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Month: November 2010

Win a copy of Terror in the House: The Early Kuttner, Volume One

Win a copy of Terror in the House: The Early Kuttner, Volume One

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kuttnerHaffner Press has released the first volume of their new series The Early Kuttner, titled Terror in the House, and we have no less than three copies to give away.

Haffner’s archival-quality hardcovers  — including the legendary Kaldar: World of Antares by Edmond Hamilton, copies of which now sell for $2,000 and up — are some of the most collectible books in the genre, and Terror in the House promises to be popular indeed. Here’s the book description:

Henry Kuttner was a frequent contributor to the pulp magazines that specialized in the weird, supernatural, horror, and science fiction genre. Beginning in 1936, with the minor classic “The Graveyard Rats,” Kuttner launched a steady stream of short stories aimed at Weird Tales, Mystery Tales, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and others… Kuttner set several stories in Lovecraft’s “Cthulhu Mythos” and several are presented in Terror in the House including: “The Secret of Kralitz,” “The Eater of Souls,” “The Salem Horror,” The Jest of Droom-Avista,” “The Frog,” “The Invaders,” and “The Bells of Horror.”

He contributed reams of copy to the weird-menace (a sub-genre of horror where a seemingly supernatural plot is resolved with a pedestrian ending) pulps, Thrilling Mystery and Spice Mystery… Terror in the House is the first volume in a set collecting many of Kuttner’s earliest stories, most of which have never been reprinted.

Terror in the House is 712 pages in hardcover, with a preface by Richard Matheson and introduction by Garyn G. Roberts, Ph.D. It is edited by Stephen Haffner and illustrated by Harry V. Parkhurst, and has a retail price of $40.

How do you win a copy? Easy! Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the title “Kuttner Contest,” with a one-sentence review of your favorite Henry Kuttner short story. Three winners will be drawn at random from all qualifying entries, and we’ll publish the best reviews here on the Black Gate blog.

All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Not valid where prohibited by law. Or anywhere postage for a hefty hardcover is more than, like, 10 bucks. Seriously, these things are heavy and we’re on a budget.

Black Gate at World Fantasy Convention 2010

Black Gate at World Fantasy Convention 2010

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Well, I’ve finally returned to the Black Gate rooftop headquarters here in St. Charles, Illinois, after a weary week of travel. We had the largest team gathering in the magazine’s history at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio last weekend — including several Contributing Editors, half a dozen bloggers, and over two dozen writers and contributors. I started the magazine ten years ago and have been attending conventions for decades, and there were several long-term staff members I met for the first time, including the distinguished Ryan Harvey and John R. Fultz.

Team Black Gate
Team Black Gate: editor John ONeill, contributing editor Bill Ward, author and blogger James Enge, Jason Waltz (Rogue Blades), managing editor Howard Andrew Jones, author and blogger John R. Fultz, and author and blogger Ryan Harvey.

All of us were invited to take part in a podcast on Sword & Sorcery organized by the charming Jaym Gates — stay tuned for the broadcast location and date.  Our Saturday night reading was a rollicking success, as nearly two dozen Black Gate authors read from work sold to the magazine over the past ten years, including James Enge, Frederic Durbin, E.E. Knight, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, L.E. Modesitt Jr, Darrell Schweitzer, Donald S. Crankshaw, Howard Andrew Jones, Martha Wells, Ryan Harvey, Robert J. Howe, John R. Fultz, Myke Cole, Renee Stern, Steven Silver, Michael Shea, S. Hutson Blount, Janet Stirling, F. Brett Cox, and Frederick Tor.

I also got the chance to meet with other contributors including Mike Resnick, Jeffrey Ford, David B. Coe, Ellen Klages (and her charming sister), and Charles Coleman Finlay.  It was a delight to finally meet artist Jim Pavelec in the Dealer’s room, as well as fellow editors Adrian Simmons (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly) and Mike Allen (Mythic Delirium), and make several new friends, including long-term reader Matthew Wuertz. I made the trip with Jason Waltz, publisher of Rogue Blades Entertainment, who shared our table and turned out to be a stalwart traveling companion.

Due to the sheer size of the convention there were also BG writers wandering the halls I somehow managed to miss completely, including Jeremiah Tolbert and Rick Bowes. Ah well, maybe next year. There’s a reason it’s called the World Fantasy Convention. No matter how much you try, life is too short to see it all.

