The End of Electric Velocipede

The End of Electric Velocipede

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Electric Velocipede 27-smallWe are very sad to report that Electric Velocipede, one of the finest small press magazines in the genre, has published its final issue. Editor and publisher John Klima addresses the reasons for his decision in his editorial, A Remembrance of the Future:

This was not an easy decision.. Finishing this final issue is my way of closing things out mostly on my terms.

There is outstanding money owed me that just isn’t coming. That means money meant for Electric Velocipede’s future needs to be used on the present; we’re unable to make new issues when we still have to pay for old issues. There are limited options for electronic subscriptions; and the largest and most popular, Amazon, stopped taking new magazines right around the time I ran an Electric Velocipede Kickstarter based around the plan of having Amazon subscriptions for future revenue.

I have outstanding debt from running Electric Velocipede — and since the magazine can’t even support itself, it doesn’t make sense to keep it going and continue to spend money without earning any.

Electric Velocipede was one of the most acclaimed independent genre magazines on the market. It was nominated for the World Fantasy Award four times, and won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine. We reported on the successful Kickstarter, which raised over $7,500 to fund the magazine, in happier times last September.

Electric Velocipede 27, the final issue, contains short fiction from Daniel Ausema, Helena Bell, Geoffrey W. Cole, and many others. The cover is by Thom Davidsohn. Copies are available for your Nook or your Kindle for just $1.99.See complete details here.

We last reported on Electric Velocipede with issue 25.

New Treasures: Hidden Things by Doyce Testerman

New Treasures: Hidden Things by Doyce Testerman

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Hidden Things Doyce Testerman-smallThere are plenty of ways to select a new novel to read. Cover art, of course. Recommendation from friends. Plot description. Here, let’s try an experiment. I’ll tell you some things about Hidden Things by Doyce Testerman, and you tell me when you want to read it. Here’s the description:

Watch out for the hidden things… That’s the last thing Calliope Jenkins’s best friend says to her before ending a two a.m. phone call from Iowa, where he’s working a case she knows little about. Seven hours later, she gets a visit from the police. Josh has been found dead, and foul play is suspected. Calliope is stunned. Especially since Josh left a message on her phone an hour after his body was found.

Spurred by grief and suspicion, Calli heads to Iowa herself, accompanied by a stranger who claims to know something about what happened to Josh and who can — maybe — help her get him back. But the road home is not quite the straight shot she imagined…

Okay, I’m intrigued. And the cover is okay. Still, I don’t know about you, but I’m not sold yet. Let’s look at some of the blurbs. Here’s The Blue Blazes author Chuck Wendig:

Testerman tells a story of a secret world that is sad, sweet, funny, and more than a little twisted. This world of wizened wizard-men and demon clowns will lure you into the shadows, and once you meet the characters who live in those dark, strange places, you’ll never want to leave…

Hmm. Wizard-men and demon clowns? Definitely getting closer. But for me, it was this quote from Maureen Johnson that sealed the deal:

Hidden Things reveals the America I want to believe in — dragons on highways, trolls in the hills, motels that lead to new dimensions. I’ll never look at a rest stop the same way again.

Yup, that did it. Dragons, trolls, and motels to new dimensions? I ordered my copy last month. Hidden Things was published by Harper Voyager in August 2012. It is 327 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback and $10.99 for the digital edition. See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Last Minute Gift Ideas for your Game Geek or Webcomics Lover

Last Minute Gift Ideas for your Game Geek or Webcomics Lover

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It is the time of year for presents. If you celebrate Hanukkah, I’m late on giving you any gift ideas, but for people rushing to get gifts for friends in the next few days, here are a few last minute gift ideas. Do you know someone who loves interactive fiction? Someone who digs webcomics? If you’re shopping for someone who would rather have a digital gift than a package to open, you might encounter some gifting hurdles — but it can be done!

Happy holidays! Play a game!
Happy holidays! Play a game!

