Sean McLachlan was the Black Gate MVP for November, with two articles in the Top 5: “Happy Halloween! Here’s Some Nightmare Fuel” at #3, and “Ten Ways You Know Your Evil Empire Is Doomed,” which scored the #5 slot. Hot on Sean’s heels was Ryan Harvey with two Pellucidar posts, his review of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Savage Pellucidar (#6) and the Series Wrap-Up (#10).

The most popular article last month was our survey of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress anthology series, which has been published semi-continuously since 1984. The post spawned at least one follow-up, a more personal look back on the series by Elizabeth Cady, to be published here in the next next few days. Coming in at #2 was Bob Byrne’s review of the film Murder on the Orient Express. Rounding out the Top Five was our look at S. A. Chakraborty’s new novel The City of Brass.

An update on Beneath Ceaseless Skies placed seventh, followed by Fletcher Vredenburgh’s review of Robert E. Howard’s The Road of Azrael. And Steven H Silver nabbed the ninth slot on the list, with his Michael Moorcock re-read “Elric and Me.”

The complete list of Top Articles for November follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular overall articles, online fiction, and blog categories for the month.

The Top 50 Black Gate posts in November were:

1. Vintage Treasures: Sword & Sorceress, edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley
2. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Murder on the Orient Express
3. Happy Halloween! Here’s Some Nightmare Fuel
4. Future Treasures: The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
5. Ten Ways You Know Your Evil Empire Is Doomed
6. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Savage Pellucidar
7. Beneath Ceaseless Skies 237 Now Available
8. The Road of Azrael by Robert E. Howard
9. Elric and Me
10. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Series Wrap-Up

     

11. I Was Paper Trained by Philip K. Dick
12. It’s Alive! Classic Horror and Sci-Fi Art from the Kirk Hammett Collection
13. Ragnarok Publications Cancels Forthcoming Books
14. The 4th International Science Fiction Conference, Chengdu, China, November 2017
15. A Homecoming: Son of Mfumu by Milton J. Davis
16. A City Eternal, Under Siege: City at the Edge of Time, by Janet & Chris Morris
17. New Treasures: Above the Timberline by Gregory Manchess
18. Modular: Fox Trot Plays Dungeons & Dragons
19. A Tale from the Archonate: A Wizard’s Henchman by Matthew Hughes
20. Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1953: A Retro-Review

     

21. Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction Novellas of the Year 1, edited by Terry Carr
22. The First Three Laws of Robotics
23. Piracy: It’s the Creative Ecosystem that Matters
24. A New Twilight Zone? Maybe — And I Have a Few Requests
25. The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in October
26. Future Treasures: Persepolis Rising by James S. A. Corey
27. The 2017 World Fantasy Award Winners
28. November/December Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale
29. Star Kings, Virtual Reality, and Genetic Monsters: Rich Horton on Crown of Infinity by John M. Faucette/ The Prism by Emil Petaja
30. The Finest in Modern Sword & Sorcery: The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 2, 2011-2013

     

31. Future Treasures: The Big Book of the Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett
32. Postapocalyptic Adventure on the Gulf Coast: The Ship Breaker Trilogy by Paolo Bacigalupi
33. New Treasures: Infinite Stars, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt
34. Tom Sutton’s Creepy Things
35. New Treasures: Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
36. Goth Chick News, New Treasures: Demon Freaks by J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison
37. MASHED: A Korean War MASH RPG
38. November/December 2017 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale
39. Dark Osprey: The Shadowy Worlds of Cthulhu, Alien Bug Hunts, and a Nazi Moonbase
40. Unify England During the Hundred Years War in Lancaster from Queen Games

     

41. Looting is Better With Friends: Dungeon Dwellers
42. Fantasia 2017, Day 13: Death Note: Light Up The New World
43. The November Fantasy Magazine Rack
44. Party Of The First Part
45. Goth Chick News: In Hollywood, Dead Is Sometimes Better…
46. Rube Goldberg’s Radio Robot
47. New Treasures: The Big Book of Rogues and Villains edited by Otto Penzler
48. Goth Chick News: King Kong Goes to Broadway
49. Self-published Book Review: At Yomi’s Gate by John Meszaros
50. Beneath Ceaseless Skies 239 Now Available

There were plenty of older articles popular last month as well. The 25 most popular blog posts written before November were:

1. New Treasures: The Library of America Publishes Elmore Leonard
2. Solitaire Adventure with Victory Point Games
3. My Fantasia Festival, Days 5 to 7: Cold in July, The Fatal Encounter, and Huntresses
4. Fantasia Diary 2015, Day 5: Teana: 10000 Years Later, Crimson Whale, and The Shamer’s Daughter
5. The Return of the King (1980)
6. Blowing the Doors Off the Barn: Expanding the Iron Fist Mythos
7. Living it Large: How Larger Than Life Characters Work
8. Eccentric in Retrospect: Helen Simpson’s The Woman on the Beast
9. Return to Thieves World in Beyond Sanctuary: The Revised and Expanded Author’s Cut by Janet Morris
10. Haunt the House: The Music and Art of Will Houlihan
11. Adventures on Stage: Fantasy Literature’s Missing Link
12. Heroic Fantasy with the Sharp Edge of Reality: The Sacred Band by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
13. The Series Series: Shieldwall: Barbarians! by M. Harold Page
14. Adventures In Gaming: The Temple Of the Sea Gods
15. Battles with Blades and Bows, and Creatures Charming and Terrifying: Journeys, edited by Teresa Edgerton
16. Tribulations Herculean and Tragic: Beyond Wizardwall by Janet Morris
17. The IX by Andrew P. Weston
18. Tempus Takes Manhattan: Janet and Chris Morris’ Tempus Unbound
19. Part Gothic, Part Sword and Sorcery, and Part Horror: Andrew P. Weston’s Hell Bound
20. Caught Between Rebels and the Empire’s Blackest Magic: Beyond the Veil: The Revised and Expanded Author’s Cut by Janet Morris
21. Vintage Treasures: The Silistra Quartet by Janet Morris
22. Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Skeleton Matters (Or, Why It’s Not OK to Skip Scenes in Your Third Act)
23. Read “The Great Detective” by Delia Sherman at Tor.com
24. The Complete Carpenter: Christine (1983)
25. Why isn’t Conan a Mary Sue?

The Top Black Gate Online Fiction features were:

1. An excerpt from The Sacred Band by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
2. Tempus Unbound, edited by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
3. “Seven Against Hell” by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
4. An excerpt from Pirates in Hell, edited by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
5. “Goat-Beard the Pirate, Part 2: Evil Angel,” by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
6. An excerpt from The Power of the Sapphire Wand by Erika M Szabo and Joe Bonadonna
7. An excerpt from Shards of the Glass Slipper: Queen Cinder by Roy A. Mauritsen
8. An excerpt from Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong
9. An excerpt from Mouth of the Dragon by Tom Barczak
10. “A Princess of Jadh” by Gregory Bierly
11. An excerpt from The Black Fire Concerto by Mike Allen
12. “The Sorrowless Thief” by Ryan Harvey
13. “Stand at Duben-Geb” by Ryan Harvey
14. “Iron Joan” by ElizaBeth Gilligan
15. “Tsathoggua” by Michael Shea
16. “Vestments of Pestilence” by John C. Hocking
17. An excerpt from “The Mudslinger” by David Evan Harris
18. “Nero Wolfe – Stamped for Murder” by Bob Byrne
19. “The Trade” by Mark Rigney
20. The first chapter of The Wreck of the Marissa by M Harold Page
21. “The Cremator’s Tale” by Steven H Silver
22. Fiction Excerpt: “Tumithak of the Corridors” by Charles R. Tanner
23. “The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying” by Alex Kreis
24. “Awakening” by Judith Berman
25. An excerpt from Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin by Erika M Szabo and Joe Bonadonna
26. An excerpt from “The Hand That Binds” by Michael Livingston
27. “The Whoremaster of Pald” by Harry Connolly
28. An excerpt from Soleri by Michael Johnston
29. An excerpt from Souldrifter by Garrett Calcaterra
30. An excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna

The top categories last month were:

1. Editor’s Blog
2. Vintage Treasures
3. Books
4. Blog Entry
5. Art of the Genre
6. Comics
7. BG Staff
8. Art
9. Game Reviews
10. Reviews
11. Future Treasures
12. Magazines
13. Interviews
14. Discovering Robert E. Howard
15. Conan
16. Black Gate Goes to Summer Movies
17. Convention Report
18. News
19. Contest
20. Pastiche
21. Role Playing Games
22. Pulp
23. New Treasures
24. Fiction
25. Goth Chick
26. Movies & TV
27. Weird Western
28. Series Fantasy
29. Essays
30. Obituary
31. Paranormal Romance
32. Rich Horton
33. Writing
34. Fashion
35. Solitaire Game Reviews

The Top 50 Black Gate blog posts in October are here, and you can see all 79 posts we made in the month of November here.