Black Gate – Page 980 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Goth Chick News Reviews: The Supernaturals: A Ghost Story

Thursday, January 23, 2014 Sue Granquist Comments 2 comments

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is not only an American horror classic, but is one of my favorite scary tales of all time, largely due to the fact Ms. Jackson relies on the psychological scare rather than in-your-face gore.

Flying brain matter and buckets of blood can occasionally be well-constructed story elements — for instance, Charlaine Harris does a fine job with her Southern Vampire Mysteries series, though her stories are on the lighthearted side. However mixing hardcore horror with an over-the-top amount of visceral matter is like pairing fishnet stockings with a leather mini skirt.

One or the other alone is stylish; but put them together and they’ll get your attention for all the wrong, cheesy reasons.

Unfortunately, with CGI taking realism in film to a new, stomach-turning level, the horror genre in all its manifestations has upped the gross-out factor. Which is why I was rather excited when Amazon suggested David L. Golemon’s 2011 Halloween release The Supernaturals to me as a “you-might-also-like,” when I recently purchased a new hard-bound copy of Hill House.

Golemon is best known for his Event Group Thriller series — which admittedly I have shied away from as potentially too X-Files-esque (there’s just no copying some things). But The Supernaturals was a departure from Golemon’s usual fare, and the back story caught my attention.

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Death Knight Love Story: WMA meets WTF

Thursday, January 23, 2014 Comments 0 Comment

Tauren Ninja — …ninja Minotaurs (my idea, apparently)

About ten years ago, I tried to stab this crazy Goth guy and he threw me through a pile of chairs.

Fortunately, we were doing WMA — Western Martial Arts and the daggers were blunt and we were wearing body armor. The chairs however, were real, but the impact fixed my shoulder, which had been painful for the previous month or so. I took this as a good omen and Hugh Hancock and I have been close friends ever since.

hughhancock — Hugh is an independent animator, think Ed Wood does Machinima but actually good.

Hugh is an independent animator, think Ed Wood does Machinima but actually good.

That’s how, years later, I ended up in a warehouse clad in skintight spandex and clutching a plastic sword.

Hugh had had this slightly bonkers idea. He would take the Death Knights from World of Warcraft and use them to make a love story.

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Observations: The Return of the King Movie

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 Jon Sprunk Comments 3 comments

Hey, folks. Today I’m wrapping up my series about The Lord of the Rings movies with the third installment: The Return of the King (following The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers).

The third film begins with Gollum’s origin tale, telling how he came to be, well, Gollum. Smeagol and his friend Deagol are fishing when Deagol falls in the river and accidentally discovers the One Ring. Smeagol kills Deagol for it and afterward is exiled, forced to live a miserable existence under the Misty Mountains. The main point of this scene is to show us (again) the Ring’s power to inspire intense desire in anyone who sees it.

We then move to Frodo, gazing at the Ring while Sam sleeps. The desire is obvious in his eyes, a reminder that the Ring is taking control. Gollum wakes them to get moving. In a cute exchange that reveals he’s the only remaining optimist in the group, Sam is rationing their food so they have enough for the journey back home.

Aragorn and company (now with Gandalf, King Theoden, and Eomer) ride to Isengard. Merry and Pippin are there to greet them, being silly with the pipeweed. In previous viewings, I missed that this mini-scene is important because it marks the starting place for the two young hobbits, smoking and feasting and drinking. They will never be this naïve and carefree again.

I also love how Treebeard greets Gandalf as “young master Gandalf,” like he’s a little kid. My grandfather used to greet me the same way (without the ‘Gandalf,’ obviously) and it still makes me smile.

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Vintage Treasures: Shardik by Richard Adams

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 John ONeill Comments 11 comments

I’m frequently asked what my favorite fantasy novel is. I don’t have a standard answer — some days it’s The Lord of the Rings, some days Bridge of Birds. If I can get away with it, I sometime say Lord of Light, although that’s secretly science fiction (shhh).

But as the years go by, more and frequently I find myself saying Watership Down, by Richard Adams.

Watership Down is a brilliant book — wholly original, uniquely English in both setting and viewpoint, and possessed of the most exciting and satisfying climax I’ve ever read (go Bigwig, you magnificent Owsla, you.) But it’s far from Adam’s only fantasy novel — or even his only worldwide fantasy bestseller. He also wrote The Plague Dogs, the tale of two dogs on the run from a secretive testing facility in Britain; Traveller, a retelling of the American Civil War through the eyes of Robert E. Lee’s favorite horse; the massive Maia, the story of a sex slave in a fantasy empire; and his short story collection Tales from Watership Down.

And in 1974, only two years after Watership Down, he produced perhaps his most ambitious novel, the epic fantasy Shardik, which The Wall Street Journal said “Grips with suspense, haunts with mystery… not to be read once but to be reread as loved books are.”

Shardik struck a chord with readers after it appeared. Fantasy fans expected another animal fantasy, but perhaps weren’t expecting the depth of world-building and political intrigue in Adams’ Beklan Empire, or his powerful antagonist, the giant god-bear Shardik.

