Black Gate – Page 980 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Winter 2014 Subterranean Magazine now Available

Monday, January 13, 2014 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

How does Subterranean magazine get such gorgeous covers, issue after issue? Editor Bill Schafer must keep a host of talented artists chained up in the basement. I wish I’d thought of that.

The Winter Issue isn’t just a pretty face — it’s got personality, too. Have a look at the spectacular table of contents:

“The Scrivener” by Eleanor Arnason
“Bit Players” by Greg Egan
“The Prelate’s Commission” by Jeffrey Ford
“Nanny Anne and the Christmas Story” by Karen Joy Fowler
“Hayfever” by Frances Hardinge
“Caligo Lane” by Ellen Klages
“I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There” by K J Parker
“Pilgrims of the Round World” by Bruce Sterling

We published Jeffrey Ford’s “Exo-Skeleton Town” back in Black Gate 1. It won the 2006 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, the French national speculative fiction award, and has been reprinted many times — including in the anthology Alien Contact, where editor Marty Halpern said:

This is probably the quirkiest story in the anthology. And it remains one of the more unique story concepts I’ve ever read. In fact, even though I’m the editor, I’m almost tempted to ask Jeff: “Where the hell did this idea come from?”…

You can read the complete story here. We published Ellen Klages wonderful fantasy “A Taste of Summer” in Black Gate 3; she has since been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Campbell, and World Fantasy Awards for her short fiction.

Subterranean is edited by William Schafer and published quarterly. The Winter 2014 issue is completely free and available here; see their complete back issue catalog here. We last covered Subterranean magazine with their previous issue, Fall 2013.

New Treasures: The Woodcutter by Kate Danley

Sunday, January 12, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

47North, Amazon’s new fantasy, SF and horror imprint, launched with considerable fanfare in October 2011, and I’ve been watching it with interest ever since. Several genre publishers have quietly cut back — or folded — over the last few years, so I’m always relieved to see the cycle of life continuing, and new imprints emerge. But just as importantly, new publishers bring new editorial ideas and a willingness to take chances, and that means a healthy crop of new authors.

Kate Danley is one of those new authors, and 47North published her debut novel a little over a year ago. The Woodcutter opens with strong fairy tale elements, and quickly takes a darker tone — with missing girls, hellhounds, and a pixie dust drug ring.

Deep within the Wood, a young woman lies dead. Not a mark on her body. No trace of her murderer. Only her chipped glass slippers hint at her identity.

The Woodcutter, keeper of the peace between the Twelve Kingdoms of Man and the Realm of the Faerie, must find the maiden’s killer before others share her fate. Guided by the wind and aided by three charmed axes won from the River God, the Woodcutter begins his hunt, searching for clues in the whispering dominions of the enchanted unknown.

But quickly he finds that one murdered maiden is not the only nefarious mystery afoot: one of Odin’s hellhounds has escaped, a sinister mansion appears where it shouldn’t, a pixie dust drug trade runs rampant, and more young girls go missing. Looming in the shadows is the malevolent, power-hungry queen, and she will stop at nothing to destroy the Twelve Kingdoms and annihilate the Royal Fae… unless the Woodcutter can outmaneuver her and save the gentle souls of the Wood.

Since The Woodcutter appeared Kate Danley has been very busy, releasing three volumes in the Maggie MacKay Magical Tracker series, two O’Hare House Mysteries, a collaboration with William Shakespeare (Queen Mab: A Tale Entwined with William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet), the Christmas tale The Spirit of Krampus, and more.

The Woodcutter was published by 47North on November 6, 2012. It is 273 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $3.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Was Star Trek‘s Theme Music Stolen From Beethoven?

Sunday, January 12, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The CBC’s Tom Allen and the Gryphon Trio do some amazing musical detective work, following the clues from Mahler to Brahms to Beethoven to the 23rd Century, in this delightful single-take through the twisted subterranean corridors of Paul Hahn’s piano studio in Toronto. Also starring teleporting pianist Jamie Parker, and a little cosplay.

Heroic Fantasy with the Sharp Edge of Reality: The Sacred Band by Janet Morris and Chris Morris

Sunday, January 12, 2014 Joe Bonadonna Comments 7 comments

The Sacred Band
Janet Morris and Chris Morris
Perseid Press (547 pages, June 2011, $24.95)

All three hundred of the Sacred Band of Thebes fought at Chaeronea in August of 338 BCE, and two-hundred fifty-four skeletons lie buried there today under a granite lion. Some still argue about the fate of the forty-six whose skeletons were not recovered. Plutarch says that they died together, and Philip of Macedon wept to see it. Another, later, view is that the remainder surrendered, were taken prisoner, or deserted. We tell a different story.

