll speak to my attorney first thing tomorrow.

Macmillan owns Tor, the company that publishes Mary’s Nebula Award-nominated Glamourist Histories novels.

Earlier this week on his blog Whatever, ex-SFWA President John Scalzi invited Fodera to sue him first:

If you honestly believe you can sue me for libel for linking to this article, you are, in my opinion, deeply ignorant of how libel works in the US… But if you are determined to sue 1,200 people for linking to a newsworthy article, you may begin with me. You know who I am and I am very sure you know where I am, since many of my book contracts route through your office. I await notification of your suit.

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Vintage Treasures: The Spell of Seven, edited by L. Sprague de Camp

Vintage Treasures: The Spell of Seven, edited by L. Sprague de Camp

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The Spell of Seven-smallIt takes real effort to keep on top of even a fraction of the exciting new work in the fantasy genre every week. Between the print magazines, online outlets like Subterranean and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, paperbacks, hardcovers, and self-published and independent work from talented folks just outside mainstream publishing, it’s exhausting. Luckily, it’s also extremely rewarding, and I feel fortunate indeed to be part of such a lively and vibrant branch of literature.

Of course, there are also weeks when I say, “The hell with it,” and settle in with a great vintage paperback.

This was one of those weeks. And the book that lured me away from the latest crop of promising new writers clamoring for my attention was L. Sprague de Camp’s The Spell of Seven, a slender sword & sorcery anthology from 1965.

I’ll admit up front that I thought that The Spell of Seven was a standalone title. I’m a child of the late 20th Century; when a book is part of a series, I expect the publisher to sell me on that up front. (It’s easier to mug me for more money that way.)

Fortunately, I have the collective hive-mind of Black Gate to call upon. One of the great lobes of that mind is Brian Murphy, who pointed out that the book was a follow-up to De Camp’s seminal S&S anthology Swords and Sorcery, and part of a successful series that would eventually evolve into a four volume survey from Pyramid Books covering the most important heroic fantasy of the time.

Here are Brian’s comments, taken from his 2011 review of The Fantastic Swordsmen.

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Bioshock Creator Irrational Games Shuts its Doors

Bioshock Creator Irrational Games Shuts its Doors

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Bioshock Infinite-smallThe tumult in the computer entertainment industry continued this week, with word that A-list game studio Irrational Games is shutting down, effective immediately.

Irrational Games was formed in 1997 from the wreckage of legendary Looking Glass Studios (Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief) by three ex-Looking Glass employees: Jonathan Chey, Robert Fermier, and Ken Levine. Never an exceptionally prolific studio, they nonetheless released three excellent games over the next seven years: System Shock 2 (1999), Freedom Force (2002), and Tribes: Vengeance (2004).

Irrational Games was acquired by one of the largest distributors in the industry,Take-Two Interactive (publishers of Grand Theft Auto and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, among many others); for several years after that, their games appeared under the 2K Games label. They had perhaps their greatest hit in 2007 with the worldwide success of Bioshock, a first-person shooter set in the beautiful and mysterious underwater city of Rapture (which offered, incidentally, one of the finest and most touching endings I’ve ever seen in a video game). Bioshock eventually sold over four million copies and won almost universal critical acclaim, winning PC Game of the Year from IGN and the top spot on their Top 25 Modern PC Games list in 2012. Time magazine named it one of the greatest video games of all time in November 2012. The game inspired two sequels: Bioshock 2 (developed by 2K Marin) and Bioshock Infinite (from Irrational Games.)

In a message posted on the Irrational Games website yesterday, co-founder Ken Levine announced the studio was closing its doors. No explanation was given, although Levine did confirm that 15 employees (out of an estimated 150) will be retained “To make narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable.” It’s no secret that Bioshock Infinite‘s development was highly troubled, but the game was considered a major success, selling over 3.7 million copies in the first two months.

It’s been a troubled time for games studios — the much-loved LucasArts was shuttered by Disney just last year, and other developers have moved away from big-budget releases to focus on smaller games for mobile environments. It reminds me of the gradual move to consoles from PCs, which cost us such storied developers as Interplay, Origin Systems, SSI, Microprose, Sierra Entertainment, and of course, the brilliant Black Isle. I’m certain there will be plenty of great games on many new platforms in my future, but for now I’m still mourning what might have been.