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Legendary ConFusion

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones Comments 6 comments

howard confusion 2014 — That’s me having a good time at the con. Myke Cole’s in profile directly behind me. Photo by Al Bogdan.

ConFusion is a regional convention in Detroit, well organized by friendly staff who cook up interesting panel topics and are always on hand if you have any issues or concerns. The attendees are friendly and ask great questions of panelists, and there’s a larger author presence than I’ve usually seen at smaller conventions. If you’re actively trying to avoid well-known writers when you head to the bar, or even walk down the hallway, you’re out of luck.

I’ve made it a regular stop every year for the last three, when Saladin Ahmed first invited me up, and I’ve been looking forward to the return trip all winter.

I arrived in the Detroit area early Friday morning and then spent the day wandering around with my brother-in-arms (well, words), John Chris Hocking, and we had a fantastic visit, then a wonderful meal with his wife Cinda. Afterwards, Chris took me to three great Ann Arbor bookstores: The Dawn Treader, The Vault of Midnight, and Aunt Agatha’s, an award winning bookstore specializing in mystery. Given my newfound interest in noir (discussed here and here), it was a great place to be, and Hocking, being a noir expert, was a fabulous guide — not to mention a generous one. Not only did he present me with several duplicates from his own collection, he insisted on purchasing a number of books for me that I HAD to read. I eagerly accepted them. I don’t know that Hocking’s suggestions have ever steered me wrong.

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Art of the Genre: Interview with Jack Crane

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 Scott Taylor Comments 11 comments

You know, sometimes your boss just refuses to let you enjoy your life… It’s no different here at Black Gate L.A. even though our intrepid editor-in-chief John O’Neill is thousands of miles away in Illinois.

I mean, take this month as a perfect example. On any given day the sun is shining, my office partner Ryan Harvey is talking non-stop about the upcoming release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Kandi, our secretary, is whispering/weeping to her agent about her lack of a callback, but all in all life is pretty good.

Then wouldn’t you know it, I get a text from the aforementioned Mr. O’Neill to gather up my winter gear and before you can utter the words ‘polar vortex’ I’m on a flight to Pennsylvania for an interview.

Now granted, it is an interview of a lifetime, breaking bread and talking shop with legendary Dragon Magazine cover artist Jack Crane, but nonetheless couldn’t Dr. Evil himself have picked early autumn to get this copy?!

Anyway, off I went to brave the cold, first to Philadelphia and then on up the Westchester Pike to the fine and frosty town of elven thousand souls, Broomall, PA. If you’ve never been to Broomall, I wouldn’t suggest going when it is -8 degrees, but still it is a fine little piece of Americana.

With my sightseeing limited, I headed to Phil A Mignon, a nice down home pizza and burger joint to meet with Jack before going to his studio. My order, well a ‘filet cheese steak’ of course, and some highly recommended raspberry peppercorn wings. It was darn fine food, and the filet was incredible compared to the standard greasy Philly steaks.

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At the Intersection of Merritt and Howard

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 James Maliszewski Comments 2 comments

I’m a big proponent of taking note of literary anniversaries, particularly of the birthdays of authors of whom I am fond. January is chock full of such birthdays – J.R.R. Tolkien on January 3; Clark Ashton Smith on January 13; Edgar Allan Poe on January 19. Had my weekly blog slot fallen on one of those dates, I almost certainly would have taken the time to commemorate their births, since they’ve all exercised an unshakeable influence over my imagination.

As it happened, though, my slot this week didn’t fall on the birthdays of any writer of my acquaintance. Instead, it fell between the birthdays of two scribes whose memories I hold dear. Yesterday was the birthday of Abraham Merritt and tomorrow is that of Robert E. Howard. Over the years, I’ve written multiple celebrations of these men and their contributions, both to the world of letters and to my own life. I think this only just, given how much enjoyment Merritt and Howard have offered to me, despite being decades in the grave before my own birth (indeed, both died before the births of my parents). And so I shall continue my practice this year.

The difficulty, though, is in finding something new to say about these men that I have not said before. That’s a tall order and, whenever this time of year rolls around, I worry that I’ll simply repeat things I’ve said many times before. Perhaps that’s not an unworthy anxiety, especially since truths does not become less true if they are repeated often. The truth is that Merritt and Howard have each, in their way, made me the man I am today and it’s difficult to conceive of a version of myself that had not discovered and devoured their works.

Just as true, though, is the fact that I first made their acquaintance thanks to Dungeons & Dragons – and it’s on this foundation that I shall build this year’s commemoration of these two titans of fantasy.

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Gonji: The Deathwind Trilogy by T. C. Rypel

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 6 comments

Drift back in time to the eighties when swords & sorcery was preparing to die, at least as a force in fantasy publishing. Where once Andrew Offutt and Lin Carter as well as Robert E. Howard packed the shelves of your local B. Dalton, they were about to be crowded out by the rise of the Tolkien clones. Exciting authors like Charles R. Saunders who were leading S&S down new paths would see their heroic fiction production curtailed by sales numbers that didn’t meet publishers’ expectations.