Games

I’ve already mentioned some games I like in this column, so anything I’ve already spotlighted is something I recommend. Here are a few games I’m planning to cover in upcoming posts:

  • Today’s just released Choice of Deathless by fantasy author Max Gladstone is an awesome mix of corporate espionage and demon fighting. I got to playtest this one (disclosure: Max is in my fiction critique group, Substrate) and I’ve already played it probably five times. I can’t wait to play it again. (Max is also the author of two amazing fantasy novels, Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise, which you can pick up at your local bookstore or use the expedited shipping option from your favorite online bookseller to get them in time for Christmas.
  • Choice of Ninja is exactly what you’d expect: lots of martial arts, magic, and stealth, and your choices help decide the fate of two warring shoguns. I’m still playing this one (so author Katherine Buffington may have some surprises!), but I’m really enjoying it so far.
  • I had so much fun playing a real-estate agent for a haunted house in Gavin Inglis‘s short game Eerie Estate Agent that I bought his novel Crap Ghosts. The book is downloadable without DRM via Kobo, which means if your friend is local, you can buy it and load it to your friend’s device (or send it via e-mail) rather than muck about with online gifting.
  • Failbetter Games (of Fallen London) is releasing a tie-in 2D adventure game, Sunless Sea, available now for pre-order. Best thing about this one is it comes with a “gift” option right from the order page.

Purchasing

So how do you send someone a digital game as a gift? It depends on the device, but here are a few tips:

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Vintage Treasures: Nine Horrors and a Dream by Joseph Payne Brennan

Vintage Treasures: Nine Horrors and a Dream by Joseph Payne Brennan

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Nine Horrors and a Dream-smallBack in September, prodded on by some comments Douglas Draa made in my article on The People of the Black Circle, I tracked down a copy of Joseph Payne Brennan’s short story collection The Shapes of Midnight (which I wrote about in detail here).

I didn’t know much about Brennan (that’s one of the wonderful things about this hobby — always delightful new authors to discover!) I recently came across him again, this time in a collection of 52 vintage paperbacks I bought on eBay for fifteen bucks — a collection which also included The Unknown and Robert Bloch’s Nightmares. (Here’s a pic of the set, since I know I’m gonna get questions about it). The book this time was titled Nine Horrors and a Dream, a very slender paperback containing, not too surprisingly, 10 stories.

Once again I turned to the experts to find out more. Our buddy Douglas Draa talks in detail about the book on his blog, Uncle Doug’s Bunker of Horror. Here’s what he has to say, in part:

Nine Horrors and a Dream has been one of my most sought after books these last several years… the wonderful “Richard Powers” cover art has help to maintain the high interest in this specific collection. So I was very happy to get this book at a fair price…

What I enjoy so much about these stories is Mr. Brennan’s economy of word, sense of place and strong mood. Most of his stories [are] fairly short, but he stills manages to make them into fully fleshed out reading experiences. Nine Horrors and a Dream is a prime example… That calibre of writing [isn’t] something you stumble across every day.

More than enough of an endorsement for me. I find it curious that there’s some story duplication with The Shapes of Midnight, though. And while we’re asking questions, which story is the dream? I suppose that’s all part of the mystery. I plan to dig into in this weekend and find out.

Nine Horrors and a Dream was published in 1962 by Ballantine Books. It is 122 pages, originally priced at 35 cents in paperback. It was originally published in hardcover by Arkham House in 1958. It has been out of print for over five decades. I bought my copy for about 30 cents, as part of a collection.

Robert E. Howard and the Yellow Peril

Robert E. Howard and the Yellow Peril

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MenaceSteve-Harrisons-Casebook1Many pulp writers were influenced by the success of Sax Rohmer’s Yellow Peril criminal mastermind, Dr. Fu Manchu. The best of the early imitators was Achmed Abdullah’s The Blue-Eyed Manchu while the pulp era brought Robert J. Hogan’s The Mysterious Wu-Fang and Donald Keyhoe’s Dr. Yen-Sin to give the Devil Doctor a run for his money.Today, the best remembered Fu Manchu clone is undoubtedly Ian Fleming’s Dr. No. Marvel Comics’ The Mandarin and The Yellow Claw are the other two characters who have burrowed the furthest into popular culture’s collective memory of the past century.