Firefly, A Retrospective — Part 2

Firefly, A Retrospective — Part 2

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Firefly banner-smallHey gang! I’m back this week with the second part of my look back at the Firefly TV show. Last time, I talked about the pilot episode; this time I’ll be discussing the second and third episodes.

Train Job (Episode 2)

If I’m not mistaken, this was the first episode to air. As I said last week, I think this was a major mistake.

It starts in a cantina where Mal, Zoe, and Jayne are drinking at a table. Some drunk makes a toast to Unification Day, the anniversary of the Alliance’s victory over the Independents. Well, Mal doesn’t take kindly to that. Words are exchanged and a good old-fashioned bar brawl ensues.

Now this is just fine and kinda fun, and I can see why an inexperienced studio executive might think this is exactly the sort of opening a new series needs. But here’s the problem: we (the audience) can’t get invested in this fight because we don’t know the background. You remember. That background we were supposed to see in the pilot that explains how Mal and Zoe fought for the Independents to the bitter end and they still harbor resentment toward the Alliance…

Okay. I’m taking a deep breath.

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Art of the Genre: Behind the Curtain at Black Gate L.A.

Art of the Genre: Behind the Curtain at Black Gate L.A.

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Sue somehow still looks pale even in the SoCal sun...
Sue somehow still looks pale even in the SoCal sun…

First off, thanks to all the readers who read and posted about last week’s Art of the Genre article ‘The Top 10 RPG Artists of the Past 40 Years’ and if you haven’t taken a look, I hope you do right here! Oh, and remember, it isn’t who is the ‘best,’ but who was the most impactful.

Second, and putting into practice a bit of the Wizard’s First Rule, I thought I’d dip into the email ‘bag’ and pull back the curtain on a part of my life here in L.A. You see, there are often questions sent to me concerning Black Gate L.A. offices, like possible internships with us, and many times just inquiries as to ‘who are you?’ My current favorite of these is artist Jeff Easley’s request to ‘Post pictures of Kandi!’ which I got last week. Well, since I had a moment today between a lunch at the Red Lobster with John Scalzi [hey, he’s from Ohio and I’m from Indiana, so to us that is still an awesome and upscale establishment, so sue us!] and my two hour commute into downtown for floor seats at a Lakers game with Bill Simmons, I decided I’d introduce all my readers, and those of Black Gate in general, to our working version of ‘The Office’ here in LaLa Land.

For the purposes of keeping readers’ interest, I’m starting with our resident part-timer, ‘Goth Chick’ Sue Granquist. She spends half her time here in L.A. working with the horror genre movie industry and the other half in Chicago around the Midwest convention circuit — and bringing our editor John O’Neill coffee. She and I have a strange relationship, and I swear if she wasn’t so damn Goth and I wasn’t so damn married, there would have been an illicit office affair years ago, but as it is we just have fun insulting each other as much as possible.

I took this picture about a month ago, while we were having lunch on the veranda outside the office on the ‘beach side’. Chick, as I affectionately call her, although hating the sun most days, had decided to join me for lunch and afterward sat on the railing with her back to the Pacific. I had a nice vantage point and told her, ‘Chick, I bet I could take a photo of you from here and then Photoshop the railing out of it to make you look like you were suspended in the clear blue SoCal sky.’ ‘Art,’ she said using her nickname for me, ‘I bet you a bag of black licorice jelly beans you can’t.’

Well, as you can see, I got those damnable jelly beans and they sit on my desk to feed to gulls swirling in the sea breeze out my window when I’m felling particularly peevish.

