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Month: December 2011

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Hand of Fu Manchu, Part Five – “The Zagazig Cryptogram”

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Hand of Fu Manchu, Part Five – “The Zagazig Cryptogram”

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hand-titan1return-titan1“The Zagazig Cryptogram” was the fifth installment of Sax Rohmer’s The Si-Fan Mysteries. The story was first published in Collier’s on January 26, 1917 (two months after the fourth installment) and was later expanded to comprise Chapters 19 – 21 of the third Fu-Manchu novel, The Si-Fan Mysteries first published in 1917 by Cassell in the UK and by McBride & Nast in the US under the variant title, The Hand of Fu Manchu. The US book title marks the first time that the hyphen was dropped from the character’s name, although it was retained within the text.

“The Zagazig Cryptogram” picks up two weeks after the last installment with Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie joining Inspector Weymouth at the River Depot police station to examine a corpse. A Burmese dacoit has been fished out of the Thames along the wharf where the Joy Shop sits. The coroner’s report reveals that the man was strangled rather than drowned as initially suspected. Smith spies in the Times’ personal column a mysterious message has been posted consisting of nothing more than the word Zagazig written seven times in a row. While Petrie dismisses it as nonsense, Smith points out that Zagazig is a town in Lower Egypt. He is convinced that the mysterious code and the murdered dacoit are somehow connected to the Si-Fan.

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Enjoying the Unique Character of Karl Edward Wagner’s Dark Crusade

Enjoying the Unique Character of Karl Edward Wagner’s Dark Crusade

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dark-crusade-wagnerWhy has swords and sorcery languished while epic fantasy enjoys a wide readership? In an age of diminished attention spans and the proliferation of Twitter and video games, it’s hard to explain why ponderous five and seven and 12 book series dominate fantasy fiction while lean and mean swords and sorcery short stories and novels struggle to find markets (Black Gate and a few other outlets excepted).

During a recent reading of the late Karl Edward Wagner’s Dark Crusade (1976) a potential answer coalesced: Many readers want and expect deep characterization in their fiction, and it’s simply not a particularly strong suit of the swords and sorcery genre (or at least of classic swords and sorcery, circa 1930 through the early 1980s). Wagner is one of a handful of classic swords and sorcery authors to whom history has not been particularly kind*. His dark, God-accursed hero-villain Kane deserves a place alongside Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in the roll of great genre heroes, but is sadly left off many “best of” swords and sorcery lists. Relegated to the status of cult figure, Kane is the darling of heroic fantasy connoisseurs but unread of by many casual genre fans, and unheard of by most of the larger fantasy fan base.

Kane and many of his swords and sorcery ilk are not what most modern readers would consider fully realized characters. You just don’t get anything close to the same level of introspection and cradle to the grave development of Kane in Dark Crusade as you do of, say, Kvothe in Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.

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Goth Chick News: The Best Book to Not Read on a Plane

Goth Chick News: The Best Book to Not Read on a Plane

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image0021Until recently, reading on a plane was one of my personal joys.

As an electronics geek (admitting it is the first step) it is a rare thing indeed for me to find myself in an environment where connectivity isn’t possible.  Okay, I know that some flights are now offering Internet in the sky, but I prefer to ignore this for the time being in the name of preserving the one place where I can guiltlessly escape email, IM and my cell phone.  And though it is still possible to “work” while disconnected, I generally ignore this as well and relish the opportunity to sink uninterrupted into a novel.

And this was precisely what I did on a recent getaway to my favorite US destination; New Orleans.  I boarded the American Airlines jet and settled back in my window seat with Chris Bohjalian’s fourteenth novel, The Night Strangers.

Things went all wrong shortly thereafter.

We had only just pushed back from the gate when the plane came to a rather abrupt halt and the engines shut down.  The pilot’s voice sounded a tad embarrassed when he explained our aircraft had just experienced an “electrical abnormality” and mechanics were being called to look into the issue before we would be cleared to take off.