— Janet and Chris Morris, in their Authors’ Notes and Acknowledgments from The Sacred Band

And this is the premise behind this wonderfully rich, complex, dramatic and highly emotional epic of gods, demi-gods and Men. This is the story of how Tempus the Black, Favorite of Enlil, Storm God of the Armies, and the one they call Riddler, challenged the gods to rescue twenty-three pairs of Thebans, forty-six warriors who had been fated to die. And rescue them he did… Charon, Lysis and the other forty-four men of the original Sacred Band of Thebes… by opening a dimensional portal from Chaeronea to Lemuria, where they were taken, trained and made part of the greater Sacred Band.

This is the also the story of Nicodemus, who is called Niko and Stealth, a true weapon of the gods, of his own struggle with becoming the favorite, the avatar of a god, and his intimate relation with the goddess Harmony.

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Starting to Kick Farewell, Something Lovely

Saturday, January 11, 2014 FraserRonald Comments 0 Comment

Last night I started a new Kickstarter campaign. For those of you who just asked “what’s a Kickstarter?” you can learn more here. Basically, it is a site that links together people interested in investing in projects with those who require funding. These are generally smaller projects, sometimes creative, sometimes technological. Explore the site. There’s lots to see.

This is my second Kickstarter. I’ve mentioned my Kickstarter for Centurion: Legionaries of Rome, a role-playing game, here. I’ll have more to say about that once I get the final tally for shipping costs.

The new Kickstarter is a short fiction collection called Farewell, Something Lovely. I’ve subtitled it “Tales of Sword Noir,” working yet again the title of a sub- sub-genre in which I like to write. To me, sword noir is basically a mash-up of sword & sorcery and hardboiled crime fiction, falling more heavily on the sword & sorcery side. One of the stories re-printed in Farewell, Something Lovely first appeared in Black Gate 15.

Kickstarter offers a great opportunities for freelance creatives, including fiction authors. There are actually better paying markets for short fiction than there are for role-playing games, however there are less of them. E-books have certainly created opportunities for the “insurgent creative” – a term coined by Gareth-Michael Skarka – however Kickstarter offers an even better opportunity, at least in my mind.

Kickstarter provides two factors up-front that e-books or other self-publishing routes do not: market testing and funding.

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Is Fantasy Inherently Not Political?

Saturday, January 11, 2014 Derek Kunsken Comments 13 comments

Recently, a columnist in The New Yorker discussed how literary work has ceased discussing politics and has accepted the prevailing economic assumptions and political models. He noted that the political discourse that is happening in literature is happening in science fiction and went on to illustrate forward-looking political principles featured in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series.

It’s easy to think of other examples of science fiction as a vehicle for political argument, all the way back to H.G. Wells and into today with the Unincorporated Man by Dani and Eytan Kollin, or Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross, or too many to list. The Libertarian Futurist Society even offers the Prometheus Award annually for libertarian science fiction.

A small Canadian publisher, Bundoran Press, is starting to carve itself out a niche with its concern with science fiction as a vehicle for political discourse with an Aurora-winning anthology called Blood & Water*, about the resource wars to be fought in the 21st century, and a new one, already available for pre-order, called Strange Bedfellows: An Anthology of Political Science Fiction. So, without a doubt, science fiction is actively and increasingly involved in political discussion.

So, does the same go for fantasy? On Wednesday, Black Gate columnist M. Harold Page tackled the question, with his article Why Medieval Fantasy is Not Inherently Conservative (or Inherently Anything Political).

What about more contemporary fantasy? I tried to think of some examples, but I’m not sure the zombie apocalypse can count as a legitimate part of a political argument. I asked David Hartwell, who has experience anthologizing the year’s best science fiction as well as the year’s best fantasy. He viewed fantasy as being more concerned with pastoral situations and identity politics.

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New Treasures: Bloodstone by Gillian Philip

Saturday, January 11, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Back in May I reported on Firebrand, a new novel by Gillian Philip, first volume in her Rebel Angels series. Here’s what I said, in part:

Firebrand seems like exactly the kind of fast-paced adventure Black Gate readers are interested in… The second and third volumes, Bloodstone and Wolfsbane, are already in print in the UK. Interestingly, while all three books are marketed as YA there, Tor has mainstreamed them here in the US. It’s an interesting switch, and I’m curious to see how the market reacts.

