Rejecting the Golden Age: Gareth L. Powell on Escaping Science Fiction’s Pulp Roots

Rejecting the Golden Age: Gareth L. Powell on Escaping Science Fiction’s Pulp Roots

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The Recollection Garath Powell-smallOver at SF Signal, author Gareth L. Powell has issued a call to stop recommending classic SF and fantasy, and start putting newer works in the hands of readers curious about our genres. His comments apparently arise from his experiences talking to a reading group who hadn’t read any SF written in the last 50 years.

The only way we’ll escape the legacy of our pulp roots is to promote the innovation, literary merit, and relevance of the best modern genre writing. Some fans will always cling to the ‘golden age’ works of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and I can understand why. They provide a magic door back to the simple pleasures of a simpler world – a world before global warming, oil shortages, terrorism, and economic uncertainty; relics of a world where the future was easily understood, and (largely) American, middle class and white in outlook, origin and ethnicity.

Part of me understands and sympathizes with that need for security. I still draw comfort and enjoyment from those old books. Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Philip K. Dick… These writers are the elder gods in my personal pantheon; but they are neither the beginning nor the end… being a fan’s a bit like being in a marriage. You have to accept that the person you’re with will mature and change, and you have to embrace that, and change with them in order to keep things fresh…

So, the next time a non-SF reader asks you what they should read, resist the temptation to throw them a copy of Foundation or Slan, and point them instead at something published in the last five years… Give them something modern, and they’re more likely to find characters, ideas and attitudes with which they can relate.

Powell is the author of Silversands, The Recollection, Ack-Ack Macaque and its new sequel, Hive Monkey — which he freely notes employs “the furniture of 1930s pulp literature – Zeppelins, Spitfires, cigar-smoking monkey pilots, evil android armies.”

Read the complete article at SF Signal here.

New Treasures: Dark Melody of Madness by Cornell Woolrich

New Treasures: Dark Melody of Madness by Cornell Woolrich

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Dark Melody of Madness-smallI wish a knew more about Cornell Woolrich.

From what I understand, this is a common state of affairs, even for some of his most devoted fans. Woolrich was something of a recluse, especially in the last few years of his life, and there are only a handful of people alive today who had any real dealings with him. Barry N. Malzberg, Woolrich’s agent for much of the 1960s, is one of the few, and he’s provided a fascinating reminisce in his introduction to Phantom Lady, one of the handsome new Woolrich editions from Centipede Press.

Woolrich is revered by mystery and noir fans — and rightly so. Some three dozen films have been made of his taut thrillers, including Rear Window, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Bride Wore Black, and many others. But on occasion, he also wrote supernatural fiction and Dark Melody of Madness, one of the new Centipede Press volumes, collects four of his novellas for the first time: “Graves For The Living,” “Jane Brown’s Body,” “Dark Melody of Madness,” and “I’m Dangerous Tonight,” all originally published between 1935 and 1938.

Holding on to a loved one can be difficult, but certainly not as weird and treacherous as in this quartet of Cornell Woolrich novellas set in the mid-1930s. It’s a time of great incongruities — physical anguish of the Great Depression, lighthearted dancing to the rhythms of swing; near-legendary bank robbers, daredevil long-distance airplane pilots; head bashing of union members, air-conditioned comfort for movie goers.

Woolrich takes this milieu, adds an overlay of the supernatural, and places his protagonists in grotesque, untenable situations involving their lives and souls. Here is the eerie world of voodoo, Frankenstein-style reincarnation, live burial, and macabre garments — a mixture of cold sweat-producing dilemmas, where the characters find it near-impossible to separate the real from the unreal.

Dark Melody of Madness was published by Centipede Press on August 6, 2013. The introduction is by Bill Pronzini, and the cover and color interiors are by Matt Mahurin. The trade paperback is 296 pages, priced at $18; there’s also a limited edition, out-of-print hardcover. The hardcover edition lists an additional novella, “Mannequin,” on the TOC. For mystery and noir fans, Centipede Press offers three additional volumes in the series: Deadline at Dawn, I Married a Dead Man, and Speak to Me of Death (see the complete set here.)

The Whole Northern Thing: Hrolf Kraki’s Saga by Poul Anderson

The Whole Northern Thing: Hrolf Kraki’s Saga by Poul Anderson

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oie_Ballantine Edition

Doom: Old English dom “law, judgment, condemnation,” from Proto-Germanic *domaz (cf. Old Saxon and Old Frisian dom, Old Norse domr

For a crime committed by King Frodhi the Peace-Good against the giantesses Fenja and Menja, a great doom is laid on the royal family of Denmark, the Skjöldungs.