Now, as someone who has clocked countless hours on airplanes, this “electrical abnormality” didn’t concern me all that much.  I imagined that some unexpected red light was blinking away in the flight deck that probably wouldn’t have meant much if it had occurred aloft, but as it had started up while we were still on the runway, the crew was obligated to halt our journey and have it looked at.

I went back to The Night Strangers.

In case you’re not familiar (I certainly wasn’t prior to picking up his latest book), Chris Bohjalian is a New York Times bestselling author, and his latest outing The Night Strangers is a ghost story inspired by both a door in his basement and Sully Sullenberger’s successful ditching of an Airbus in the Hudson River.

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A Review of The Prow Beast

A Review of The Prow Beast

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the_prow_beastThe Prow Beast
Robert Low
Harper Collins UK (358 pp, $24.95, 2010)
Reviewed by Bill Ward

It was with some sorrow that I came to the last page in Robert Low’s The Prow Beast — the fourth and, sadly (for now?), final book in the excellent Oathsworn saga. Beginning with 2007’s The Whale Road, the Oathsworn series has followed Orm Ruriksson’s intrepid band of adventurers the length and breadth of the Viking world in the 10th Century, from Scandinavia to Constantinople, from Jerusalem to the steppes of Russia, all the while taking them from an obscure band of raiders to far-famed men the subject of song and saga. And it is this fame that lies heavily around the necks of the Oathsworn in this final volume, for their reputation makes them both a target and an ill fit for a settled life away from the sea.

The novel begins with a bang, in the middle of a grim sea-fight against desperate odds — and a wildly dangerous pack of ulfhednar, the ‘berserkers’ of Viking lore. Orm, our narrator for the whole of the saga, then backtracks to explain how his men’s current predicament came to pass, and how the alliance of revenge-fueled Randr Starki and Pallig Tokeson, King of the Joms, was born. A perfect storm of factors collides upon the Oathsworn, who find themselves hated, their treasure coveted, and the pregnant Queen with whom they were entrusted, Sigrith, wife of the King of Sweden, hunted by rivals who do not wish to see her birth an heir to the throne. The Oathsworn’s Hestreng Hall is looted and burned, their longship the Fjord Elk destroyed by Greek fire, and the remnants of the Oathsworn and their families find themselves hunted and on the run. And that is just the beginning.

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The New York Review of Science Fiction drops Print Version

The New York Review of Science Fiction drops Print Version

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nyrsfOne of the best critical magazines for fans of science fiction and fantasy is The New York Review of Science Fiction, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kevin J. Maroney. It has been published monthly since 1988, and it’s been nominated for a Hugo Award virtually every year. Famous for its in-depth reviews, serious tone, and critical excellence, NYRSF also has deep ties to the fan community, with plenty of news and interesting commentary on both fiction and the folks who create it.

I’ve been a subscriber for roughly a decade and I find that while NYRSF is rarely a quick read, I can always count on it to point me towards the best in modern SF & fantasy, as well as bringing plenty of neglected classics to my attention. I rarely get a third of the way through an issue before rising from my big green chair to go dig through my library for some obscure 1970s paperback or pulp story they’ve referenced. The staff writers have excellent taste and very long memories, and they know their stuff.  NYRSF: it’s entertaining, and it’s good for you.

For the past few years the editors have been bemoaning the bleak outlook for the genre’s print fiction magazines. And on December 4, NYRSF became part of the news: they announced they would switch to a PDF-only format with the August 2012 issue:

We will continue to publish print issues through the end of the current volume in July 2012. It does not appear that we will continue in print past then but will switch to PDFs of entire issues. These may be emailed to subscribers, or we may decide not to have subscribers and just make each issue available online, either for a nominal charge or for free. We will almost certainly also offer a print-on-demand option as well…

We have offered a PDF subscription to overseas and non-US subscribers for the last couple of years, but we are now, this minute, offering this option to all subscribers. If it is time for you to renew your subscription, we want you to know that you can switch immediately to all-electronic for the reduced price of $3.00/issue.

Read the complete announcement here.

