When One Window Closes . . .

When One Window Closes . . .

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Princess BrideA friend of mine has stated – many times – that he won’t date anyone who doesn’t love The Princess Bride, or Rioja wine. It’s the former that’s important to me at the moment, even though I love a good Rioja myself. Actually, my friend thinks that Princess Bride is the best movie of all time, and I think he’s absolutely right. Except that he’s also absolutely wrong.

We’ve all had the experience of sharing some beloved book, or film, or piece of music with someone, and being disappointed by their tepid reaction. You know. They’re like, polite. What’s more, we’ve all disappointed others in the same way. Like it or not, when this occurs, we do feel differently about each other. And neither side is wrong, but neither side is right, either.

Welcome to my Window Theory of Emotional Response. Otherwise known as the Princess Bride Paradox, the Star Wars Syndrome, the Heinlein Hypothesis, or – dare I say it? – the Frodo Phenomenon. In a nutshell, here it is: for you to have a deep emotional response to something cultural, your exposure to it has to have come at the right time for you.

My theory builds from the phrase many of us have used in other contexts, “that window’s closed.” AKA “that ship has sailed.” Both phrases imply that there was a period of time when something was possible, that the window was “open,” and then, it wasn’t. The opportunity is lost. For a piece of culture to move you, to change the way you think about yourself and the world around you, you have to encounter it at precisely the right age, or the right level of emotional maturity or development or – call it what you will.

Or you haven’t, and that window’s closed for you.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Eight

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Eight

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1157a55_d__0_FlashGordon1950sTVStarringStev2“Peril Park” by Dan Barry was serialized by King Features Syndicate from August 31 to November 13, 1954. I’ve begun to develop a fondness for Barry’s rather unique take on the character. He is a far cry from Alex Raymond, but his version is not without charm and these early 1950s strips did much to influence the Flash Gordon television series of the fifties.

“Peril Park” opens with a tranquil scene of Flash and Dale enjoying a summer day boating on the lake when Flash discovers a message in a bottle. The twist is that the message was written 600 years in the future by a woman called Elda who claims to be held captive on an island in the very lake where Flash and Dale are relaxing.

Dale is eager to let the matter lie, but Flash cannot and, with Dr. Zarkov’s help, he whisks forward six centuries via the time-space projector in Zarkov’s lab. The time travel scenes are rendered in a highly inventive fashion that suggests an influence on the trippy astral projection art pioneered by Steve Ditko on Marvel’s Doctor Strange a decade later.

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Goth Chick News: When Visiting Hemlock Grove, Better “Late” Than Never

Goth Chick News: When Visiting Hemlock Grove, Better “Late” Than Never

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Hemlock Grove-smallDid someone give you a Netflix subscription for the holidays? Then I have two words for you and your shiny new queue.

Hemlock Grove.

Never heard of it? Neither have a lot of people. If you are anything like me, then you have never even seen Hemlock Grove pop up in your Netflix recommendations. Heck, chances are, you may have never heard about Hemlock Grove before reading this post.

But that’s OK; because Netflix didn’t make the show for us.

Unlike its other two pet projects which Netflix has spent a lot of effort promoting, Arrested Development and House of Cards, they purposely made very little fuss about Hemlock Grove when it launched back in April. It’s aimed at an audience of teenage horror fans and Netflix had the numbers to know that this audience is engaged enough on the streaming service to make a title like Hemlock Grove succeed.

So, why do the rest of us care?

Hemlock Grove is an American horror/thriller series from executive producer Eli Roth (Grindhouse and Hostel) and developed by Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman. It is based on McGreevy’s 2012 novel Hemlock Grove.

The show examines the strange happenings in a fictional town in Pennsylvania where a teenage girl is brutally murdered, sparking a hunt for her killer.

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Why Evil Overlords Need to be Competent

Why Evil Overlords Need to be Competent

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Sauron-small

56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.

 (From The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord by Peter Anspach)

We geeks love to laugh at the incompetent evil overlords of TV and cinema Fantasy. In the past we tolerated them because — like 1970s gays embracing their own particular reading of Batman — we were pathetically grateful for whatever bones mainstream culture deigns to toss our way. However, we never really put up with this in printed Fantasy.

Obviously, if the Evil Overlord does not exploit his every possible advantage, then we cease to believe in them (if they are so stupid, how come they got to be an Evil Overlord?). Our suspension of disbelief collapses, and we are catapulted out of the story.

However, there’s a deeper reason to reject incompetent Evil Overlords. They result in stories that teach false wisdoms with obnoxious implications.