How that doom works its murderous effects on the Skjöldungs is the core of Hrolf Kraki’s Saga (1973), Poul Anderson’s gripping retelling of the sagas (read the original here) of the ancient Danish king, Hrolf. The book brings together the extant stories of the Skjöldungs (which, almost as an aside, include the tale of Beowulf) and welds them into a coherent novel of great potency.

According to legend, Hrolf was the greatest king of Denmark and the most outstanding member of the semi-divine Skjöldung family. With his canny intelligence, he thwarted most of his kingdom’s enemies and built up its wealth. His great nobility drew the North’s mightiest warriors to his court.

Whether real or mythical, Hrolf and his reign are remembered in Denmark as fondly as Arthur’s in Britain. And like Arthur, all Hrolf’s great works were destroyed and chaos ruled in his wake.

From a people whose myths foretold the annihilation of the gods themselves in the end times of Ragnarok, the bleakness that runs through so many of their stories isn’t surprising. Perhaps it’s traceable to the violence of the Great Migratory period when the Germanic people spread out from their ancient homelands in Scandinavia and northern Germany and came into conflict with the Roman Empire and Celtic tribes in Gaul and Britain. Maybe it was just the cold and diminished winter sunlight in Norway and Sweden that bred their melancholy. Whatever the causes, doom in its modern sense runs through almost every chapter of Hrolf Kraki’s Saga.

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Christmas in the Dungeon

Christmas in the Dungeon

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dungeongame1975Whenever Christmas looms, my thoughts turn not to decorations, carols, and presents; but to dungeons. Actually, that’s not entirely true. My thoughts do turn to presents – or, rather, a single, very specific present, albeit one received not by myself, but by a good friend of mine in 1979.

Among my childhood friends, it was traditional that, during the Christmas break from school, we’d all take turns visiting one another’s homes to marvel at our respective holiday hauls. Together, we’d then play with whatever we deemed the most interesting presents. In the dying days of the 1970s, that typically meant Star Wars action figures (or perhaps Micronauts) and so it was that year. I believe that was the year that I received the much-coveted Imperial Troop Transport vehicle and so became the envy of my friends. But, cool as it was to be able to push a button on the Troop Transport and hear sound effects from my favorite movie, that wasn’t the Christmas gift that most interested me.

That honor fell instead to a strange little board game my friend Mike received. I say “strange,” because the “board” wasn’t really a board at all, but rather a folded up piece of thick paper that didn’t lay very flat on the table unless you held down the corners with books or other heavy objects. This board depicted a bunch of colored boxes connected by meandering yellow spaces, with a few larger spaces here and there. These larger spaces were all given rather evocative names like “King’s Library” and “Queen’s Treasure Room” and “Torture Chamber.” Flimsy though it might have been, the board nevertheless caught our attentions – and fired our imaginations.

The game, of course, was David R. Megarry’s Dungeon!, which was first published in 1975 by TSR Hobbies.

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Deck-Building Battles with Warmachine: High Command

Deck-Building Battles with Warmachine: High Command

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WM High Command_3DFor me, a good game is really a window into another world. It’s like a miniature story that is told with a set of pre-defined rules. The war games I play are rarely just games, like tic-tac-toe or chess, but instead a single battle in a larger war, which in turn is part of the story of the rise and fall of nations and the struggles of the people within them.

It was this perspective on gaming that first drew me to Privateer Press’s Warmachine line of miniature games. Though I loved the physical look of the figures, the fact is that I’m not an artist or a visually-compelled person as a rule, so it was really the setting that drew me in, the possibility to, in some small part, take part in the stories set in this world. And the giant warjacks didn’t hurt.

In fact, the first article I wrote for Black Gate was a review of Privateer Press’s Iron Kingdom roleplaying supplements, exploring their magically infused steampunk-style world of giant mechanical behemoths. Soon after, though, my involvement in Warmachine died off. I got married, became a father, and the disposable income to buy metal miniatures and disposable time to sit painting them went by the wayside (and there was a vast increase in anxiety, as little two-year-old fingers would inevitably seek to play with “Daddy’s dolls,” as they became known in my house).

