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Year: 2011

A Strange Horizon Worth Viewing

A Strange Horizon Worth Viewing

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sh_headI’ve sometimes bought a book without knowing anything about it because it had a cool cover. Similarly, I’ve been drawn to read a story because of a cool title.

Case in point is  “Young Love on the Run from the Federal Alien Administration New Mexico Division (1984)” by Grant Stone over at the May 9 edition of the weekly Strange Horizons webzine. The protagonist has fallen in love with an alien newly escaped from a government holding facility in Rosewell (where else?) during the aforesaid Orwellian year. The pair are on the run from grey-suited, mirrorshaded  agents who want the alien back because the captured extraterrestrials are essential to some sort of Cold War research project; at the very least, the government doesn’t want the Soviets to get ahold of them. To try to get back home, the alien is trying to jerry rig a communications device from television and cassette recorder parts, the nod to ET phoning home no doubt intentional. As you might expect, the scenario is that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you, even if they are trying to protect you. What you might not expect is that a kind heart sometimes comes from the sources you might think the most alien.

Sometimes you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a story by its title. In this case, you can.  A “strange horizon” worth viewing.

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part One

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part One

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1-11tomb_of_dracula_2Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula is beyond question the finest horror comic series ever produced – a fact made all the more amazing when one considers that since the original series ended, none of the many revivals (even those with the original’s classic creative team) have succeeded in bottling lightning a second time. Much of the success of the book is down to the surprisingly literate scripts by Marv Wolfman and the stunning artwork by Gene Colan and inking by Tom Palmer. However, Wolfman did not come aboard until Issue 7 so this first installment in an ongoing series looking at this influential comic will focus on the first six issues of a title undergoing the pangs of development.

Roy Thomas deserves the credit for bringing this series to life. It was Thomas who convinced Stan Lee that the loosening standards of the Comics Code Authority and renewed interest in the occult could make an ongoing horror comic featuring Bram Stoker’s infamous vampire count the runaway success of 1972. The Comics Code Authority came into being in the 1950s as a reaction against crime and horror comics as a result of the rather disturbed fantasies of Dr. Frederic Wertham. His 1954 study, Seduction of the Innocent imagined underage sex between Batman and Robin and convinced countless parents that juvenile delinquency was as much to blame on comic books as it was Rock ‘n’ Roll. The fact that Wertham’s book revealed more about himself than the actual content of comic books was lost on parents, whether over-protective or neglectful, who were quick to latch onto an excuse for why the post-war nuclear family was struggling. The result was the neutering of comic books for nearly twenty years and a ban on crime and horror as entertainment suitable for children.

Prior to The Tomb of Dracula, most comics companies would have turned the character into a misunderstood superhero. Marvel already had one of those with Morbius, the Living Vampire, but The Tomb of Dracula was determined to prove as revolutionary to Marvel as Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith’s adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian. Both titles were far more adult and, at the outset anyway, far removed from Marvel’s established continuity. They were gambles that paid off in an era when Marvel deserved to call itself The House of Ideas.

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The Top 100 Fantasy Books of all time … or not

The Top 100 Fantasy Books of all time … or not

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lost-worldsConfession: I’m a top 10/top 100/top whatever list addict. If I find an article on a subject about which I’m even remotely interested, and written in the form of a numbered list, I’ll generally stop to read it. That chance increases when said list is arranged in ascending or descending order of quality.

I fully admit that many top 10/ top 100/top whatever lists are contrived hit count fodder (slugging something a “top 10” anything is guaranteed to increase the number of visits to your web site–you’re welcome Black Gate editors!), but occasionally these lists serve a worthy function. For example, if I’ve just finished The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or Flags of Our Fathers and am looking for another good World War II title, I’ll Google “top 10 world war 2 histories.” This practice typically generates a good suggestion or two–and another “top 10” article to read.

Top 10/top 100 lists are also flashpoints for debate, often stirring up vigorous agreement or righteous anger and indignity. I generated an angry response with my Top 10 Fantasy Fiction Battles of All-Time, in which former Cimmerian blogger Al Harron took me to task for excluding Robert E. Howard, and also for including some borderline “fantasy” choices. Hey Al, let’s still be friends, okay?