Today, technological advancements have paved the way for the return of ancient adventurers. The internet has allowed old and new fans to find each other and connect with writers to create a camaraderie of creators and consumers. Quality print-on-demand publishing, e-books, and small presses using those tools have led to the resurrection of several heroes, including Saunders’ own Imaro and Dossouye. Another of those revived heroes is T. C. Rypel’s Gonji, a half-Japanese, half-Scandinavian warrior first introuduced thirty years ago, wandering the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains in search of a mysterious force known as the Deathwind.

When T. C. Rypel delivered his first novel to Zebra Books back in the early eighties it was over thirteen-hundred pages long. While that’s nothing peculiar these days, back then it was seen as unprecedented and Zebra’s response was to break it up into three distinct books. Rypel’s titles for the resultant three volumes were Red Blade from the East, The Soul Within the Steel, and Deathwind of Vedun. Zebra decided to take Rypel’s third title and reassign it to the first book, then re-title the last two Samurai Steel and Samurai Conflict. Their changes provide a hint of what the publisher had in store for the books.

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New Treasures: Bone Dance by Emma Bull

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 John ONeill Comments 14 comments

I’m not all that familiar with the fantasy of the 90s. That’s the decade I graduated, got a job, got married, had three kids… and my leisure reading time fell to zero. Things got better after the year 2000 as life settled back into a routine, but when I look back at the major publishing events of that decade, things are still kinda fuzzy.

Fortunately, I’m not the only person working at Black Gate. In fact, I’m surrounded by annoying young people who first discovered fantasy in the 90s, and devoured everything on the shelves. I can’t walk to the water cooler without overhearing them go on and on about the books that first turned them into fantasy fans. And the more I listen, the more I realize that they’re talking about Emma Bull.

Emma Bull is not a prolific writer. Her first novel War for the Oaks made a huge splash in 1987; it was followed by Falcon (1989), Bone Dance (1991), Finder (1994), The Princess and the Lord of Night (1994), Freedom and Necessity (1997, co-written with Steven Brust) and Territory (2007). I finally decided it was time to find out how someone can win over an entire generation with half a dozen fantasy novels, and figured I’d start with Bone Dance.

Sparrow’s my name. Trader. Deal-maker. Hustler, some call me. I work the Night Fair circuit, buying and selling pre-nuke videos from the world before. I know how to get a high price, especially on Big Bang collectibles. But the hottest ticket of all is information on the Horsemen — the mind-control weapons that tilted the balance in the war between the Americas. That’s the prize I’m after.

But it seems I’m having trouble controlling my own mind. The Horsemen are coming.

Bone Dance was nominated for a ridiculous number of awards — the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, and even the Philip K. Dick Award. It was originally published in paperback by Ace in May, 1991, with a typical 80s art by Jean Pierre Targete, who looked like he was trying to paint Corey Hart on the cover. It was reprinted in a handsome trade paperback edition by Tor/Orb Books on July 7, 2009, and this cover has much more of a YA feel — and a new subtitle: “Fantasy for Technophiles.” Bone Dance is 317 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback, or $7.99 for the digital edition. I bought a discounted trade edition at Amazon for just $6.40 — copies are still available if you act fast.

Godzilla Interruption: All Monsters Attack… Because Nobody Talks about It Much

Tuesday, January 21, 2014 Ryan Harvey Comments 3 comments

I now interrupt my continuing “History of Godzilla on Film” to bring you an Up Close and Personal look at one particular movie: 1969’s All Monsters Attack, also known as Godzilla’s Revenge.

It seems like an out-of-left field pick, since this movie has a poor reputation among the kaiju fans. As film historian Richard Pusateri says on the audio commentary for the current DVD: “Fans cannot decide if this is the worst movie of the series, or the second worst.”

However, I picked this movie for spotlight attention because it rarely receives any attention. Most Godzilla fans have seen it all the way through only once — probably in the English-dubbed version — and then left it on the shelf. With its chunks of stock footage lifted from earlier Godzilla films, fantasy elements that relegate the monsters to existence only in the imagination, and a target audience of third- and fourth-grade children, All Monsters Attack is easy for adult viewers to dismiss.

However, the movie contains elements unique among the classic Godzilla series that make it worthy of discussion. And for good or bad, it does have SF legend Ishiro Honda in the director’s chair in his penultimate Godzilla movie.

So let us go pay a visit to late-1960s industrialized Japan and meet a bullied latchkey kid with dreams of monsters.

The Background of All Monsters Attack

Toho Studios planned to conclude the Godzilla series with 1968’s epic Destroy All Monsters. But their resolution did not hold for long. Although the studio system would not collapse for another year, Toho’s movies were doing less business because of television’s popularity. When the studio heads decided to make another Godzilla movie, it was because they devised a way to make it as inexpensively as possible.

Rival studio Daiei’s 1968 movie Gamera vs. Viras inspired Toho’s choice. The Gamera film (released in the U.S. as Destroy All Planets) used battle footage from two previous Gamera movies to expand the running time and reduce the budget, and it used child heroes for direct appeal to the kiddie crowd. Toho gave instructions to producer Tomoyuki Tanaka to create a Godzilla film for children that made extensive use of existing special effects footage.

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