M. Harold Page had a good month in May, with two of the Top Three articles. His detailed breakdown on choreographing dramatic combat, and mastering the conflicting demands of narrative and blow-by-blow description, “How To Write a Good Fight Scene,” was our #1 article. And just to show how easy it is, he also nabbed the #3 slot, with a look at the similarities between Edmond Hamilton’s pulp classic Return to the Stars and Ridley’s Scott SF masterpiece, in “Blade Runner: Edmond Hamilton’s Tears in the Rain?”

Bob Byrne prevented Martin from stealing all the glory by taking the #2 slot, with “The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Adventures With Jeremy Brett,” just one of two Jeremy Brett article to make this list last month. I guess good things come in pairs.

Thomas Parker claimed fifth place with his look at Alice Sheldon and James Tiptree Jr, “The Woman Who Was a Man Who Was a Woman.” And Mark Rigney took #7 with a piece on adventures in role playing, “Long Arc or Short Arc?” (Mark’s complete epic adventure The Temple Of the Sea Gods also made the Top 50 list.)

Rich Horton was next, with “A Modest Proposal to Improve the Hugos,” a follow-up to his detailed article on the Rabid Puppy/Sad Puppy debacle, “The 2015 Hugo Nominations,” one of our most widely-read articles last month.

Rounding out the Top Ten were Elizabeth Cady, with “Medusa and the Viral Impact of Sexual Assault,” and Part One of our look at the fantasies of the Grand Dame of Fantasy and Horror, “The Novels of Tanith Lee: The Wars of Vis.”

The complete list of Top Articles for May follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular blog categories for the month.

The complete Top 50 Black Gate posts in May were:

1. How To Write a Good Fight Scene
2. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Adventures With Jeremy Brett
3. Blade Runner: Edmond Hamilton’s Tears in the Rain?
4. The Future of Fantasy: May New Releases
5. The Woman Who Was a Man Who Was a Woman: Alice Sheldon and James Tiptree Jr.
6. Vintage Treasures: Earth’s Last Citadel by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner.
7. Adventures in RPGs: Long Arc or Short Arc?
8. A Modest Proposal to Improve the Hugos
9. Ancient Worlds: Medusa and the Viral Impact of Sexual Assault
10. The Novels of Tanith Lee: The Wars of Vis

     

11. Vintage Treasures: The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak
12. Spot the Avengers: Age of Ultron Spoiler on the Cover of the 1967 Paperback The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker
13. Vintage Treasures: Clockwork’s Pirates/Ghost Breaker by Ron Goulart
14. The March of the 10,000
15. Belated Movie Reviews #4: The Road Warrior
16. Vintage Treasures: Under the Moons of Mars, edited by Sam Moskowitz
17. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Jeremy Brett’s Adventures Begin
18. The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in April
19. Ancient Worlds: Caenis, Caeneus, and the Aftermath of Rape
20. Nazi Film Review: Hitlerjunge Quex

     

21. Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes by Raphael Ordoñez
22. Review: Three Fictional Non-Fiction Books from Osprey
23. Editing Indie Comics and Editing Marvel Comics: The Different Worlds of Heather Antos
24. The Vorrh, Redux
25. Through the Woods and Other Stories by Emily Carroll
26. New Treasures: The Daedalus Series by Michael J Martinez
27. Tanith Lee, September 19, 1947 – May 24, 2015
28. Vintage Treasures: Heroic Visions, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
29. 2015 Locus Award Finalists Announced
30. Odysseus: An Original Barbarian Badass

     

31. Alcalá de Henares: Visiting the Birthplace of Cervantes
32. Nine Positive Traits of the Jem Trailer
33. Explore the Best of Early SF With Science Fiction From the Great Years
34. The Tears of Ishtar by Michael Ehart/
35. The Omnibus Volumes of Jack Vance, Part III: The Demon Princes
36. Memories of Palmyra Before ISIS
37. Vintage Treasures: A Touch of Strange by Theodore Sturgeon
38. Knock, Knock: Or, The Portal Fantasy Revisited
39. Want to Break Into Comics?
40. Medieval Arms and Armor at the Wallace Collection, London

     

41. Into the Wastelands: Enchanted Pilgrimage by Clifford D. Simak
42. Catching Up With Numenera
43. Vintage Treasures: The Fox Woman by A. Merritt
44. Belated Movie Reviews #5: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
45. Eight Barbarian Body Building (3B) Tips/
46. Escalation to Fight: Understanding Magic in Trial of Intentions
47. Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q24 Now Available
48. Charles de Lint and The Little Country
49. Check Out the Hyperborea Adventure Kickstarter
50. Adventures In Gaming: The Temple Of the Sea Gods

The top categories last month were:

1. New Treasures
2. Books
3. Fiction
4. Blog Entry
5. Magazines
6. Vintage Treasures
7. Game Reviews
8. Pulp
9. Reviews
10. Convention Report
11. Music
12. Art of the Genre
13. Essays
14. Editors Blog
15. Uncategorized
16. Comics
17. Fashion
18. Reviews of Black Gate
19. News
20. Series Fantasy

The Top 5o Black Gate blog posts in April are here, and you can see all 128 posts we made in the month of May here.