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New Treasures: The Yard by Alex Grecian

New Treasures: The Yard by Alex Grecian

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The Yard Alex Grecian-smallI’m always disciplined when I visit a bookstore. I go in, get what I came for, and leave. I look neither left nor right. Get in, get out, that’s my motto.

You’re right. I’m totally lying. I’m lucky if I even remember why I came to the bookstore by the time I get to the cash register. My arms are usually full, I have a dazed expression, and I’m no longer sure exactly where I am. Thank God the folks behind the counter recognize me by now. It saves a lot of time and embarrassment.

I usually stick to the SF and fantasy sections, but every once in a while something irresistible will cross my path. Something like The Yard, the start of a new gas-lamp mystery series by Alex Glexian, author of the popular Image comic Proof. A first glance The Yard doesn’t seem to include any of the gonzo steampunk action or bizarre characters of Proof — or indeed, anything overtly supernatural — but I find it very appealing nonetheless.

1889, London. Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror is finally over, but a new one is just beginning.

Victorian London — a violent cesspool of squalid depravity. Only twelve detectives — The Murder Squad — are expected to solve the thousands of crimes committed here each month. Formed after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure in capturing Jack the Ripper, the Murder Squad suffers the brunt of public contempt. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own…

A Scotland Yard Inspector has been found stuffed in a black steamer trunk at Euston Square Station, his eyes and mouth sewn shut. When Walter Day, the squad’s new hire, is assigned to the case, he finds a strange ally in Dr. Bernard Kingsley, the Yard’s first forensic pathologist. Their grim conclusion: this was not just a random, bizarre murder but in all probability, the first of twelve. Because the squad itself it being targeted and the devious killer shows no signs of stopping before completing his grim duty. But Inspector Day has one more surprise, something even more shocking than the crimes: the killer’s motive.

This is the author’s first novel. Grecian has already penned one sequel in what’s now being called the Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad series: The Black Country, released in hardcover in May of this year. The Yard was published in April 2013 by Berkley. It is 422 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.

Mysterious Paintings in the Donjon of an Italian Castle

Mysterious Paintings in the Donjon of an Italian Castle

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Note the date next to the dove.
Note the date next to the dove.

When I visited the castle in Gorizia, Italy, the part that intrigued me most was the donjon. This cramped room is a grim little place with no window to the outside. It was used for several centuries and over the years bored prisoners decorated the walls and vaulted ceiling with drawings. Religious motifs, sailing ships, people, and a number of abstract shapes caught my attention.

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Merry Christmas from Black Gate

Merry Christmas from Black Gate

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Black Gate Christmas Tree 2013-smallIt always gets quiet around the Black Gate offices at Christmas time. It’s a good time to let go of the daily hustle and bustle of running an online magazine, and reflect on the really important things.

People frequently ask me what Black Gate is all about. There’s so much to the story — fifteen issues of a terrific print magazine, hundreds of original stories, the new writers we’ve discovered, nearly 4,000 blog-posts since 2007 — but none of that really tells the story. No, I always say the same thing when people ask.

Black Gate? We’re a loose collective of writers and artists who care about fantasy. We work together to promote forgotten classics, and celebrate overlooked modern writers. And especially, to promote each other. Black Gate has helped launch the careers of some very talented writers, and that hasn’t changed since we switched to an online venue. Drop by if you’re interested in discovering some of the very best new and classic fantasy. I guarantee you, we’ll point you towards something that will delight you.

I’ve been running Black Gate since 2000, and I’ve never been prouder of the team who write, edit, and produce the magazine. We have some of the finest writers in the industry, and they work tirelessly week after week to keep you informed on a genre with hidden depths and constant surprises.

It’s been an incredible year for us. For a second year in a row, traffic has very nearly doubled. While we’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished, we know that the real engine of our growth has been you. You’ve been enormously supportive — with your comments, letters, and especially by spreading the word, and telling others about us.

So thank you once again, from the bottom of our hearts. On behalf of the vast and unruly collective that is Black Gate, I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Continue being excellent — it’s what you’re good at.

The Problem with Wonder Woman

The Problem with Wonder Woman

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Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman-smallWonder Woman is my wife’s favorite superhero, and for good reason. The character is powerful, dynamic, and she isn’t afraid to throw down with evil villains. While I didn’t read the comic, I’m old enough to remember the television series with Linda Carter. I also knew the character from The Super Friends Saturday morning cartoon back in the day.

Every few years, rumors emerge from Hollywood about a Wonder Woman movie or show in the works. We hear about the possible casting choices, and then it goes away for a while. Meanwhile, movies about male superheroes are being churned out as fast as possible.

