Why Medieval Fantasy is Not Inherently Conservative (or Inherently Anything Political)

Why Medieval Fantasy is Not Inherently Conservative (or Inherently Anything Political)

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Medieval Fantasy-small

“Oh Fantasy,” says my friend. “It’s inherently conservative.”

This debate flares up from time to time in author interviews, blog posts, and in the pub. (EDIT: Michael Moorcock essay here.)

And it’s true that Fantasy looks conservative (with a small “c”) or even “reactionary” since in its most typical form, it deals with quasi-Medieval European feudal societies in which  male characters wield agency through violence, power struggles take place within the matrix of unquestioned hereditary aristocracy, and often hinge on what can best be described as destiny-determinism; “You are the chosen one!”

Responses to this includ,e on the one hand, appeals to the subversive power of any secondary world (since it reminds us that our own political arrangements are contingent on History) and to the sheer range of possible Fantasies, and on the other, conservatives compiling lists of books that reflect their politics.

However, my response to this is usually:

“PAH! WHAT WAS THAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE CLASH OF STEEL AND THE ROAR OF DRAGONS! OMG THAT PRINCESS NEEDS RESCUING! EXCUSE ME I MUST FETCH MY FATHER’S SWORD FROM THE TOWER OF DESOLATION!“

You see, bringing politics into genre raises my hackles.

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The Series Series: Heart of Briar by Laura Anne Gilman

The Series Series: Heart of Briar by Laura Anne Gilman

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Heart of Briar Laura Ann Gilman-smallShe got me. I didn’t expect to get caught up in this book, thought I would just read the first couple of chapters, because it’s not my usual kind of thing. Gilman uses some of the tropes of paranormal romance, but she’s using them to do bigger things, some of which I did not see coming.

If you’re severely allergic to romance, the virtues to be found in Heart of Briar will not be enough to balance the book for you, even though it is not clear at the end of this volume who the male romantic lead for the series will turn out to be. If you’re severely allergic to urban fantasy, you might not make it past the nice young geek couple looking up from their computer screens to discover, to their horror, a parallel society of supernatural beings that’s about to smash into their technology-centered happily ever after.

After my last review here, of a book that was inaccurately marketed as the first volume of a new series, I want to note how refreshing it is that this week’s title is, as promised on the cover, Book One of The Portals. It helps to know a little folklore, but even that’s unnecessary. Gilman has written plenty of books before. I haven’t read any of them. It’s possible there’s some crossover with her other series, but I never felt like I was out of the loop.

On the contrary, I usually felt like I was sometimes more in the loop than the protagonist was. Poor Jan is not a fantasy reader, did not consume volumes of folklore and mythology as a child, doesn’t know what she’s being warned about when the supernatural characters try to confess to her that they can’t be trusted. They’re good in their ways, which are fundamentally incompatible with human ways.

Fortunately for everyone in Jan’s world, she’s sufficiently brave, stubborn, devoted, and open-minded to catch up, keep up, and bring something new to the local shapeshifters’ efforts to repel an invasion from an extraordinarily hostile version of the Fae. Gilman’s fairyland bears a remarkable resemblance to the chilling otherworld of C.L. Moore’s great pulp sword and sorcery classic story “Black God’s Kiss.” Gilman’s elves behave in ways befitting extradimensional perils from a Clark Ashton Smith story. It’s a little jarring to see a book that uses some of the trappings of paranormal romance to give the vintage Weird Tales treatment to what starts out looking like a retelling of Tam Lin, but ultimately I think Heart of Briar succeeds at the strange balancing act it attempts. You see now why this novel was worth bringing to the attention of Black Gate readers?

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Observations: The Fellowship of the Ring Movie

Observations: The Fellowship of the Ring Movie

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The Fellowship of the Ring poster-smallThe release of the second installment of The Hobbit got me thinking about The Lord of the Rings movies. And since I hadn’t watched them in a couple years, I decided to pop in my extended version DVDs and re-live what I consider to be one of the best film experiences in my lifetime. I watched with an eye toward what worked for me and what didn’t.