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A History of Godzilla on Film, Part 4: The Heisei Era (1984–1996)

A History of Godzilla on Film, Part 4: The Heisei Era (1984–1996)

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Godzilla 89Other Installments

Part 1: Origins (1954–1962)
Part 2: The Golden Age (1963–1968)
Part 3: Down and Out in Osaka (1969–1983)
Part 5: The Travesty and the Millennium Era (1996–2004)
Addendum: The 2014 Godzilla

The Underwhelming Comeback: The Return of Godzilla (1984) and Godzilla 1985

After an absence of nine years, Godzilla smashed back onto screens in 1984 in a film simply titled Godzilla (Gojira) in Japan, but marketed as The Return of Godzilla to English-speaking markets. In modern movie lingo, The Return of Godzilla is a reboot. It wipes from continuity all the previous G-films except Godzilla ’54 and fashions a new continuity: The Heisei Series.

The new movies developed a recognizable style, but The Return of Godzilla looks different from the installments that followed. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka aimed to capture the somber tone of the 1954 original and transplant the Godzilla nuclear metaphor into the 1980s Cold War. The monster, having somehow survived Dr. Yamane’s Oxygen Destroyer thirty years past, heads back toward Japan, squeezing the island country between the nuclear superpowers of the U.S. and Soviet Union. Scientists and the Japanese Self-Defense Force race to find a way to stop Godzilla before a greater nuclear confrontation arises.

It’s an ambitious, admirable premise. The actual movie fails to live up to it, either as a serious tale or as a monster show. While the Cold War background is intriguing, the human action is bland and no character stands out. The exception is the Japanese Prime Minister, whose scenes dealing with the U.S. and Soviet envoys evoke a true sense of Japan’s awareness of it legacy in the atomic age. Otherwise, the time spent away from Godzilla is a stodgy bore of people sitting around talking about all the things they aren’t doing, handled with workman-like direction from series newcomer Koji Hashimoto.

The effects scenes are hit-or-miss. The Return of Godzilla was Toho’s most expensive SF film at the time, and it gave VFX supervisor Teruyoshi Nakano his only hefty budget for a kaiju movie. This translated into a few spectacular sequences, such as Godzilla’s first engagement with the JSDF in Tokyo Bay, and the monster’s showdown with the movie’s special-tech weapon, the flying tank Super-X. Godzilla concludes the fight by toppling an entire skyscraper onto the Super-X. Now that’s how you do it!

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A Certain Charm Marred by an Air of the Horrible: Count Bohemond by Alfred Duggan

A Certain Charm Marred by an Air of the Horrible: Count Bohemond by Alfred Duggan

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oie_174413CCNNRiqmHistory provides us with real life characters who seem to have stepped straight out of myth. The scale of their ambition or power seems beyond the reach of mortals. Their successes verge on the unbelievable. And yet they are real. Bohemond de Hauteville, Prince of Taranto, was one of those people.

Alfred Duggan’s posthumous 1965 novel Count Bohemond presents the first half of Bohemond’s life: his rise to fame and victory set against the background of the faltering Byzantine Empire and culminating with the near miraculous victories of the First Crusade. This dense and captivating book covers the thirty-five years from Bohemond’s childhood to the height of his success and the capture of the fortified city of Antioch in 1098.

Though she disliked all Normans, and Bohemond in particular, Anna Komene, daughter of Emperor Alexius described him quite laudably in the Alexiad, a history of the Byzantine Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries:

Now he was such as, to put it briefly, had never before been seen in the land of the Romans (that is, Greeks), be he either of the barbarians or of the Greeks (for he was a marvel for the eyes to behold, and his reputation was terrifying). Let me describe the barbarian’s appearance more particularly — he was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms. And in the whole build of the body he was neither too slender nor overweighted with flesh, but perfectly proportioned and, one might say, built in conformity with the canon of Polycleitus… His skin all over his body was very white, and in his face the white was tempered with red. His hair was yellowish, but did not hang down to his waist like that of the other barbarians; for the man was not inordinately vain of his hair, but had it cut short to the ears. Whether his beard was reddish, or any other color I cannot say, for the razor had passed over it very closely and left a surface smoother than chalk…

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New Treasures: Wildside Double #6 — Alien StarSwarm by Robert Sheckley / Human’s Burden by Damien Broderick & Rory Barnes

New Treasures: Wildside Double #6 — Alien StarSwarm by Robert Sheckley / Human’s Burden by Damien Broderick & Rory Barnes

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Alien Starswarm Robert Sheckley-smallWith all the recent attention we’ve been giving to the classic Ace Doubles by Andre Norton, Harlan Ellison, Murray Leinster, and others, I would be remiss to not point out that Wildside Press has recently revived the tradition of the Ace Double with a handsome series of back-to-back short novels (novellas, really). It looks like they’re pairing hard-to-find reprints with original fiction, which I think is a terrific idea.