John Joseph Adams merges Fantasy and Lightspeed

John Joseph Adams merges Fantasy and Lightspeed

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fantasy-lightspeedLast month we reported that John Joseph Adams, editor of Fantasy and Lightspeed, had acquired both magazines from publisher Prime Books.

I think I also said “Adams has not announced if he’ll make any changes to the magazines.” Well, strike that.

After publishing the December issues of both magazines, Adams made this announcement on his blog:

We’ll be merging Fantasy and Lightspeed. But never fear: We won’t be doing away with any of Fantasy‘s fiction; each issue of the combined magazine will contain four science fiction stories and four fantasy stories. We won’t be reducing the number of stories, or replacing any Fantasy content with Lightspeed content; this will be a true merger…

Since we’re doubling the amount of fiction in each issue, we’re going to raise the price of our ebooks — but not by double: We’ll be raising the price to just $3.99. So you’ll be getting twice as much fiction, for just a dollar more per issue; plus, from here on out, each ebook edition of Lightspeed will feature exclusive content that you won’t find on our website — namely, in addition to the eight short stories you’ll also find [on] our website, each ebook issue will now feature a novella-length story.

We’ll be keeping the www.fantasy-magazine.com website up as an archive, but all future Fantasy content will appear as part of Lightspeed, at www.lightspeedmagazine.com, so be sure to update your bookmarks and RSS feeds!

Adams also announced that they’ll be eliminating the non-fiction articles that accompany each story, in order to focus more on fiction. However, they will continue to publish feature interviews and author spotlights each issue.

While I’ll miss the separate identity Fantasy had as a standalone magazine, overall I think the changes are positive. And $3.99 per issue is a real bargain for that much fiction.

We last covered Fantasy Magazine in April with issue #49.

You can read the complete announcement here, and purchase the Kindle editions of Lightspeed and the final issue of Fantasy — featuring stories from Joe R. Lansdale, Seanan McGuire, Alasdair Stuart, Naomi Novik, and Nike Sulway — for just $2.99 each.

Art of the Genre: Darrell K. Sweet [1934-2011]

Art of the Genre: Darrell K. Sweet [1934-2011]

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darrellsweet1

I walked into the Black Gate L.A. building this morning and Kandi read me the following message as I passed the reception desk:

“Fantasy and Western Artist Darrell K. Sweet passed away on Monday morning.”

I looked at her, those silky blues eyes staring back at me as if to ask what she should do. I had no answer, simply taking the note and walking into my office before closing the door…

I’d spent the past year working to get in contact with Darrell, all my attempts falling short, and now it was too late. Too late to find some unknown tidbit of information from one of the most recognizable fantasy artists of the past thirty years.

When I did my infamous ‘Top 10 Fantasy Artists of the Past 100 Years’ article earlier this year, I didn’t include my personal Top 10 list, only the added and evaluated contributions of 50 industry experts. Darrell didn’t make their list [actually he didn’t get a single vote other than mine], which I thought was a huge travesty, but nonetheless he’d made mine prestigious list because I can’t readily remember fantasy literature without him.

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Godzilla & Rodan & Mothra & Alice: Destroy All Monsters on Blu-ray!

Godzilla & Rodan & Mothra & Alice: Destroy All Monsters on Blu-ray!

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destroy-all-monsters-japanese-posterLast month, the second Godzilla film to reach Blu-ray in North America made its thundering, skyline-flattening debut, courtesy of Media Blasters: the 1968 science-fiction monster mash Destroy All Monsters (Japanese title: Kaiju Soshingeki, “Charge of the Monsters” or “Monster Invasion”). The only Godzilla movie to beat it onto Blu-ray is the 1954 original, which will get a re-release as part of the Criterion Collection in January 2012. (The Criterion Collection! Godzilla has gained a well-deserved highbrow victory and sits on the same shelf with Kubrick and Bergman!) Later this month will see the third Godzilla Blu-ray release, 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. This is arguably the worst movie of the long series, but I welcome it onto Hi-Def nonetheless: three cheers for glittering mediocrity!