What I won’t be doing in this article is comparing the movies to the books. I love the LOTR books. I’ve read them several times and consider them among the most important novels ever written. However, I want to consider the films on their own, because movies and books are such different media.

So, let’s plunge into the fray. Shall we?

The movie begins with an extended introduction that explains who Sauron is and how he lost the One Ring, how it came into the possession of a furry little fellow named Bilbo. It’s well-done and probably very helpful to those who aren’t familiar with the events in The Hobbit. The highlight to me was when the Dark Lord of Mordor comes out and starts dishing out the pain with a huge mace.

Then we move to the real opening of the story, with Frodo in the Shire. The world of the hobbits is simple and charming, exemplifying a “good life.” I actually forgot how much good stuff happens in these first couple scenes while old Bilbo throws his 111th birthday party. There’s a nice bit of foreshadowing as Bilbo writes his book. He says that there’s always been a Baggins living at Bag End, and there always will be. That little nugget, to me, unlocks one of the powerful themes of the entire franchise: the idea of home as a place in your heart that can see you through the bad times, no matter where you are.

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New Treasures: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

New Treasures: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

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The Golem and the Jinni-smallI always find it interesting when mainstream publishers like Putnam, Harper, and Grove Press decide to publish a fantasy novel. Usually they do it badly, producing something that both fantasy fans and the general public scorn. Every once in a while they hit a home run, though — as Pocket did with Mark Helprin’s Winter Tale, for example, one of the most cherished fantasy novels of the 80s, or Grove Press accomplished just last year with G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen, which won the World Fantasy Award in October.

So I was intrigued enough to plunk down 15 bucks for Helene Wecker’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, a literary fantasy that blends Jewish and Arabian folklore in a tale of a chance meeting between two mythical beings in turn-of-the-century New York. The reviews have been kind, and it seems to be achieving a measure of early success.

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free.

Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker’s debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.

The Golem and the Jinni was published by Harper Perennial on December 31, 2013. It is 512 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $10.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures articles here.

Vintage Treasures: Night Monsters by Fritz Leiber

Vintage Treasures: Night Monsters by Fritz Leiber

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Night Monsters-smallNight Monsters is an interesting case study in book collecting, as least for me.

It was originally published in 1969 as part of an Ace Double set, with a moody but otherwise fairly unremarkable cover by Jack Gaughan (see below). The subtitle Ace put on the collection was “A new collection of the weird, the wonderful, and the macabre,” which was certainly accurate, if a little pedestrian.

I bought a copy 25 years ago. Never read it. It shared a spine with Leiber’s early novel The Green Millennium (here’s John Schoenherr’s cover, just because I have a thing about uploading paperback covers), which I found a little more interesting. To be honest, after a few years I kinda forgot about the book on the back side of The Green Millennium.

Fast forward to early 2013. I’m surfing eBay and I stumble on a copy of Fritz Leiber’s Night Monsters, a Panther paperback published in the UK in 1975. I have no immediate recollection of a Fritz Leiber collection called Night Monsters, but that’s not necessarily a big deal; it could be a re-titled version of one of his collections I do remember.

What is a big deal is that I recognize the cover artist. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s the work of the great Bruce Pennington, who provided some of the finest covers for Black Gate, for BG 12 and BG 14.

I’m a huge Pennington fan. Part of it is simple gratitude — the man was enormously gracious to me when I called him up in 2007, hoping to buy the rights to two of his paintings. He had no idea who I was, calling him from America with nothing more than high spirits and a meager budget. He very politely asked to see “a copy or two” of my little magazine, before making up his mind.

Twenty-four hours later I had two sample issues in the mail bound for England, with an enthusiastic hand-written note telling Bruce how much I admired his work. About a month later I received a marvelous letter from him, saying he had been very impressed with the issues, and that he would be delighted to provide us the art we wanted — and at the price I had offered.