Recently it was leaked that actress/model Gal Gadot (left) might be cast as the legendary Amazon princess in the next Superman movie, and the internet went ape-poop.

At first I didn’t understand why. Then I read the various comments floating around, most of which had to do with Ms. Gadot being too skinny for the role. Which, of course, started debates about how much muscle mass she could pack on with the right trainer, comparisons to Hugh Jackson, et cetera and so forth.

At first, I thought to myself that it doesn’t matter who they cast; just making the @%#^$* movie. After all the travails this comic juggernaut franchise has encountered on its trek through Hollywood, I just want to see the ball rolling. Heck, it couldn’t be any worse than Daredevil or Green Lantern, right?

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“This Ghostly Little Book”

“This Ghostly Little Book”

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A Christmas CarsolIt’s one of the most famous stories in the English-speaking world, and it is a fantasy. A Gothic fantasy of Christmas, and the meaning thereof: the story of the miser and the three spirits. It’s been retold any number of times, parodied, set in America, updated to the modern day, acted out with mice and ducks, with frogs and pigs. It’s easy to overlook how powerful the original work really is.

For myself, I cannot remember how old I was when I first encountered some version of A Christmas Carol. Very young, and possibly pre-literate. The story’s often presented, I think, as a children’s story; but as I read it now, it seems far from that. Indeed it seems like a story that can only be understood with age. When I was a child I didn’t believe in Scrooge’s conversion, and didn’t see how simply revisiting his past could start such a change in his personality. Now that I’ve lived long enough to have distant memories of my own, I understand it. And rereading the story now, I see that while it’s true Dickens was unashamed of being sentimental and broad, he was also in many ways very subtle in the way he described Scrooge. To me, now, Scrooge and the change in his character seem only one reflection of the book’s central theme and of its vision: a vision of the human soul, both alone and as part of society.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843. He was thirty-one, and already famous. Made to work as a child in a blacking-warehouse while his father was imprisoned for debt, the adult Dickens had a fierce drive to succeed, and a horror of the developing industrial capitalism around him; he worked as a journalist and editor, then had a massive popular success with the serially-published The Pickwick Papers. Oliver Twist followed, then Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, and A Christmas Carol. On the one hand, that’s already an incredible body of work. On the other, Dickens was a very young man to so powerfully capture the elderly Scrooge. But capture Scrooge he did; if A Christmas Carol works — and given that it hasn’t been out of print in a hundred and seventy years, we can say it does — it’s because Dickens gets at something in memory, and in how people age.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1951: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1951: A Retro-Review

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galaxy science fiction July 1951-smallWith a colorful, 4th of July holiday-appropriate cover, the July issue of Galaxy hit newsstands (or arrived in your mailbox if you were a subscriber), much to the delight of its readers (or so I imagine). The issue felt very full — as though H. L. Gold used some undetectable device to cram extra fiction into the folds. Or perhaps it was the anticipated conclusion of “Mars Child” and the absence of any science article. At any rate, I think this was one of the better issues.

“Venus is a Man’s World” by William Tenn — Ferdinand is the only boy on a rocket filled mostly with young women on a journey to Venus. That world offers a better opportunity of finding a suitable husband than Earth, where the population is mostly made up of women. Not that Ferdinand cares about any of that. He just wants something to do, so he explores the ship, including restricted areas, like one of the lifeboats. Except that someone’s already in the lifeboat — a stowaway who calls himself Butt. And Butt knows all kinds of things that Ferdinand’s sister never talks about. If only he’d let Ferdinand hold his gun…

I absolutely loved this story, and it was easily my favorite of the issue. The narration is told in first-person from Ferdinand’s point of view, and it is hilarious and engaging. Butt’s character is outstanding. This is also a piece that stands the test of time. It was eventually collected in William Tenn’s third collection, The Square Root of Man (1968).

“Common Denominator” by John D. MacDonald — As humanity begins to study another advanced race in the galaxy, they discover that the aliens have a crime rate and insanity rate of nearly zero. Charting the past millennia reveal that it all improved eight thousand years in the past. Lambert, Chief of the Bureaus of Racial Maturity, has the chance to speak with one of them and to try to understand how such a change was possible.

While the story itself is written well, I found the premises simplistic and absurd. But I’m not going to reveal the reason for the alien race’s rise in peace and safety because that is part of the bite of the story. I’m starting to see more of this trend in some of Galaxy’s fiction, though, where an author will envision what humanity (or a variety of humanity) might look like if X or Y was subtracted or added. And that utopia is but one tweak away.

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