But Destroy All Monsters is anything but mediocre: like Universal’s House of Frankenstein over twenty years before, it pulls together all the science-fiction candycorn goodness available to give audiences a mad monster party for the ages. The plot is simplistic, the characters even more so, but the movie pops with color and spectacle of a bygone age of entertainment without irony. It isn’t the best of the Godzilla series, but until 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, no monster movie could boast a larger monster cast. Eleven of Toho Studio’s stable of big beasts crowd into its hundred minutes, and the result is a giddy confection no ten-year-old or ten-year-old at heart can resist. If geekdom has a defining film, here it is.

Destroy All Monsters was one of the first of Japan’s giant monster films to reach DVD in North America. At the time it seemed like a miracle to have a Godzilla film available in a letterboxed edition. However, the 1999 disc from ADV Films is the textbook example of a barebones release: the only language option is the inferior of the two English dubs (I’ll explain the dubbing situation later), the picture isn’t enhanced for widescreen TVs, and the disc doesn’t even have a menu. As better quality Godzilla DVDs came out in the 2000s, Destroy All Monsters became a black hole on collectors’ movie shelves. ADV re-released the movie to DVD in 2004 packaged with a soundtrack album as part of Godzilla’s Fiftieth Anniversary, but the movie disc is exactly the same.

The Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock Blu-ray fixes all these problems: not only is the film in glorious Toho Scope 1080p, but the disc contains both English dubs, the original Japanese mono soundtrack, a 5.1 lossless re-mix, and commentary from two Japanese fantasy film scholars, Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski, who have done informed and lively commentaries for previous Godzilla DVD releases.

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Fantasy Out Loud

Fantasy Out Loud

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the-hobbitNearly every night, I read aloud to my boys.   For Evan, my seven-year-old, I have lately been reading The Hobbit.  Two nights ago, no sooner had I begun than Evan interrupted, saying, “It’s funny how they spell ‘Smaug.’”

“Oh?” I asked.  “How would you spell it?”

“S-M-O-G.”

“Good,” I said.  “That is how you would normally spell it.”  But privately, I thought how wonderful it was that Tolkien chose this other, more evocative spelling.  It also occurred to me that without Evan’s commentary, I might not have even noticed.

What we choose to read to our children has ramifications almost beyond counting.  Certainly, a shared reading experience is pivotal to the in-home dynamics and shared knowledge of any family, but insofar as one tackles a diet of writing that qualifies as “fantastic,” reading aloud is also crucial to the development and enculturation of an entire new generation of fantasy readers.  Given a world that grows ever more hectic, and therefore has less and less time for “pleasure” reading, this is no small thing.

I am fortunate to have two children, both boys, and I can see the results of my reading choices –– the goblin fruit, as it were, of my labor –– as if I had scrawled on their souls with indelible ink.  Corey, my older boy, now reads nothing but fantasy fiction, at least not by choice.  (He has also, to my dismay, discovered comics, and for this, too, I blame myself.)

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Interzone November-December # 237

Interzone November-December # 237

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interzone-394The November – December issue of Interzone contains substantial new stories by Lavie Tidhar (“The Last Osama”), Jim Hawkins (“Digital Rites”), Douglas Lain (“Erasing the Concept of Sex from a Potobooth”), and Caspian Gray (Caspian Gray); artwork by Richard Wagner, David Gentry, Steve Hambidge; “Ansible Link” genre news and miscellanea by David Langford; “Mutant Popcorn” film reviews by Nick Lowe; “Laser Fodder” DVD/Blu-Ray reviews by Tony Lee; book reviews by Jim Steel and other contributors.

Interzone alternates monthly publication with sister dark horror focused Black Static, published by the fine folks at TTA Press.

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. Lifetime subscriptions are also available. What you’re buying, in essence, is a 10-year subscription at the current rate.  If you think you’re going to live for at least another decade, and you think Interzone will also be around for as long, this could be a bargain for whatever time you and the magazine have after that. If that weren’t enough, you can also opt for joint lifetime sub that gets you sister publication Black Static for a slightly reduced rate.  Sign your life away here.