Which leads me to the point of this post. Have you ever typed “top 100 fantasy novels,” or “top 10 fantasy books,” into your search bar? If not, I’ll save you the work. You get this site, the “Top 100 Fantasy Books”.

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Goth Chick News: Thirteen Questions for Victoria Cosner Love and Lorelei Shannon, Authors of Mad Madame Lalaurie

Goth Chick News: Thirteen Questions for Victoria Cosner Love and Lorelei Shannon, Authors of Mad Madame Lalaurie

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i-10484847-550I’ve been sitting here all day trying to figure out what a goth chick’s equivalent of “wishing on a star” is. Somehow “wishing on my voodoo doll” doesn’t sound right, “wishing on my crystal skull” makes me sound like some sort of twisted, California bunny-hugger, and wishing on my ankh makes me seem like a hopeless Hot Topics poser.

In any case, trust me when I say that wishes come true, whatever media you do it on.

A couple of weeks back I told you that my favorite New Orleans ghost story had finally been made the subject of a book, which I’d been wishing for so hard that during one Rum-drink soaked evening on Bourbon Street, I (think) I vowed to do it myself.

But earlier this year, along come authors and life-long partners-in-crime Victoria Cosner Love and Lorelei Shannon to finally give Madame Delphine LaLaurie and her sadistic house of horror the real literary treatment. I was already excited to finally get to the bottom of this oft-told-but-rarely-documented tale, but making the acquaintance of these two ladies was simply icing on the Death by Chocolate cake.

It is therefore my sincere pleasure to introduce you to two fellow Goth Chicks and the entirely entertaining historians behind the book Mad Madame LaLaurie…

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My Tim Prattathon at Podcastle and Other Cool Things

My Tim Prattathon at Podcastle and Other Cool Things

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bgpodcastleI had a quiet day at work, but blimey! I got a lot done!

While I hauled boxes, processed books, priced, et cetera — so long as customers weren’t in the bookstore — I listened to four stories right off of Podcastle’s website, starting with two by Tim Pratt.

The first one was called “Cup and Table”, which was (and here I quote the man who recommended it to me), “so kick-ass and so much fun and kind of unbelievable how much is crammed into that story.” It was very time-bendy (timey-wimey, as the denizens of Doctor Who might say), its edginess and moroseness always tinged with the tongue-in-cheek. And the end? Surprised a huge grin outta me. I very much recommend it.

bghartThe second, “Hart and Boot”, was less structurally complex but even more to my taste. It was like something my buddy Patty might write after we watched a few too many episodes of Deadwood and we were in a gun-slinging, hip-swinging mood. Its protagonist, Pearl Hart, made me want to put on a pair of cowboy boots and shoot my way across the west. (‘Specially if naked men sort of slurped up from the mud every time I thought on ’em hard enough. Yummy.)

What I liked best was that even with Pearl’s foul mouth, her conniving mind, her selfishness and brazenness and remorseless use of people (especially, perhaps, of the one human she actually loved), she still had moments of rough tenderness that just… got me. Boot was great too, but there’s only so much you can do with a character that tired all the time.

HECK YEAH TIM PRATT!

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The Gods Never Urinate

The Gods Never Urinate

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zeus-heraIt’s true: the gods never have to go pee.

Unless they want to, that is. But they’re never inconvenienced by it. As far as I know, never in the history of human mythology has a divine being hurried someone else along during a meeting, or interrupted some vital piece of work, to relieve themselves. Even nature deities, whom you’d image to be most in tune with this sort of bodily necessity among the living, and, presumably, have some sway over its function (or lack thereof… yow!), don’t seem to bother with it themselves.

Eating? Sure, okay.

Sex? Yes, please.

Excretion? Nothing beyond normal breathing, thank you.

