Understanding Tolkien: Why His Landscapes Work

Understanding Tolkien: Why His Landscapes Work

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hobbit-book-cover
…the story and the world it articulates, rocks.

There’s no better way to experience the distinction between text and structure than to go back to the roots of our genre.

A few years ago, as a result of a spectacular parenting own-goal, The Hobbit -– a battered old copy that Mrs Harold-Page’s father once purchased for 8s 6d –- ended up as our five year old son’s bedtime story.

It was near midnight, and we were trying to coax our overtired insomniac little boy into sleep mode. I thought, Let’s read something that will hold his attention, but be so far over his head as to hypnotise him into dozing off. Instead, of course, the little blighter perked up and asked enough questions to understand what was going on. The following night — at a more reasonable time — he wanted The Hobbit again. I pointed out it was a bit old for him. Could he even remember the last thing that happened?

They got captured by trolls, but Gandalf did this voice then another voice and the trolls argued until the sun came up and they turned to stone…Is that Smaug on the cover, Daddy?

So, The Hobbit it was.

Reading the Hobbit is a bit like listening to Bill Haley and the Comets. The beat is there, but the delivery — though charming and skilled — is not quite right to the modern taste.

The Hobbit is packed with Herodotian ring composition, editorializing, explicit allusions to the character’s future, and lots of “telling” rather than “showing,” all of which distance us from the story.

Worse, Gandalf is the only person who really does anything until well into the book. It’s page 62 before Thorin even strikes a goblin, and he does that off screen, and in narrative summary — imagine how Robert E Howard would have handled that…

Even so, the story and the world it articulates, rocks.

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The Rebirth of Ares Magazine

The Rebirth of Ares Magazine

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Ares Magazine 2014-smallIn the early ’80’s, Simulation Publications, Inc. (aka SPI) published a magazine named Ares. It included science fiction and fantasy along with articles and a complete game in every issue. It was short-lived, lasting only 19 issues, and Dragon revived it briefly within its own pages as an Ares section (see our review of issue #3 of the original magazine, featuring the game Barbarian Kings). And so it remained as an intriguing concept that simply ceased publication.

But that wasn’t the last hope for Ares. As Yoda would say, “No, there is another.” One Small Step Games, under Michael Anderson, decided to venture into remaking the old magazine. “The big idea is to fill a void,” says Anderson, “a new magazine that combines a standalone, unique, playable board game in every issue with a collection of spectacular, new fiction.”

With pay rates of five cents per word, Ares is serious about finding great fiction. Their preferred genres include fantasy, science fiction, horror, and pulp adventure.

They plan on publishing bi-monthly, and each issue will include 80 pages of fiction and other content, wrapped around the playable game. The first game will be War of the Worlds by independent game designer Bill Banks.

On January 1, Ares will launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding for this endeavor. If successful, the target delivery date for the first issue is May 1, 2014.

A magazine of speculative fiction AND a playable game? That sounds like a great combination to me.

Check out their website for more information: Ares Magazine.

The Series Series: Seven Forges by James A. Moore

The Series Series: Seven Forges by James A. Moore

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Seven Forges-smallThis is your book. The books I’ve reviewed in the Series Series so far have had many virtues, and some of them have been exactly my sort of thing, but in most cases, I’ve had to include a caveat about how they might not be your sort of thing. This time I can say, if you’re a regular reader at Black Gate, the book I’m reviewing is exactly your bucket of grog.

James A. Moore dedicates Seven Forges in part “to the memory of Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard for the inspiration.” That dedication sets the bar high, and caused me a bit of readerly apprehension, because so many writers have imitated badly those two greats of the sword and sorcery tradition. Moore is far more than an imitator, though. He does some fresh, counterintuitive things with the genre conventions. More than once, he startled me into saying out loud, “I didn’t see that coming.”

The weirdest thing about this first volume of what will clearly be a series about a total war on a cosmic scale — complete with an entire national pantheon consisting only of war gods — is that most of the book consists of a troubled but earnest effort at establishing peace. Our hero Merros Dulver leads an expedition from a stable empire that hasn’t faced a truly threatening enemy in over a thousand years into the Blasted Lands, where the last batch of now-mythic enemies used to live. The Fellein Empire once mastered sorceries so reminiscent of nuclear weapons, I briefly wondered whether Seven Forges might be far-future science fiction in disguise.