They’ve assembled a crackerjack list of writers, too — including Robert Sheckley, Damien Broderick & Rory Barnes, Edmond Hamilton, Harl Vincent, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Brian Stableford, Howard V. Hendrix, Philip Jose Farmer, Randall Garrett, Robert Silverberg, Pamela Sargent, and many others. So far, they’ve produced over 30, which is pretty darned impressive.

I bought an assortment of titles to try them out, and the one that commanded my attention immediately was #6 — Robert Sheckley’s Alien StarSwarm, paired with Human’s Burden, by Damien Broderick & Rory Barnes. Likely that’s due to the gorgeous covers by Emsh (Ed Emshwiller), one of the greatest (if not the greatest) cover artists our genre has ever seen. The Sheckley side features a nicely re-colored version of the cover of the February 1957 issue of the short-lived magazine Infinity Science Fiction. Here’s the book description for Alien StarSwarm.

Salvatore commands the battleship Endymion. He’s seen his share of battles and fought them bravely, too. So he doesn’t hesitate when beautiful Princess Hatari pleads for his help. She wants to regain her throne, but it may be more than Salvatore can accomplish, for the deadly race known as the Balderdash has taken over the planet Melchior — and now, even his own men have turned against him. Bred to fight, he accepts the challenge!

Alien StarSwarm was originally published as a 96-page chapbook from a company called DimeNovels way back in 1990. It certainly qualifies as hard-to-find… I’ve never even seem a copy (here’s a snap of the cover, just to prove it exists.) It has never before been reprinted — so if you’re a Sheckley fan, this may be the only way you’re going to find it.

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Blogging Arak 13: Arak Gets Satyrical

Blogging Arak 13: Arak Gets Satyrical

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Arak_Vol_1_13Issue 13, “The Demons from the Dark!” (or “Demons from the Caves of Night!”, depending on whether you go by the cover or by the splash page), marked a second year for the series and DC seemed to have a contender on their hands to cash in on sword-and-sorcery popularity of the day.

The issue is dated September 1982. Clash of the Titans and Dragonslayer had brought mythological fantasy to the big screen a year earlier (Greek and medieval respectively, which Roy Thomas was fusing here in novel ways). Conan the Barbarian that summer — at the very time this comic hit the racks, since dating on monthly periodicals tends to lag by a month or two — was turning Arnold Schwarzenegger into a star at the drive-ins and the newfangled multiplexes. Dungeons & Dragons was firmly established as a cultural phenomenon.

Yes, legendary wizards, warriors, and monsters were becoming fixtures in the American household and DC had scored a coup by getting for this foray into the genre Roy Thomas, the writer who had turned Conan into a successful comic franchise over at their rival Marvel.

That Arak never spun off his own movie, or television cartoon, or toy line (he did get one scarce figure in 1982 from Remco) is no basis on which to judge the series. So let’s dive right back in to the story where we left off: with one dead centaur, one missing Valda, one new satyr sidekick, and one befuddled Arak…

We open with Arak and Satyricus coming upon a band of Saracens slaying monks. Satyricus stays true to his established character trait of wishing to avoid confrontation (unless said confrontation involves young, nubile women). You can probably guess what Arak thinks about Satyricus’s suggestion of giving the scene of carnage a wide berth. As the narration informs us:

“The Quontauka’s only answer is a black-maned, well-chiseled head thrown wildly back, and a battle cry which echoes through these Grecian hills: ‘HAIII-YAAAH!’”

Satyricus is clearly going to be providing plenty of comic relief throughout his stint: “I – I wish you wouldn’t DO that! You nearly scared the ichor out of me!”

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