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DC vs. Marvel – A Deck-Building Face-Off

DC vs. Marvel – A Deck-Building Face-Off

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DC-DBG-Heroes-Unite-componentsThere are two deck-building games out built around the major comic book franchises: DC and Marvel. I’ve had the chance to play them both, so want to share how they stand up against each other. For this comparison, I’m playing the core Marvel Legendary game (Amazon) and the upcoming stand-alone Heroes Unite (Amazon) expansion to the DC Comics deck-building game.

Game Scenario:

One of the first points of difference is the basic scenario being played out, which leads to slightly different thematic feels for each game. In both games, there are two basic actions in play: acquiring heroes and defeating villains. The games are very different in their approach to this, however, and each approach has different benefits and drawbacks.

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Life Underground

Life Underground

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manfrommarsI suppose it’s only natural that I’d consider the decade of my formative years – the 1970s – to have been the “perfect” one in which to grow up. I have little doubt that those whose childhoods encompassed the ’80s or even (Merritt forfend!) the ’90s may feel the same way. They’re wrong, of course, at least if you were the kind of kid who enjoyed hearing tales of the weird, the strange, and the occult. The 1970s were alive with such nonsense, from Bigfoot to ancient astronauts to the Loch Ness Monster, not to mention The Exorcist, In Search Of, and The Night Stalker. And let us not forget that the decade also saw the popularization, through books and movies and television, of the watered-down Theosophy of the New Age movement. In retrospect, it all makes sense if you look at the ’70s as a ten-year hangover in the aftermath of the various counterculture movements that spread like wildfire during the 1960s.

For a lot of adults living at the time, it probably wasn’t pretty, but, for me, as a child with a sense that there was more to the universe than what we saw everyday, it sure was fun. Though far more skeptical today, I still retain a keen interest in such oddities, as well as the sense – or is it merely the hope? – that I was not wrong in my youthful intuition that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Like Fox Mulder, “I want to believe,” even if I find it increasingly hard to summon up the credulity necessary to do so. Perhaps that’s why, even as I scoff, I nevertheless retain a more-than-grudging admiration for men and women who do believe, often in the face not merely of seemingly contradictory facts, but also of social ridicule, ostracism, and abuse.

That probably explains why I’ve long been intrigued by “the Shaver Mystery,” which first burst upon the world in the form of the story “I Remember Lemuria,” published in the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories. The story purports to be an ancient, first-person account (preserved in “thought records”) of an advanced subterranean civilization that once existed on Earth and whose remnants continue to have intermittent – and often unpleasant – contact with the surface.

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Monthly Short Story Roundup — December

Monthly Short Story Roundup — December

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oie_5233198hV9ZnPHThis past December, new short stories in heroic fiction were almost as scarce as good Conan pastiches. Not that it’s been a bad month for heavier fantasy fiction, as both the Milton Davis/Charles Saunders-edited Griots: Sisters of the Spear and John R. Fultz’s trilogy-ending Seven Sorcerers came out. It’s just short fiction that wasn’t happening.

In the past three issues of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, I found only a single story that fits the S&S bill (sort of). It’s like the editors have decided they will not satisfy my need for more/new/good tales of S&S adventure. I feel like they’ve read my short story roundups and are looking to spite me for being disappointed in their emphasis on almost everything but heroic fiction lately. Fortunately, Swords and Sorcery Magazine came through with its regular monthly pair of stories.

Swords and Sorcery Magzine #23’s first story (even though it’s referred to as the second in the editor’s preface) is “I Think Therefore I Die” by Fraser Sherman. Sherman, whose earlier work has appeared in Allegory and on Drabblecast, presents a Renaissance France where the key to what most of the world considers magic is really only the application of mathematical principles uncovered by Rene Descartes. Utilizing the techniques of advanced geometry, practitioners of Cartesian mathematics can travel between distant geographical points instantaneously. They can also affect minor healing on themselves. For the story’s roguish hero, Hugh of Essex, a skirt-chasing Cartesian prone to dueling, the ability to staunch his wounds is a valuable one.