But the people who live on the far side of the Blasted Lands would be right at home in Robert E. Howard’s Hyboria. Conan might have seen in them a civilization he could love — if civilization is the right word for the Sa’ba Taalor. In a hidden valley surrounded by volcanic mountains that are also sort of gods, which are also sort of the ruins of the seven cities destroyed in the distant past, the Sa’ba Taalor have spent the past thousand years in the pursuit of perfect individual excellence in all the arts of war. Their gods saved them from the cataclysm, and ever since, the Sa’ba Taalor have repaid their gods with perfect obedience of divine law, and, for that matter, divine whim. These gods give prophecies, speak directly into the minds of their worshippers, perform geological miracles, and do other, stranger things that remain intriguing mysteries at the novel’s end. Above all, the seven gods of the Seven Forges require constant readiness for ass-kicking.

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Seductive Sorceress Queens, Decadent Civilizations, and Moon-lit Brawls: A Review of Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner

Seductive Sorceress Queens, Decadent Civilizations, and Moon-lit Brawls: A Review of Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner

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Bloodstone Karl Edward Wagner-smallI love used book shops. And when I say love, I damn well mean love; anything that offers me a Kane Book for less than a pound is pretty much saying ‘I do’ in my book. You just can’t buy that kind of passion, unless you happen to offer me a Kane book for under a…. oh, never mind!

Now, if you’re a bit of a fantasy connoisseur (and if you’re reading this you probably are) you’ve likely heard of Kane, or at least Karl Edward Wagner; the guy’s novels sell for an arm and a leg on Amazon and are showered with praise at every turn. So you can understand my excitement upon finding the book, and my anticipation when I opened it up.

The story follows Kane as he stumbles upon an intriguing ring during a raid. His interest piqued, Kane investigates further and finds that it is actually linked to a legendary giant gem named ‘Bloodstone’ which would, apparently, look really nice in his front garden. Needless to say Kane decides to look for it, and his search leads him to an ancient city somewhere in a forest, one that serves as a kind of no man’s land for two warring leaders: Malchion, and Dribeck.

What follows is some seriously top-notch sword and sorcery; the first few chapters are brilliant, filled to the brim with Gothic imagery and seductive sorceress queens, decadent civilizations, moon-lit brawls with lurid beasts; all the good stuff that made me fall in love with the genre. It’s got everything: mysticism, super-science, monsters, a lost city, and an ancient civilization.

And the first couple of skirmishes with a race of lizard men, the Rillyti, (who happen to be the very same lizard men who made Bloodstone) are all excellently done, filled with a real unpredictability, and a truly tangible sense of danger. It really reads like something you’d find in the pages of Weird Tales, alongside the latest Conan tale, or Solomon Kane’s newest yarn.

And it’s great fun. The kind that is a lot harder to find today (a few exceptions aside). At this stage, the thunder in its pacing was audible, the weight of its sword blows palpable, the dirt and grit and grime of its world was seeping into the room. And I loved every moment.

So why, Mr Wagner, why oh why, did you slow it down?

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My Favorite Dragons

My Favorite Dragons

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Dragonslayer poster-smallDragons.

These creatures of legend have captivated our imaginations from the dawn of time. A staple of fantasy literature and culture, they embody power, majesty, and perilous danger.

I’d like to share with you some of my favorites, in no particular order.

Smaug (The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien)

Ah, old Smaug. Wrecker of dwarven homes and stealer of treasures. I can still remember the rapture with which I read this book as a child, with all Bilbo’s misadventures leading him toward an epic confrontation with this ancient wyrm.

Without a doubt, Smaug triggered a fascination with dragons that has lasted my entire life. And now with The Hobbit movies coming out, I can re-live that joy in its full splendor on the big screen.

Vermithrax Pejorative (Dragonslayer, Touchstone Pictures)

I saw this movie as a kid, fresh off my love-affair with Smaug. Even though we see precious little of the beast until the final act, just the sounds of its breath rising from the ground and the reactions of the various characters to its presence fill the movie with a wonderful sense of anticipation.

And the final battle between wizard and dragon is pretty damned good for its time. Definitely, a diamond in the rough.

