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Month: July 2011

ScrumBrawl: Fantasy-Based Sports Goodness

ScrumBrawl: Fantasy-Based Sports Goodness

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scrumbrawlI’ve always been fascinated by the attempts of gaming companies to turn athletic sports into board games. Fascinated, but not quite intrigued enough to play one, until now.

Some of the most notable of these efforts seem to have historically come when a successful wargaming miniature company has reached its apex and is looking for a new product. (More on this below the fold.)

ScrumBrawl is a sports-based game that doesn’t fall into this category, not least because it is the introductory effort by newcomer VicTim Games. Instead of trying to leverage existing products and success, they’re using this game as their springboard into the marketplace and, I must say, it’s a good effort. It also uses cards instead of miniatures, which is part of the reason why the game goes for nearly half the price of some of the more established competitors.

Overall, the game is extremely enjoyable and easy to get into, with a minimal amount of fuss … and cost. If you can get over the lack of miniatures, and are looking for a quality game, this is a product you would do well to look into.

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The Centenary of Mervyn Peake

The Centenary of Mervyn Peake

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Titus GroanJuly 9, 2011 will be the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Mervyn Peake, the author of three remarkable fantasy novels: Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone. The books — published in 1946, 1950, and 1959 — form a series (along with the novella “Boy in Darkness,” which I have not read) following the early life of Titus Groan, Seventy-Seventh Earl of the immense castle called Gormenghast. Peake had intended to write a longer sequence of novels about Titus; he planned two more books, but the advent of Parkinson`s Disease made that impossible. A number of activities are being planned to commemorate Peake’s centenary, including the publication of a fourth Titus volume, Titus Awakes, written by Peake’s wife after his death in 1968.

The Titus novels are excellent books. Each seems to have a slightly different style, a different approach to Titus and his world. All of them are stylistically and imaginatively rich; although the explicitly fantastic is rare in the books, arguably nonexistent, there is in each of them an approach to world-building, a readiness to leave behind the rational, that I think makes them fantasy more than anything else — so long as you use “fantasy” in its broadest sense, agreeing that contemporary genre expectations have nothing to do with the variety implicit in the word.

Put it this way: Peake wrote before fantasy fiction had been defined as a form, but from where we stand now, his work is more easily assimilable to fantasy than to anything else. He’s been a strong influence on fantasists like Michael Moorcock; Lin Carter published his books as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. But like a lot of early fantasists, Peake is somewhat apart from the conventions of fantasy we now know. His books have little to do with medievalism or any historical culture, but neither do they seem to reflect the modern world (except in the last of them, and that’s a world as strange and distorted as a Terry Gilliam movie, a setting that, it has been said, prefigures the fantasy of steampunk). As an illustrator, Peake was working on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the Grimms’ Household Tales while writing Titus Groan; those may be useful places to start.

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July/August Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine Now on Sale

July/August Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine Now on Sale

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fsf-july-aug11The May/June double issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction went on sale June 28.

Robert Reed, one of the most prolific and impressive contributors to F&SF over the past decade, has the cover story this issue: a big new novella titled “The Ants of Flanders.” Novelets are Peter David’s “Bronsky’s Dates with Death,” Steven Saylor’s “The Witch of Corinth,” and KJ Kabza’s “The Ramshead Algorithm.”

Short stories this issues are “The Way it Works Out and All,” by Peter S. Beagle, “Less Stately Mansions,” by Rob Chilson, “Hair” by Joan Aiken, “Sir Morgravain Speaks of Night Dragons and Other Things,” by Richard Bowes, and “Someone Like You,” by Michael Alexander.

Plus the regular departments, including Charles de Lint’s column “Books to Look For,” book reviews by Elizabeth Hand, “Plumage From Pegasus: A Short History of the ETEWAF Revolution,” by Paul Di Filippo, “Films: Free Will Hunting,” by Lucius Shepard, and “Science: Pattern Recognition, Randomness, and Roshambo,” by Paul Doherty & Pat Murphy.

F&SF is published six times a year; issues are 258 pages.  It is the longest-running professional fantasy magazine in the country, and has been published continuously since 1949.

The cover price is $7.50. The magazine’s website, where you can order subscriptions and browse their blog, is at www.sfsite.com/fsf/.

F&SF is edited by Gordon van Gelder. The cover this issue is by Maurizio Manzieri. We covered the May/June issue here.

The Year’s Best SF & Fantasy 2011, edited by Rich Horton

The Year’s Best SF & Fantasy 2011, edited by Rich Horton

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yearsbest2011The third volume of Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (Prime Books), my favorite annual Year’s Best collection, shipped in early June, and my copy finally arrived last week. Imagine my surprise to find this on the dedication page:

For two editors who got me started on the route to putting together these books: Dave Truesdale and John O’Neill.

You don’t have to imagine how honored I feel, because I can tell you that right now: pretty damn honored. I’ve been publishing Rich’s excellent articles and reviews since the early days of the SF Site, shortly after he was introduced to me by, yes, Dave Truesdale, who was publishing his short fiction reviews at Tangent. Thanks, Rich. And thanks, Dave.  Owe you one.