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Win a Copy of M. Harold Page’s The Sword is Mightier and Blood in the Streets

Win a Copy of M. Harold Page’s The Sword is Mightier and Blood in the Streets

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The Sword is Mightier-smallIt’s January 7th already and we haven’t given away any books this year. Time to fix that.

Here at Black Gate, we like to reward faithful readers with the finest in free fantasy and that tradition continues this month with the exciting Scholar Knight novels of M. Harold Page: The Sword is Mightier and Blood in the Streets. Here’s the description for the first, The Sword is Mightier:

The blade sheared through padding, collar bone, ribs, and came out the other side. Head, arm and shoulder thudded to the ground. The remainder of the corpse still stood, sheared torso like a bucket of steaming offal.

England AD 1454, the chaotic eve of the Wars of the Roses.

Jack Rose would rather be a scholar than a knight. However, when a brutal landowner steals his family estates and plans to evict the tenants, Jack must take up the sword and win back his inheritance by force of arms. As he wades through increasingly lethal encounters, it becomes clear that War is in his blood. Now he must decide who he really is…

How do you enter to win? Simple — just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com, using as the subject the name of the first Master Strike in the German School of Fencing (we’ll even give you a clue: it’s “Zornhau”), and we’ll enter you in the drawing.

Entries must be received by Friday, January 31, 2014. One lucky winner will win both books. The winner will be contacted by e-mail and books will be delivered in digital format.

All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Terms and conditions subject to change. Not valid where prohibited by law. Eat your vegetables. And good luck!

A History of Godzilla on Film, Part 2: The Golden Age (1963–1968)

A History of Godzilla on Film, Part 2: The Golden Age (1963–1968)

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MosuGojiWelcome back… the double holiday interruption delayed this march across (and on top of) the Tokyo skyline. But now the Big-G is back and about to enter the Golden Age of Japanese Fantasy Cinema and the peak of kaiju movie greatness.

Other Installments

Part 1: Origins (1954–1962)
Part 3: Down and Out in Osaka (1969–1983)
Part 4: The Heisei Era (1984–1997)
Part 5: The Travesty and the Millennium Era (1996–2004)
Addendum: The 2014 Godzilla

The Godzilla Masterpiece: Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

The astronomical success of King Kong vs. Godzilla made Toho Studios commit to yearly Godzilla movies for the rest of the decade, as well as increasing their giant monster output in general. The studio shifted away from broader science-fiction epics like The Mysterians: the same year that King Kong vs. Godzilla ignited the box-office, Toho’s more ambitious and expensive science-fiction movie from the team of director Ishiro Honda and special effects creator Eiji Tsubaraya, Gorath, made a poorer showing. From now on, Toho would push that they had monsters and were ready to hurl them against each other for audience’s viewing pleasure.

After briefly considering a King Kong re-match, G-series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka turned to a hometown hero: Mothra, the monster-goddess from the popular 1961 Ishiro Honda film of the same name. Mothra was the point where the Japanese kaiju film came into its own as a specific cultural style different from the US model that first inspired it. The lovely yet powerful Mothra was a perfect foe to put in the opposite corner from Godzilla — at least in terms of box-office appeal. From a story and special-effects perspective, it was a trickier idea: Godzilla fighting a giant mystical moth?

But the creative team came through in an astonishing way: Mothra vs. Godzilla is the height of the Godzilla series and one of the finest monster epics ever put on film. This is the movie to show people at the start of a Godzilla odyssey, since it captures so well the Japanese interpretation of the giant monster genre, has Godzilla at his most charismatic yet menacing, and is more fun than most amusement parks.  Eiji Tsubaraya was at his zenith with visual effects; after some wonky optical work in King Kong vs. Godzilla, the effects here are seamless, especially the scenes featuring the miniature Twin Fairies (the shobijin, played by pop singing duo The Peanuts). The two monster battles, with Godzilla against the adult Mothra and then against two larval Mothras, are thrillingly staged and scored.

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