A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

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These days, deciding what to get depressed about is like visiting a fabulous smorgasbord where the presentation is first-class and every delicious dish is cooked to perfection. Hmmm… what shall I have today? Let’s see… a generous spoonful of climate-change anxiety is guaranteed to make a good appetizer. Now let’s have some sides… umm… a little state of the economy worry is always tasty, and… where are they hiding it? Oh! There it is — it’s just not a meal without a steaming portion of AI apocalypticism. And now for the main course. Well, we all know that there’s nothing as filling as… er, let’s just stop there, shall we?

For myself, I tend to go in for the more exotic entrees. For instance, one of my favorites is a heaping plateful of “dammit, kids just don’t read comic books as much as they did when I was their age!” Though it might not be enough for a whole meal, it is something that I frequently find myself chewing on.

It’s true, too — in my role as a fourth-grade teacher, I spend every day in the company of elementary-age children, and I can attest that actual comic books play almost no role in their lives, certainly compared with the space those gaudy booklets took up in my life — and my bedroom closet — when I was a child.

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The Sword & Planet of Leigh Brackett

The Sword & Planet of Leigh Brackett

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The Secret of Sinharat and People of the Talisman (Ace Double M-101, 1964). Covers by Ed Emshwiller

Leigh Brackett (1915 – 1978) is my favorite from among the second generation of Sword & Planet writers (S&P). Many people I meet recognize her name from her association with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, for which she wrote the initial script. Or for the script to The Big Sleep, which she also wrote. Or, for several western movies she wrote the scripts for.

Those don’t mean anything to me, though. I know her from her Space Opera and S&P books, particularly the series featuring Eric John Stark.

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By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

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We’re rolling through Cimmerian September here at Black Gate. Well, on Monday mornings we sure are! I was fortunate enough to be asked to do some Youtube panels for the Robert E. Howard Foundation folks this month. And we had a great time talking about the first Del Rey Conan volume – The Coming of Conan – in the first one.

I got to give my thoughts on “Rogues in the House,” which was my Hither Came Conan title. That had been a mid-level Conan story for me. But it moved up the ranks after I finished my essay project. So, with some tweaks, here’s my take on a pretty cool story. And HOW was this six years ago??

When I was pitching this series to folks, I was using the title, The Best of Conan. I didn’t come up with Hither Came Conan for about eight months, I think. Yeah, I know… The idea behind the series came from an essay in my first (and so far, only) Nero Wolfe Newsletter. The plan for 3 Good Reasons is to look at a story and list three reasons why it’s the ‘best’ Wolfe story. And I toss in one ‘bad’ reason why it’s not. And finish it off with some quotes.

So, I’m going to take a somewhat different tack from those who have come before me (I doubt I could have measured up, anyways) and pick out two elements that make this story one of Howard’s best accounts of the mighty-thewed Cimmerian. Then, throw a curveball from the Wolfe approach and highlight a few items worthy of note.

OUR STORY

Obviously, you need to read this story, but here’s a Cliff’s Notes version: Nabonidus, the Red Priest, is the real power in this unnamed Corinthian city. He gives a golden cask to Murilo, a young aristocrat. And inside the cask is a human ear (remind you of Sherlock Holmes? It should.). We learn a little later on that Murillo has been selling state secrets, and the ear is from a clerk he had dealings with. The jig is up!

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Ahoy, Matey! Plunge the Depths of The Great Eastern by Howard A. Rodman

Ahoy, Matey! Plunge the Depths of The Great Eastern by Howard A. Rodman

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The Great Eastern by Howard A. Rodman (Melville House, June 4, 2019). Cover artist unknown

Pop quiz. What do Captain Ahab, Captain Nemo, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel share in common? Okay, if you don’t know the first two, you have no business reading anything here at Black Gate. But you are forgiven if you haven’t a clue as to Brunel. I know I didn’t until I read Howard A. Rodman’s wonderfully inventive novel,  The Great Eastern.

Let’s look first at the main difference. Captain Ahab and Nemo are fictional. Brunel was a real person, and not just any person, but a renowned 19th century engineer who not only worked on Britain’s the Great Western Railway and Clifton Suspension Bridge, but also designed a series of of steamships called the Great Britain, the Great Western, and the Great Eastern.

So you can start to see where this is going.

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Mummy Issues, Part III — That’s a Wrap

Mummy Issues, Part III — That’s a Wrap

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Sands of Oblivion (Sci Fi Channel, July 28, 2007)

Sands of Oblivion (2007) – Tubi

Quite a mixed bag for this one; a cluster of decent actors, an intriguing storyline, a fun, practical monster, and then… SyFy CG effects, TV-safe horror, a dune buggy chase.

A bunch of scientists, Egyptologists, and film historians find themselves in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes in Santa Barbara, CA, site of Cecil B. De Mille’s epic production of The Ten Commandments. They are there to oversee the digging up and relocation of the original sets, but wouldn’t you know it, old Cecil used real artifacts in his film, and one is a cursed amulet that sets free a demonic force hellbent on destroying the world.