As for the book, it’s excellent as always. This year it features thirty stories that showcase the very best in contemporary SF and fantasy, from the finest writers in the field: Gene Wolfe, Robert Reed, Paul Park, Carol Emshwiller, and many others. In fact, this year’s volume is even more awesome than usual, as it features “The Word of Azrael” from BG 14, by our very own Matthew David Surridge, as well as “Braiding the Ghosts” (from Clockwork Phoenix 3) by our website editor C.S.E. Cooney.

C.S.E. had a particularly good year last year, in fact: two additional tales made Rich’s Recommended Reading list, including “Household Spirits” (from Strange Horizons; read the complete story here) and her novella The Big Bah-Ha (from Drollerie Press), alongside Robert J. Howe’s novella from BG 14, “The Natural History of Calamity.” We covered the 2009 edition of Year’s Best SF & Fantasy here.

Congratulations to all the contributors, and to Rich on another superb volume. If you’re looking for one book this year to point you to the cream of the crop in modern SF & fantasy, this is the one.

Black Static #23

Black Static #23

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3451The June-July 2011 Black Static cover features a still from the film Agnosia and a crop of the artwork by Riki Rawling for V. H. Leslie’s story “Time Keeping.”  Here’s the opening paragraph:

Monday, 11:29 am

Time waits for no man. But Howard wasn’t just any man and Time would wait if it had to. Howard didn’t like to keep it waiting if he could help it. In fact, the only time he had kept time waiting was June 5th 2006 and that was only for 5 minutes and 45 seconds while he, agitated and bewildered, ran through darkened streets back to his flat, then around his workshop hastily setting in motion the mechanisms to resume it once more.

Other fiction for this bimonthly dark horror magazine includes “For Their Own Ends” by Joel Lane, “Electric Dreams” by Carole Johnstone, “Hail” by Daniel Kaysen, and contest winner “The Harvesting of Jackson Cade” by Robert Davies.

You can subscribe to the print version here, or the electronic edition here; there’s also a special discounted rate for a joint subscription to both Interzone and Black Static.

2010 Bram Stoker Award Winners

2010 Bram Stoker Award Winners

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straub-a-dark-matter2Yes, these awards were actually given out last week, so technically this isn’t news. But I’m just getting around to it now, and you probably forgot who won already, so I’m sure this is still useful. Glad we could be of service.

The winners of the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement in the horror field are:

Novel: A Dark Matter, Peter Straub (DoubleDay)
First Novel (tie): Black and Orange, Benjamin Kane Ethridge (Bad Moon Books) & Castle of Los Angeles, Lisa Morton (Gray Friar)
Long Fiction: “Invisible Fences,” Norman Prentiss (Cemetery Dance)
Short Fiction: “The Folding Man,” Joe R. Lansdale (Haunted Legends)
Anthology: Haunted Legends, Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas, eds. (Tor)
Collection: Full Dark, No Stars, Stephen King (Simon & Schuster)
Non-Fiction: To Each Their Darkness, Gary A. Braunbeck (Apex)
Poetry Collection: Dark Matters, Bruce Boston (Bad Moon Books)

The Bram Stoker Awards have been presented annually by the Horror Writers Association since 1987. Winners are selected by ballot among active members of the HWA. In 2011 three new Categories will be added: Superior Achievement in a Screenplay; Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel; and Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.

What about Superior Achievement in a video game? Any year that doesn’t include an award for Dead Rising is missing the boat, in my opinion.

The complete list of nominess for 2010 is here.

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Eight

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Eight

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tod-38tod-39The Tomb of Dracula #38, “Blood-Rush” continues the more light-hearted vein for the series with the change of setting from London to Boston as the comic relief characters of the Woody Allen-inspired Harold H. Harold and the ditzy bombshell Aurora Rabinowitz set out to score some blood so that Harold’s house guest, Dracula doesn’t die. The scene shifts to Dr. Sun’s Boston headquarters where he is monitoring, via closed circuit television, a meeting between Quincy Harker, Rachel Van Helsing and Frank Drake. The issue ends with Dracula, Quincy, Rachel and Frank captives of Dr. Sun and his murderous henchman, Juno with the unlikely duo of Harold and Aurora setting out to rescue the vampire who has promised Harold an interview so that he can meet his publisher’s deadline.

Issue #39, “The Death of Dracula” is highlighted by a gripping battle between Dracula and Juno. The hook-armed Chinese assassin seems to have stepped right out of Marvel’s Master of Kung-Fu series. The move to include offbeat comic relief supporting characters also seems influenced by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy’s acclaimed series. Both titles were unique for Marvel for eschewing the superhero formula and offering surprisingly modern updates of what were considered tired and perhaps exhausted literary properties (Dracula and Fu Manchu, respectively). Dracula is killed by Juno with a spike through the heart. The villainous henchman then uses a flame thrower to cremate Dracula on the spot. Quincy, Rachel, Frank and their new acquaintances, Harold and Aurora manage to escape Dr. Sun’s headquarters and alert the military to his scheme for world domination. The issue fades out on the maniacal Dr. Sun observing their meeting with the military, improbably via his ubiquitous closed circuit cameras, as the talking brain in a fish tank gloats over his seeming omnipotence.

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