Fast forward to the present, and it’s as if Privateer Press has found a solution to getting me back involved in one of my favorite gaming worlds. In addition to a whole new Iron Kingdoms line of RPG supplements (Amazon, Privateer Press) and digital fiction set in the Iron Kingdoms (Amazon), they have released a new deck-building game, Warmachine High Command (Amazon).

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A Step Into Dark Realms

A Step Into Dark Realms

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Dark Realms 25-smallI’ve always been a fan of small press magazines, especially genre magazines. That’s where you frequently find much of the cutting edge fiction and design — they take the kinds of creative risks that larger magazines simply can’t afford to. While I was running my own small press magazine, I didn’t have time to keep up on what was going on at the fringes, of course. And I missed out on a lot. But now that the print version of Black Gate is no longer an ongoing concern, I can afford more time to look around.

I bought my first issue of Dark Realms last week. A back issue, #25, cover dated Winter 2007. To be honest, I’m not sure what Dark Realms is all about, but it seems like my thing. The cover has a vampire dude, and promises to explore “The Inquisition” and the “The Dark Secrets of Loch Ness” inside. The subtitle reads “Exploring the Shadows of Art, Music, and Culture.” I’m up for that.

First thing I want to know, of course: is this thing still being published? Call it the ghoulish curiosity of a publisher with his own dead magazine. Sadly, I discovered I’m too late to actually support Dark Realms — the magazine give up the ghost five years ago, in 2008, after an impressive 32 issues.

From what I can tell after spending a few hours with it, Dark Realms is an odd mix of non-fiction, artwork, horror fiction, music reviews, and ads for goth necessities. However, while the magazine is visually very striking, it seems to rely heavily on a small number of contributors.

Issue #25 is a fine example. The moody and effective cover is by Joseph Vargo. On the inside front cover is a house ad for an art book and a tarot deck — both by Joseph Vargo. In the middle of the magazine is another ad, this one for Tales of the Dark Tower, a very professional-looking original anthology based upon characters created by Joseph Vargo. Turn the page and we come to the first fiction piece of the issue: “Spiders in the Attic,” written by… Joseph Vargo (with art by Joseph Vargo).

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Yes, Virginia, Damn Straight There’s a Santa Claus

Yes, Virginia, Damn Straight There’s a Santa Claus

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santa“Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” You’ve probably heard that phrase even if you’ve never read the editorial, written by Francis Church and appearing in the September 21, 1897 edition of the New York Sun in response to a letter from an eight-year-old girl named (you guessed it) Virginia. It has become a part of American Christmas folklore, and rightfully so.

“Is there a Santa Claus?” From the first time I ever read that editorial, I knew it was true.

I believe it is true not in some cute or ironic way, but 100% legit, expressing a philosophical truth. Santa and all our treasured fictional characters are real.

(Incidentally, all you Tolkien fanatics and high-fantasy geeks: this is essentially the same argument that was put forth by J.R.R. Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy Stories” and in conversations and correspondence. So, doubly cool.)

Church expressed something that I believe philosophically, as much now as when I was ten, but which I have found frustratingly hard to articulate.

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New Treasures: Allegiance by Beth Bernobich

New Treasures: Allegiance by Beth Bernobich

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Allegiance Beth Bernobich-smallYou can always tell the books that get a serious buzz here at Black Gate — because the review copies always vanish. I try to track them down and discover they’ve been passed from hand to hand until almost everyone on staff has read them. Except for me, of course. I can never find the damn things.

That’s what it’s been like with the novels of Beth Bernobich and her River of Souls trilogy. I still have no idea what happened to the first volume, Passion Play… I gave up looking for it after I learned my son Tim took it off to college. I’m trying to run a blog here, people. Work with me.

And so it is with the third volume, Allegiance. I have no idea where it is. I’m writing this based on the release notes. I think I just have to accept the inevitable: that I’ll have to draft New Treasures posts for Beth Bernobich’s novels without ever having the book in hand. I’m forced to rely on what I can glean from brief sightings during staff meetings and scattered Internet rumors. Enjoy.

King Leos of Károví, the tyrannical despot whose magic made him near immortal and who controlled a tattered empire for centuries through fear and intimidation, is finally dead. Ilse Zhalina watched as the magical jewels that gave him such power reunited into a single essence, a manifestly God-like creature who then disappeared into the cosmic void. Ilse is now free to fulfill her promise to Valara Baussay, the rogue Queen of Morennioù, who wants to return to her kingdom and claim her throne.