Or something.

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Tor Double #22: Leigh Brackett’s The Jewel of Bas and Karen Haber’s Thieves’ Carnival

Tor Double #22: Leigh Brackett’s The Jewel of Bas and Karen Haber’s Thieves’ Carnival

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Cover for The Jewel of Bas and Thieves’ Carnival by Luis Perez

This volume represents the third collection of linked stories. While Robert Silverberg wrote In Another Country to take place at the same time as C.L. Moore’s Vintage Season and Harry Turtledove’s The Pugnacious Peacekeeper was a more traditional sequel to L. Sprague de Camp’s The Wheels of If, Karen Haber provided a prequel to Leigh Brackett’s The Jewel of Bas. Although Haber’s Thieves’ Carnival appears first in this volume, I’m going to stick with my norm of reviewing the earlier published story first.

The Jewel of Bas was originally published in Planet Stories in Spring 1944. It is the final of three stories by Leigh Brackett in the Tor Double series. The story opens with Ciaran and Mouse, a raggedy couple who has recently gotten married. Leaving the city they have known for their entire lives, Ciaran convinces Mouse that they should take a shortcut he has heard of across the Forbidden Plains, despite its foreboding name and its reputation for causing people to disappear.

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Goth Chick News: Is Warner Bros Ready to Knife Universal?

Goth Chick News: Is Warner Bros Ready to Knife Universal?

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If you’ve been watching the horror landscape this year, one thing’s obvious: in spite of the fact that Universal all but created the genre, Warner Bros. has horror by the throat. The Conjuring: Last Rites just claimed the highest global opening ever for a horror film, knocking down big names like IT and IT: Chapter Two. Meanwhile, three of 2025’s other biggest horror box office winners, Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines, and Weapons, are also WB projects.

Now the studio seems to be going for more than Universal’s jugular. They’re pushing for Oscar recognition.

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Sword & Planet from DMR Books: Henry Kuttner and Howie K. Bentley

Sword & Planet from DMR Books: Henry Kuttner and Howie K. Bentley

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Startling Stories, May 1947; and Lands of the Earthquake by Henry Kuttner
(DMR Books, June 2017). Cover art by Earle Bergey and Logon Saton

Lands of the Earthquake/Under a Dim Blue Sun is a “Double” novel, in the tradition of the old Ace Doubles. It contains a long novella by Henry Kuttner called Lands of the Earthquake, and a shorter novella by Howie K. Bentley called Under a Dim Blue Sun. Both fit the Sword & Planet mold (S&P).

The publisher here is DMR books, and it’s printed in the old paperback size that I like. You can find DMR Books online or on Amazon. The cover art on the Kuttner piece is Logon Saton.

The Kuttner piece was first published in 1947 in Startling Stories but has not been reprinted until now. It involves a modern Earthman, William Boyce, being transported to a fantasy land where time stands still but physical space moves. This temporarily brings different lands close enough to each other to interact.

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Back Into the AI Debate

Back Into the AI Debate

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Image courtesy of Pixabay, found under the “authentic only” search (not AI)

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

This post is going to be a little “old lady yells at clouds” today, so prepare!

With the news that Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude Chaptbot, was sued and settled for their large-scale theft of books in order to train its AI model, I have been reading a glut of articles both for and against the use of AI, specifically to write fiction novels. Naturally, not being AI (I swear!), I’m firmly against. The theft of creative works to train these programs, and the environmental damage required to get the up and keep them running aside (and those two reasons alone are strong enough, I feel, to abandon AI) I don’t think AI belongs in creative fields; some aids, perhaps, some tools, yes. But I don’t think creating AI that can “write” a novel is in any way valuable.

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By Crom, it’s Cimmerian September: Roy Thomas & “Out of the Deep”

By Crom, it’s Cimmerian September: Roy Thomas & “Out of the Deep”

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Cimmerian September (nod to Michael K. Vaughan for coining that) continues here at A (Black) Gat in the Hand. Spooky season is right around the corner, so let’s combine a little horror with our Conan (albeit, of the Marvel variety). I have been reading Savage Sword of Conan lately. But earlier this year, I finished my reading of the first 115 issues of Conan the Barbarian. Those comprised Roy Thomas’ first run of the series, as he left Marvel. I wrote previously about how he brought Conan to Marvel.

He adapted several non-Conan stories, such as “The Marchers of Valhalla,” The Lost Valley of Iskander,” and “Black Canaan,” among many others.

“Sea Curse” appeared in the May, 1928 issue of Weird Tales. It recounted the death of a young girl and an ensuing curse, in the small coastal village of Faring. That same year, he also wrote another tale set in Faring, but it was rejected by both Weird Tales, and Ghost Story. There was also a short poem called The Legend of Faring Town, which first appeared in 1975.

That second story, “Out of the Deep,” finally found print in the November, 1967 issue of Magazine of Horror. Whereas “Sea Curse” is a tale of revenge, this one is a sea monster story. And the reason I chose this of the two is because Roy Thomas adapted it for Conan the Barbarian.

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