Gabbing with a Girl of Spirit: Black Gate Interviews Ysabeau Wilce

Gabbing with a Girl of Spirit: Black Gate Interviews Ysabeau Wilce

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yspicA few years ago, I lived and worked in Edgewater, a northerly Chicago neighborhood  just blocks from fantasy writer Ysabeau Wilce’s house. She once confessed to having walked her dog past my bookstore on Broadway and Bryn Mawr. The unutterable excitement!

I didn’t know then that the anonymous, red-haired, dog-walking passerby was the very same woman who wrote “Metal More Attractive,” the story in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that made me write my first ever fan letter as an adult.

Not to mention, she’s also the author of Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog.The fact that I get to interview her today? Just tickles me!

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Short Fiction Roundup

Short Fiction Roundup

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apexmag11101The November issue of Apex Magazine has gone to press (can you still use those kind of terms for on-line publication), and edtor Catherynne M. Valente has presented the unusual theme of an Arab/Muslim issue.  A reader comment about Pamela K. Taylor’s “50 Fatwas for the Virtuous Vampire” (because it doesn’t matter what part of the world you may be in these days, the undead sucking blood have somehow or another become cultural icons) describes the story as “[b]oth savagely funny and gut-wrenchingly moving.”

In other news, Word Fantasy Award winning editor Susan Marie Groppi is resigning her “in-chief” role at Strange Horizons. Reviews editor Niall Harrison is assuming the post, and is stepping down after five years from the helm as features editor of  Vector to take on the job.

Marvel’s The Monster of Frankenstein, Part Four

Marvel’s The Monster of Frankenstein, Part Four

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fm13The 20th Century adventures of Mary Shelley’s famous monster continued with a guest-star stint in Giant-Size Werewolf #2. Doug fm14Moench scripted and Don Perlin provided the artwork. Moench gets to make his familiar point about judging by appearances (as he did several times in his Frankenstein 1974 scripts for Monsters Unleashed) with an opening sequence in which a hippie and an African-American are discussing the injustice of unfounded prejudices when they encounter the Monster and immediately flee in terror at his appearance. The Monster subsequently overhears a conversation between two winos about eccentric millionaire Danton Vayla who has discovered the ability to transmigrate souls. Intrigued, the Monster sets off for Los Angeles (by freight train) in the hopes of gaining a new, normal body for himself.

The story then shifts gears to pick up a plot strand from Marvel’s monthly Werewolf by Night title where Lissa Russell has joined a Satanic cult, The Brotherhood of Baal in the hopes of finding a cure for her werewolf brother. Lissa quits the cult after learning that they practice human sacrifice. The Brotherhood abducts Lissa and scrawl Manson-style graffiti on the walls of her home. This sends Jack Russell in search of his sister. He soon discovers that Danton Vayla (who resembles Anton LaVey in name as well as appearance) is the leader of the Brotherhood of Baal and about to sacrifice Lissa as part of the same ritual that the Monster’s soul is to transmigrate into the body of a handsome young cult member. One lengthy Werewolf-Monster scuffle later and Vayla lies dead, the cult is ruined and Lissa is freed.

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A Review of Jhereg by Steven Brust

A Review of Jhereg by Steven Brust

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jheregJhereg
By Steven Brust
Ace (224 pages, $2.50, April 1983)

I’ve played in a lot of tabletop RPGs, including a couple of homebrewed systems and homebrewed worlds. I’ve never encountered one that goes into the culture-changing potential of resurrection, though. It’s treated as an acceptable break from reality, a way to keep things fun, one that has little effect on the world besides providing a way for the campaign’s archnemesis to keep coming back.

Jhereg, by Steven Brust, the first book in his 12-volume Vlad Taltos series, takes the notion of reliable magical resurrection and creates a society around it.

Vlad Taltos is an Easterner and a gentleman, which isn’t a common combination. Easterners are an underclass compared to Dragaerans. The Dragaeran clan called House Jhereg allows anyone, even Easterners, to buy in — a distinct advantage, since it allows them access to the Dragaeran Empire’s sorcery. Unfortunately, the Jheregs may be the most egalitarian family in the Empire, but they also operate a lot like the mafia. Citizenship is not cheap.

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Goth Chick News: Pursuing the Jinn

Goth Chick News: Pursuing the Jinn

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image002No, I can’t just go to Vegas like a normal person.

I’m pretty sure that by now connecting the word “normal” with anything you read here is no longer something you attempt to do. However, just in case there were lingering doubts, I’m stating my position for the record.