Having to choose the one of the scores of imitations that came closest to matching Rohmer for style and yet was distinct enough to avoid being nothing more than a shameless copy, I would have to single out Robert E. Howard’s Skull-Face and Erlik Khan, the Lord of the Dead. Howard’s reputation as a story-teller has grown over the past few decades to allow him to escape the looming shadow of his immensely popular sword and sorcery hero, Conan the Barbarian and be recognized as a singular talent who mastered many genres during his all too brief life. Sadly, his Yellow Peril thrillers are still largely unknown outside the circle of Howard completists.

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World Building Historical Fiction using Military Thinking

World Building Historical Fiction using Military Thinking

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WOTR SKII 255
“…when I got the gig to write Historical Adventure tie-ins for the Paradox War of the Roses game, I was a bit terrified.”

If you read my blog, you’ll know I’m not a great fan of authorial self loathing and all that angst. However, when I got the gig to write Historical Adventure tie-ins for the Paradox War of the Roses game, I was a bit terrified. Rather than angsting over my ability to tell a story — I’d signed the contract so it was bit late for that! — I was overwhelmed by the task of using a real world historical setting.

Obviously, I was afraid of missing an obvious facet of Medieval life and then being pounced at by some of the hundreds of thousands of members of the Living History/Historical Reenactment/SCA/HEMA community.

However, the most pressing problem was; How was I to grok a historical setting well enough for it to become a my sandbox? I’d tackled this once before when writing a YA Dark Age yarn and found that a lot of the thinking had already been done for me by a group whose lives and, sometimes, homeland relied on untangling the world in order to make systematic sense of it: the Military…

Though not all the conflict is physical,  an archetypal adventure story is not so different from a series of one or more combat missions. Simplifying greatly, military thinking makes sense of these on three levels:

  • Strategic – The broad movement of armies in the pursuit of long term objectives driven by economics, diplomacy, and politics; “In order to secure our flanks, we shall make this country submit to us and do so by invading from the north and seizing its capital city.”
  • Operational – Maneuvering towards objectives during the resulting campaigns and battles; “You will seize these bridges and hold them so that our tanks can use them.”
  • Tactical – Achieving the objectives through fighting anything from a fullscale battle to a squad level action; “You guys set the mortar up over there and lay down smoke…”

This gives us three different ways of seeing anything in our story world.

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The Worst Fantasy Films of All Time

The Worst Fantasy Films of All Time

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Highlander II The Quickening-smallWatch out, my friends. This weekend there is a storm a’blowing! The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is in theaters, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so much angst among the fantasy lovers of the world.

Personally, I really enjoyed both Hobbit movies, just as I loved The Lord of the Rings movies. Hell, at this point Peter Jackson could make a movie about the struggles of union workers in ancient Moria and I’d go see it.

I understand every movie (and every book) has flaws, but some people are absolutely livid about Jackson’s rendition of The Hobbit on the big screen. I feel it’s my duty as a fellow fantasy-phile to point out how awful these movies could have been under different management.

There is an entire industry of bad fantasy movies out there. Maybe if we take a stroll back through history, we’ll gain a little perspective. So here I give you, my list of Least Best Fantasy Movies.

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A Look Inside Gorizia Castle, Italy

A Look Inside Gorizia Castle, Italy

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DSC_0107
Gorizia castle as seen from the town square.

The Isonzo River on the border with Italy and Slovenia has long been of strategic importance. Most famous as the site of the World War One Battles of Isonzo, you can find fortifications dating much earlier than the old bunkers and trenches that dot the hillsides.

One of the most magnificent is Gorizia Castle, which sits atop a steep hill overlooking the Italian city of Gorizia on the Isonzo River a few miles before it reaches the sea after its long trip from the Alps.