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New Treasures: Darkwalker by E.L. Tettensor

New Treasures: Darkwalker by E.L. Tettensor

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Darkwalker-smallDarkwalker is the debut fantasy novel from E.L. Tettensor and it offers an intriguing mix of both the familiar and the new — just what I’m looking for, I think.

The setting is Kennian, part of the backwater Five Villages, which seems a lot like 19th-century England if you squint. Stepping into the scene is Police Inspector Nicolas Lenoir, tasked with investigating a dark mystery. Folks here for the most part scoff at the supernatural — but don’t tell the thing hunting Inspector Lenoir. This one looks like a fine mix of fantasy and mystery in a fog-shrouded Victorian-era (ish) landscape, with plenty of original touches to keep things interesting.

He used to be the best detective on the job. Until he became the hunted…

Once a legendary police inspector, Nicolas Lenoir is now a disillusioned and broken man who spends his days going through the motions and his evenings drinking away the nightmares of his past. Ten years ago, Lenoir barely escaped the grasp of the Darkwalker, a vengeful spirit who demands a terrible toll on those who have offended the dead. But the Darkwalker does not give up on his prey so easily, and Lenoir has always known his debt would come due one day.

When Lenoir is assigned to a disturbing new case, he treats the job with his usual apathy — until his best informant, a street savvy orphan, is kidnapped. Desperate to find his young friend before the worst befalls him, Lenoir will do anything catch the monster responsible for the crimes, even if it means walking willingly into the arms of his own doom…

Darkwalker: A Nicholas Lenoir Novel was published by Roc Books on Dec 3, 2013. It is 368 pages, priced at $7.99 for the paperback and for the digital edition. Read an excerpt on the Penguin website here.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

One Man’s Trash…

One Man’s Trash…

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Seven SorcerersWhen I was growing up, everybody tried to tell me what to read.

My parents wanted to me read “normal” books, not “trashy” books with Frank Frazetta covers featuring scantily-clad maidens, sword-wielding barbarians, or hideous monsters. My teachers wanted me to read Modern Literature — and they made sure I was exposed to as much as possible — although my favorites were Hamlet and Beowulf.

In college my instructors pushed Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver toward me and I read them, but only because I was required to. None of this depressing and introspective realism caught my fancy. I was made for more fantastic stuff. Oh, I read. Voraciously. From the time I was old enough to hold a book I read non-stop. It began with The Hobbit in third grade, and before I finished middle school I had finished The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But I read what I loved, not what people THOUGHT I should read. I read fantasy. (With liberal doses of horror and sci-fi.)

I read Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter, Weird Tales magazine, and later Tanith Lee, Robert Silverberg, William Gibson, and Lord Dunsany. I read fantasy fiction with a dark edge, sword-and-sorcery, horror, and sci-fi. I even read my share of Stephen King, David Eddings, Piers Anthony, and John Norman. I didn’t give a damn what people thought I SHOULD be reading. Still don’t. I didn’t care that most of my literary heroes were from the pulp fiction era, and that their work was largely dismissed as “trash” when they were producing it. I read their works three or four generations after the fact, and I loved it.

Today I enjoy discovering new authors who take those pulp-inspired roots and do something entirely new with them–who breathe fresh life into classic concepts. I’ve found such writers in A.A. Attansio, R. Scott Bakker, and Guy Gavriel Kay, to name a few. If somebody recommends a book or an author to me, I’ll check it out. But it doesn’t take me all that long to figure out if it’s for me. If I like it, great! I’ll spread the word about that author and his/her work. I love to shout about the things I really dig. But if I don’t care for it, that simply means that a particular piece of fiction didn’t meet my personal taste. No harm done.

Because that’s all that really matters, when it comes to fiction. Personal taste.

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Ancient Worlds: Apples, Cattle, and Big Red Buttons

Ancient Worlds: Apples, Cattle, and Big Red Buttons

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pandora's box
Just one little peek can’t hurt, right?

“I really don’t know who I am. I don’t know when to stop. So if I see a great, big, threatening button which should never ever ever be pressed, then I just want to do this. <presses button>”   ~Doctor Who, “The Christmas Invasion”

 

It’s the oldest story in the world.