Ilse will do all in her power to help Valara if only as a means to get to her home. Home to her lover, Raul Kosenmark, who is gathering forces in their homeland of Veraene now that Leos is dead in order to save them from an ill-advised war. Pulled by duty and honor, Ilse makes this long journey back to where her story began, to complete the journey she attempted lives and centuries before and bring peace between the kingdoms. Along the way she learns some hard truths and finally comes to a crossroads of power and magic. She must decide if duty is stronger than a love that she has sought through countless lifetimes.

Will Ilse give up her heart’s desire so that her nation can finally know lasting peace?

Allegiance was published by Tor Books on October 29. Best guess, it is 320 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition. I dunno who painted the cover, but I like it.

A Fond Look Back at Bluejay Books

A Fond Look Back at Bluejay Books

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Alien Cargo Theodore Sturgeon-smallThe most popular article on the Black Gate website in July was our report on the departure of James Frenkel from Tor Books.

News articles like that are usually good for some decent traffic. It seems everyone had something to say about Frenkel stepping down from his post at the most powerful genre publisher in America and all that attention generated a lot of clicks.

Most conversations, however, dwelled on the circumstances of his departure, and overlooked his many accomplishments. During his years at Tor, Frenkel sure was busy. He acquired and edited some of their most important books, including volumes from Frederik Pohl, Dan Simmons, Jack Williamson, Timothy Zahn, Greg Bear, Andre Norton, Vernor Vinge, and many others.

But even before he joined Tor, Frenkel made major contributions to American SF and fantasy, particularly as publisher at Bluejay Books in the mid-80s. It’s Bluejay, and the beautiful books they produced before going out of business, that I want to talk about today.

Bluejay was active just as I was really discovering American fantasy and SF in the early 80s, haunting bookshops in downtown Ottawa. They were pioneers in the trade paperback market, hired excellent cover artists — including Rowena Morrill, Tom Kidd, Barclay Shaw, John Pierard, Jill Bauman, and others — and published many of the top writers in the field, such as Theodore Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Vernor Vinge, and many more.

That was a powerful combination, and it meant that Bluejay was an imprint with enormous prestige — at least in my mind. I kept an eye out for their books on the shelves and always gave them special attention.

That prestige extended to all their titles, not just the authors I recognized (part of the magic of having a strong and easily recognizable visual brand). It also extended to the new authors they discovered and championed.

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A Ghost Put to Good Use: Ali Smith’s Hotel World

A Ghost Put to Good Use: Ali Smith’s Hotel World

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Hotel WorldEarlier this week Mark Rigney put up an interesting post on the (narrative) uses of ghosts, and suggested a number of plot and thematic functions a ghost can serve in a story. The post resonated for me with the book I was reading at the time: Ali Smith’s Hotel World. And when I say ‘resonate’ I mean it seemed to echo some of the questions I had about the book, and to suggest some ways of looking at the novel that might help unriddle some of its more curious aspects. So here’s a look at the novel, bearing in mind the question: what’s that ghost doing there?

Hotel World is Smith’s second novel. Published in 2001, it followed 1997’s Like and two volumes of short stories, Free Love and Other Stories (1995, winner of the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award) and 1999’s Other Stories and Other Stories. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize, and won the Scottish Arts Council Book Award. It’s a short novel, made up of five longish interconnected stories and an epilogue. Each of the five main stories follows a woman in a city on the north of the UK; each woman is connected in some way with a certain hotel, a part of the worldwide Global Hotels chain.

The first story is the first-person recollections of one Sara Wilby, ghost. She was a maid in the hotel, who for a joke tried to fit herself into a dumbwaiter on the top floor of the hotel only to have the old dumbwaiter fall and kill her. Her story follows her attempt to understand her death, what happened, and what it means; she succeeds, through a final reconciliation with her former body. The second story follows Else, or Elspeth, a homeless woman who panhandles outside the elegant Global Hotel. She’s given a room for the night by Lise, the night clerk at the hotel, who is the subject of the third story. The fourth story follows a guest, Penny Warner, a newspaper writer working on a puff-piece about Global Hotels. The last of the five stories follows Clare Wilby, Sara’s sister, who, like Sara, is trying to understand Sara’s death. The last section pulls back to give us a wide-angle view of the world and all its connections and ghosts.

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