And that is the true magic of deities, and why fantasy is destined, on the longest scales, to have greater longevity than science fiction. Because fantasy never gets brought down to the level of the mundane. It never misses a mark that reality has hit square. Science fiction, for all its glories, inevitably diverges from reality, and rarely for the better. We expect science fiction to be somewhat oracular, in that the technologies and situations presented remain plausible.

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A Review of Warhammer: Knight Errant

A Review of Warhammer: Knight Errant

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knight-errant-warhammer-reynoldsKnight Errant
Anthony Reynolds
BL Publishing (411 pages, $7.99, 2008)
Reviewed by Bill Ward

Every race or culture in Warhammer has fairly clear antecedents — Dark Elves are reminiscent of Moorcock’s Melnibonéans, Orcs and Goblins have their ultimate roots in Tolkien, and human societies like the Norsca and Kislivites have obvious historical counterparts. But it’s almost odd that the Bretonnians, a society modeled on Medieval France, have received as little attention as they have because, when most people think of secondary world fantasy, it is Medieval Europe that immediately springs to mind as the foundation for such worlds. Not so in Warhammer, which overwhelmingly focuses on the territory of the Empire, a society modeled on the Renaissance principalities of Germany.

But with Knight Errant, Anthony Reynolds sets out to give the Bretonnians their due, with what is obviously the first book of a planned series chronicling the adventures of a young knight named Calard. Calard is the first son and heir of the Lord Garamont, castellan of Bastonne, one of the primary dukedoms of the realm of Bretonnia. Bretonnia is patterned on Medieval France, with similar names, chivalric code, heraldry, emphasis on mounted combat, and feudal structure. But this is also the world of Medieval romances such as the Song of Roland and Le Morte D’Artur, complete with a Lady in the Lake, magic weapons, and knights who have sworn to quest for the Holy Grail.

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Art of the Genre: An Inteview with Will McLean

Art of the Genre: An Inteview with Will McLean

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Two months ago I had the pleasure of writing up a small nostalgia piece on the Art of Will McLean, and after it hit the press John O’Neill gets me on my cell and tells me ‘It’s not enough!’. Ryan Harvey and I got a kick out of that, to be sure, both of us taking in some sun on the Black Gate L.A. corporate terrace. Such rants by John always elicit great mirth when we are both well aware of his location some 2118 miles away, meaning he has little power over us.

mclean-snake-ii-254Still, I was both moved and intrigued when a message from Mr. McLean showed up on my blog a few days later. This pushed me to consider that my article was indeed, as John insisted ‘not enough!’. Weeks passed, and John kept at me until he finally forced my hand with a full travel itinerary showing up at the office by Wells Fargo courier and the next thing I knew I was once again on a Zeppelin with an interview in mind.

The destination… Malvern Pennsylvania, a fine and upstanding Victorian era borough of less than four thousand people that resides some twenty-five miles west of Philadelphia, and home to Will McLean. Having spent twelve years in Maryland, this was fairly familiar country to me, and I eased into a transition from the heat of L.A. to the seemingly never ending winter of the northeast.

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WAY OF THE WIZARD Giveaway

WAY OF THE WIZARD Giveaway

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wayofthewizard6
Over at Goodreads, editor John Joseph Adams is giving away 10 free copies of the stupendous WAY OF THE WIZARD anthology. The book is packed full of terrific fantasy tales featuring wizards, warlocks, witches, sorcerers, magicians, and other workers of magic.

I’m proud to have a story in the book (“The Thirteen Texts of Arthyria”) but some of my personal favorites are George R. R. Martin’s “Into the Lost Lands,” Neil Gaiman’s “How to Sell the Ponti Bridge” (possibly my favorite Gaiman tale ever!), Jeffrey Ford’s mindbending “The Sorcerer Minus,” Susana Clarke’s mythic “John Uskglass and the Cambrian Charcoal Burner,” Robert Silverberg’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Adam-Troy Castro’s “Cerile and the Journeyer,” Mike Resnick’s haunting “Winter Solstice,” and Kelly Link’s superb “The Wizards of Perfil.” And there are tons more great tales here.

Click over to http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/10571-the-way-of-the-wizardand snag your free copy!

Cheers,
John