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New Treasures: Spirits From Beyond

New Treasures: Spirits From Beyond

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Spirits From Beyond-smallI don’t think I’ve given Simon R. Green a fair shake. The man is so prolific, with so many popular series, that he’s almost ubiquitous on book store shelves. I tend to overlook him when I scan the racks for new releases every week — my eyes are trained to ignore him, the same way they ignore the shelves dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien and Jim Butcher.

But being prolific certainly isn’t a crime, and neither is being popular. Being open to new things sometimes means trying that familiar midlist author you’ve ignored for too long. So last week I picked up a copy of the fourth and latest novel in his Ghost Finders series. After all, anyone who names his supernatural think tank the Carnacki Institute has got to be worth a look…

Meet the operatives of the Carnacki Institute — JC Chance: the team leader, brave, charming, and almost unbearably arrogant; Melody Chambers: the science geek who keeps the antisupernatural equipment running; and Happy Jack Palmer: the terminally gloomy telepath. Their mission: Do Something About Ghosts. Lay them to rest, send them packing, or just kick their nasty ectoplasmic arses…

Their latest assignment takes JC and the team to a small country village, site of a famously haunted inn. At first, JC thinks that the spirits in the King’s Arms are more the stuff of urban legend than anything that needs the Ghost Finders’ expertise. Then one story rings true: the tale of a traveler trapped by an unusual thunderstorm who retired to her room for the night — and vanished.

Trapped by an unusual thunderstorm — like the one that begins raging outside shortly after they arrive… As the team investigates, they are forced, one by one, to face some hard truths about themselves, their relationships, and the haunting itself — truths that may push Happy Jack over the edge into the madness that he has always feared…

Green is also the author of the Deathstalker space opera (8 novels), Hawk and Fisher (7 novels), The Forest Kingdom (4 novels), The Secret History series (7 novels so far), and Nightside (12 novels), among several others. I told you he was prolific. The Ghost Finder books take place in the same universe as his Nightside, Secret History, and other assorted novels, with frequent references to some shared characters, places and events. I bet keeping tabs on all that continuity drives him nuts.

The Ghost Finders of the Carnacki Institute tackle the paranormal with some gusto (their motto is “We don’t take any sh*t from the Hereafter.”) This looks like a fun Friday-night series, and I’m looking forward to digging into it.

Spirits From Beyond was published in September 2013 by Ace Books. It is 298 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital editions.

Explore The Dark

Explore The Dark

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The Dark Issue 1-smallSean Wallace is an editing powerhouse.

I don’t use that term lightly. But let’s just look at the man’s accomplishments: in the last few years he’s edited or co-edited multiple magazines, including Jabberwocky, Fantasy Magazine, and the prestigious Clarkesworld, for which he was nominated for the Hugo four times (winning three times) and the World Fantasy Award three times. He’s edited numerous anthologies, including Best New Fantasy, Japanese Dreams, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, People of the Book, Robots: Recent A.I., and War & Space.

Of course, that’s on top of his day job as founder, publisher, and managing editor of Prime Books — where he’s produced a terrific assortment of excellent titles. We covered more than a few, including Weird Detectives, Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy series, Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top, The Return of the Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith, the War & Space anthology, and others.

So I was extremely intrigued when I heard he was launching a new online magazine of dark and strange fiction with Jack Fisher, former editor and publisher of the award-winning Flesh & Blood magazine. The debut issue of The Dark was released in October, 2013, and the second issue arrived on December 1st.

The first issue feature original fiction from Lisa L. Hannett, Nnedi Okorafor, Angela Slatter, and Rachel Swirsky. Issue 2 has all-new stories from Willow Fagan, Amanda E. Forrest, Sarah Singleton and E. Catherine Tobler.

The Dark is published bi-monthly; you can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by subscribing to the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 49 pages, and priced at $2.99.

A one-year sub (six issues) is just $15, and so far I really like what I see. Get in on the ground floor of a promising new magazine — subscribe today.