That out of the way, I can now tell you that during the two weeks since last we met I have been gleefully trudging through the sands of the Sahara in search of tasty paranormal tidbits to smuggle back through customs for you.

And rest assured, Morocco yielded a doozy.

In mid-October I boarded a flight from Chicago, connected through Rome and landed in Casablanca (yes, the one from the movie) where I kicked off a ten-day tour of the major cities of Morocco.

In addition to some really nice ceramic tiles and possibly a carpet (a flying one if I was really lucky), my goal was to collect stories of the paranormal in a culture governed by its religion. I tempered my expectations with the thought that a country full of devout Muslims may have no room in their beliefs for such things, and that even asking about them could be offensive.

Wrong on both accounts.

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The Wizard Walks By…

The Wizard Walks By…

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wizard“Evil powers…disappear
Demons worry…when the Wizard is near
He turns tears…into joy
Everyone’s happy…when the Wizard walks by”
 — Black Sabbath

Make way for the Wizard!

WAY OF THE WIZARD is being released on November 16th, but editor John Joseph Adams (The Living Dead, Lightspeed) has launched a website for the book that features 7 stories ABSOLUTELY FREE.

One of these stories is my own mini-epic “The Thirteen Texts of Arthyria.” You can read it and the rest right here.

The book features 32 stories of mages, sorcerers, wizards, and the like. Of these 18 are brand-new stories. Big-name authors include Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, Peter Beagle, and Robert Silverberg, and many others. (Complete TOC available at the website.)

The strategy here is that reading a few of these seven free stories will influence readers to go out and buy the book… to whet their appetites for wizardry, so to speak. A wise move indeed.

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Fantasy Lite – Half the Calories of Regular Fantasy, but Twice the Fun

Fantasy Lite – Half the Calories of Regular Fantasy, but Twice the Fun

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studypoisonFive years ago, my first novel, Poison Study was published. It came out in hardback with a beautiful red and gold cover that was loosely based on Vermeer’s painting The Girl with the Pearl Earring.

The cover model was from Russia, which was perfect since my main character’s name was Yelena, which is a popular name in Russia.

Too bad she returned to her homeland before the cover shoot for Magic Study. But that’s another story. And no, I’m not dredging up those painful memories, thank you very much.

Since 2005, Poison Study has had two more covers, has been published around the world and has won multiple awards.

Who da thunk it! Not me. Let’s go all the way back to 1995 (and don’t you dare tell me that was before you were born or I’ll smack you upside the head).

studyhowto2Back in 1995, I’m reading Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy – because I had written a bunch of short stories that were all soundly rejected and I was thinking perhaps I needed a few pointers (no comments on still having my short stories rejected).

Card talked about characters and how writers should avoid making the King or Duke or Prince or their female counterparts their main protagonist. He mentioned that people around the seat of power had more freedom to get into trouble.

And Zing! I sparked on the idea of having a main character be the King’s poison taster.

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Art Evolution 8: Wayne Reynolds

Art Evolution 8: Wayne Reynolds

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dungeon-121-254The Art Evolution project is now in full swing, with every era of RPG art — beginning in 1979 and ending in 2009 — represented in the previous articles here.

My ‘High Draconic Lyssa‘ by Easley was complete, and Tony DiTerlizzi was encouraging me to join Facebook because he thought I could connect with other artists on the site.

I reluctantly did so as Tony had also become a mentor as the process grew. He was always asking questions, wondering why I wasn’t including names like Brom and Tim Bradstreet.

Jeff Laubenstein thought the same thing, but they hadn’t seen my overall list and I couldn’t put out spoilers. I mean, I was asking myself how big could this thing really be? Each new artist I included seemed to want another artist involved that was their inspiration or friend. I pushed such considerations aside and continued with the plan I already had in place.

the-freeport-trilogy-254I intended to ‘domino’ Easley into Larry Elmore, but Larry was a tougher cookie because he had what I called a ‘gate keeper’, which is to say a personal assistant who monitored his email. I wasn’t getting anywhere with her as I put out feelers, but I did get a hint about contacting Elmore from a random Easley email.

Jeff was headed to Illuxcon in Pennsylvania. Elmore would also be at the convention, so I asked Jeff if he might mention the article to Larry and see if he was interested.

This was another step in the waiting game, but I was heady with my current string of success. I wanted to push the envelope, and that meant going for the pinnacle.

The ‘evolutionists’ I currently had were huge names, but none were currently appearing on mass market RPGs in 2009. I wanted a current champion of the industry, and for that purpose there was only a single name that stood out, Wayne Reynolds.

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