(Literally, depending on who and what you believe. As a mother of small children, I think there is a reason for that.)

Person A (A god. A parent. A fairy godmother.) tells Person B (A hero. A child. An archangel.), “Everything is great. And everything will be great. As long as you don’t (Eat the apple. Open the box. Push the big shiny red button.).”

The minute the prohibition is given, we know what’s going to happen. What has to happen. Because it’s the nature of story and because it’s human nature.

eve-offering-the-apple-to-adam-in-the-garden-of-eden-the-elder-lucas-cranach
So you guys are new here, right? Never met me before, right? He didn’t tell you what this tree did? Iiiiiinteresting…

And because, of course, if no one pushes the big threatening button, there’s no story, is there.

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Dungeon Wishes

Dungeon Wishes

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sears1982I first read a Dungeons & Dragons rulebook in late 1979, nearly six years after the world’s first roleplaying game had been released. Over the course of those years, a great deal had happened, both to D&D and to the wider hobby it spawned. While I hadn’t personally experienced all that had happened, my friends and I were beneficiaries of it all.

Looking back on the late 1970s from the vantage point of 2013, just days before the release of yet another big budget fantasy film, it’s sometimes hard to remember that fantasy – at least the peculiar kind of fantasy that D&D represents – was once a rather unusual taste. It certainly wasn’t yet the mainstream genre of entertainment it would become over the course of my lifetime, thanks in no small part to the success of Dungeons & Dragons. A few months before I discovered the game, Gary Gygax, in an editorial published in issue #26 (June 1979) of Dragon magazine, noted that, initially, he had assumed D&D would appeal only to a very small segment of the population. He writes:

The target audience to which we thought D&D would appeal was principally the same as that of historical wargames in general and military miniatures in particular. D&D was hurriedly compiled, assuming that readers would be familiar with medieval and ancient history, wargaming, military miniatures, etc. It was aimed at males.

He then goes on to say that, “Within a few months it became apparent to us that our basic assumptions might be a bit off target. In another year it became abundantly clear to us that we were so far off as to be laughable.” His larger point was that, because the game’s popularity had spread beyond college-age and older men with an interest in military history, the game itself would have to change to be more accessible to other potential players.

My 10 year-old self was one of those other potential players.

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Roar for Victory! The Godzilla ’14 Trailer Is Here and Life Is Good

Roar for Victory! The Godzilla ’14 Trailer Is Here and Life Is Good

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godzilla 2014 poster-smallTHE TRAILER IS HERE AND YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING IT.

You might not have noticed it, because I’ve only had a few opportunities to discuss it at Black Gate (here and here), but Godzilla is sort of a huge big damn bloody deal to me.

Well, Godzilla is just plain huge to anybody, especially if you are in its way.

That’s why I hovered over my keyboard today at 10 a.m., hands palsied, awaiting the premiere of the first teaser trailer for the new Hollywood Godzilla from director Gareth Edwards. And… when the camera at last found the great lengths of the Japanese leviathan looming through the rubble of its devastation, and the beast let loose the legendary roar… I also roared out loud with him at the top of my lungs.

I was at work, mind you. Some impulses cannot be stopped. We’re a loose workplace, fortunately. They expect weird actions from their writers.

There’s no need to describe the trailer further — you can behold it for yourself — except to say that using György Ligeti’s “Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, 2 Mixed Choirs and Orchestra” for the HALO-drop opening is perfect. This music is best known for its use as the “monolith theme” in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and is anything more monolithic than Godzilla? (As a hardcore Stanley Kubrick fan as well, this slammed my geek-meter up to “Do Not Pull This Lever Again.”)

Although the trailer leaves many open questions, as any early teaser trailer should (will Walter White have to move the cook now that a monster has stomped it?), it does show that Gareth Edwards and company have created a genuine interpretation of the figure of Godzilla.

This is crucial: there are many different Godzilla interpretations since the beast first crashed onto Japanese screens in 1954. Godzilla has served as a nuclear metaphor, a force of nature, a butt-kicking anti-hero, a child friendly superhero, and a near-demonic force. All of these are legitimate interpretations of Godzilla, who can absorb many concepts and channel many human emotions. I prefer some versions to others, but as a dedicated G-fan, I can find some enjoyment in all of them.

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