The reviews were strong, as it turns out. Publishers Weekly called it “A stirring tale of loyalty and love,” and over at SF Site Dave Truesdale drew parallels with none other than Lord Dunsany:

Packed with Machiavellian court intrigue of the most cold-blooded sort, horrible monster-beings from the realm of faery in league with Queen Kate, and the looming threat of the world of faery possibly destroyed forever, Firebrand is a fresh and welcome reimagining of oft-worked ground first laid out by Lord Dunsany and, as Dunsany wrote, far “beyond the fields we know.”

He had me a “horrible monster-beings from the realm of faery.” Bring on Book Two!

The second volume, Bloodstone, has now arrived. In this installment Sithe warriors Seth and Conal MacGregor continue their hunt for the Bloodstone demanded by their Queen, making secret expeditions across the Veil… with violent consequences that may devastate their family and their entire clan.

Bloodstone was published by Tor on November 19, 2013. It is 399 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover, and $11.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Game & Comic Wrestlemania: Slammed and Rival Angels

Friday, January 10, 2014 alanajoli Comments 0 Comment

Slammed art by Jason Wiser — *Slammed* art by Jason Wiser

There’s an odd intersection of SFF and professional wrestling fandoms. It surprised me when I first encountered it, but since then, I’ve become a devoted reader of Rival Angels, a woman’s pro wrestling comic by Alan Evans, and one of my favorite Choice of Games titles is Slammed by Paolo Chikiamco. Since neither is technically fantasy (although there’s definitely an element of the fantastic to pro wrestling), I’m stretching the inclusion criteria a bit for my spotlights by covering both of them together. If you’re not into the WWE, read on to see if you can be convinced that the best wrestlemania might not be on Pay Per View…

In Slammed, you play an up-and-coming professional wrestler, trying to make your name in the world and striving to compete for one of wrestling’s biggest titles. From the beginning, Chikiamco has the characters — and the PC — acknowledge that wrestling is scripted, and that a lot of the challenges revolve around how you choose to portray yourself to the fans. Are you going to be a face — a “kayfabe” — who’s a hero, or are you a trash-talking villain on stage (but a consummate professional in the locker room)? But while your career provides the context for the story, the real plot is about your relationship with a wrestler from your past — a college friend who once held you responsible for a tragedy that impacted her wrestling career. (Note: she was female in my game; she may be male in other playthroughs.) Now at the top of her game and a rising star in her own right, will she reach out to you as an ally? Or will you be enemies? And how much of the truth will you reveal to your fans?

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Vintage Teasures: To Keep or Kill by Wilson Tucker

Friday, January 10, 2014 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Wilson Tucker is a fascinating author. Although he wrote several acclaimed SF novels, including the Hugo and Nebula nominee The Year of the Quiet Sun (1970), and was even inducted into The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2003, he’s remembered today chiefly for his tireless contributions to fandom. Well, that and his habit of putting his friends into his novels — so much so that the literary term for this practice now bears his name: tuckerization. Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t even know who Wilson Tucker is today if it weren’t for the huge impact he had on modern fandom.

But I do know who he is, and as part of my journey through the rich history of our genre, I thought it was high time to try one of his novels. But which one? The post-apocalyptic adventure The Long Loud Silence (1952), which Damon Knight called “phenomenally good… as near perfection as makes no difference”? His famous time-travel novel The Lincoln Hunters (1958), which Stephen King referenced in 11/22/63? His underrated fiction collection, The Best of Wilson Tucker (1982)?

I’m kidding, of course. I knew which one I wanted to read the instant I laid eyes on it: To Keep or Kill, Tucker’s second Charles Horne mystery. Horne is a small town detective from Central Illinois who reliably runs afoul of the kind of femme fatales and crooked mobsters that I thought only showed up in L.A, not right here in my home state.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Ten

Friday, January 10, 2014 William Patrick Maynard Comments 2 comments

“The Trail of the Vulke” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from February 7 to April 26, 1955.

This is an interesting tale that sees Barry re-examining two of his favorite themes — myths and religious fanaticism.

The story kicks off with Flash driving up to Dale’s house for a dinner date and finding her home dark. Warily, he enters the house and Barry shows us menacing shadowy figures watching from the window in the front room.

It turns out to be a surprise birthday party for Flash thrown by Dale and the Space Kids. Improbably, they have arranged the rental of a rocketship from the Space Academy to allow Flash and the Space Kids to travel to Zoriana and pay a visit to Cyril and Mr. Pennington. Barry gets some mileage out of portraying Flash as henpecked and having to ask Dale permission to have an adventure. In no time at all, Flash and the boys are off to the stars and arrive on Zoriana in due course.

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