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Month: September 2014

Win a Copy of Mark Rigney’s Check-Out Time

Win a Copy of Mark Rigney’s Check-Out Time

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Check Out Time Mark Rigney-smallI’ve been watching this Mark Rigney fellow with a lot of interest.

He first came to my attention through the submissions queue at Black Gate, where he wowed me with his three-part Tales of Gemen, an old-school sword and sorcery story with a very modern spin — and some delightful twists. Readers responded well, too. The tales have consistently hovered near the top of our Fiction charts since we first published them in 2012. Tangent Online called them “Reminiscent of the old sword & sorcery classics,” which I found very gratifying.

Mark has had even more success with a new series of thrillers starring the occult investigators Reverend Renner and Dale Quist. Bill Maynard raved about the first, The Skates, in his review for us last year, saying “Rigney can write circles around most of us… Simply put, I love this book.” The second, “Sleeping Bear,” arrived in February, and anticipation has been building for their first novel-length adventure, Check-Out Time, due October 7th.

But there’s no reason for Black Gate readers to have to wait that long to get their hands on a copy. We know people who know people. To celebrate Mark’s recent success — and because we can’t stop bragging about it — we’re giving away two copies of Check-Out Time, compliments of Mark Rigney and Samhain Publishing.

How do you enter? Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “Check-Out Time” and your return address. Two winners will be drawn at random from all qualifying entries. 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 trade paperback is more than, like, 10 bucks.

Check-Out Time will be published by Samhain Publishing on October 7, 2014. It is 250 pages, priced at $15 in trade paperback and $5.50 for the digital edition. Be sure to read Mark’s article on the series, The Adventure Continues: the Return of Renner and Quist, published right here in February.

The Swordfolk Among Us

The Swordfolk Among Us

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I write “anything with swords in it.”

The New York Times has done a short documentary on modern longsword fighting and everybody’s reacting like the media suddenly started covering quidditch; all the muggles are looking around and seeing the wizards for the first time…. except we’re swordsfolk, not wizards. However, like the wizards, we’ve been around a long long time.

Rewind a couple of weeks. I’m in a slightly tatty but sterile NHS consulting room speaking to a specialist doctor…

“I see you are a writer, Mr Page.” My consultant, as we call them in the UK, is an avuncular German, perhaps in his 50s.

I admit to my profession. I write “anything with swords in it.”

“Ah! You like swords?”

I tell him about my hobby, show him my sword scar.

“Tell, me,” asks this decidedly grown up, highly-qualified professional, whose eyes now have a twinkle. “Have you heard of Academic Fencing?”

Academic Fencing is a primarily German tradition. Young men with special face masks to protect eyes, ears, and mouth slash each other with whippy dueling blades in a highly ritualised environment. It’s why Prussian officers have scars in all the old movies.

And he’s done it.

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New Treasures: Dark Entries by Robert Aickman

New Treasures: Dark Entries by Robert Aickman

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Robert Aickman Dark Entries-smallRobert Aickman was an English ghost story writer who died in 1981. I bought his famous collection The Wine-Dark Sea over 10 years ago and was very impressed.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a contemporary printing of his most famous books — especially in an affordable paperback format. So I was thrilled to see Faber & Faber recently reprint three collections in both digital editions and handsome trade paperbacks: The Unsettled Dust (September 4), The Wine-Dark Sea (August 7), and his very first collection, Dark Entries. All are well worth your time, especially if you’re a fan of British horror.

‘Reading Robert Aickman is like watching a magician work, and very often I’m not even sure what the trick was. All I know is that he did it beautifully.’ — Neil Gaiman

Aickman’s ‘strange stories’ (his preferred term) are constructed immaculately, the neuroses of his characters painted in subtle shades. He builds dread by the steady accrual of realistic detail, until the reader realises that the protagonist is heading towards their doom as if in a dream.

Dark Entries was first published in 1964 and contains six curious and macabre stories of love, death and the supernatural, including the classic story ‘Ringing the Changes.’

‘Robert Aickman was the best, the subtlest, and creepiest author of ghost stories of his time… still enormously readable, offering mysteries which get deeper and scarier with each return.’ — Kim Newman

Dark Entries was published June 5, 2014 by Faber & Faber. It is 256 pages, priced at £7.99 in trade paperback and $5.82 for the digital edition. The gorgeous cover is by Tim McDonagh; click for a bigger version.

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Chad Bednar, Author of Keeper of the Sins

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Chad Bednar, Author of Keeper of the Sins

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Chad BednarWe met author Chad Bednar at this year’s Chicago Comic Con when he lured us into his booth with his stories promising vampires, evil artifacts, and the Vatican.

What can I say?  Not all girls like chocolates and flowers.

After reading the first installment in his Keeper of the Sins series, it was obvious that you all needed to meet Chad as well.  With Black Gate being an oasis for emerging authors, where they can always be assured of a cushy chair, an adult beverage, and a warm welcome – everyone, meet Chad Bednar.

Chad, meet everyone.

GC: How did you first get into writing?  Was it to meet girls?

CB: No, nothing that weird.  Besides, I met the girl of my dreams in a cadaver lab (GC: Really? You’re always welcome in the Goth Chick News office in that case).  I started writing because I had more to say, but only thought of the perfect way to say it later.  My brain is irritating that way.

What was your inspiration for Keeper of Sins?

It’s a dovetailing of a number of my interests.  I am constantly distracted by all things fantastical.  If the SyFy channel had been around when I was younger, I would have starved to death in front of it.  The question of faith is a journey I’ve wrestled with, and this is my lifelong research.

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There Is No Lovely End by Patty Templeton

There Is No Lovely End by Patty Templeton

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There is no Lovely End-smallRegular readers of Black Gate will no doubt have noticed the return of infrequent interviewer Patty Templeton. For those who were wondering why Ms. Templeton wasn’t conducting more of her fantastic interviews with an eclectic rogues gallery of writers, the reason was, quite simply, that she was too busy writing a novel of her own. There Is No Lovely End was published back in July and has been garnering universally positive reviews. Here’s another one.

The book starts in pre-Civil War America and follows the lives of several seemingly unrelated characters whose lives will all eventually come crashing together in one disastrous night. Not all of these characters will survive to the end. In fact, one of them dies very early in the story, but continues to move events forward as a ghost. These early chapters can be a bit disorienting as the reader jumps from one subplot to another, each with its own main character and supporting cast. But once you get a feel for each character, the jumping about is much easier to follow and gives the story a frantic pace (which would otherwise be difficult, considering that it takes place over a 32-year period).

Hennet Daniels has undertaken a decades-long hunt for the medicine man who inadvertently poisoned his brother. Sarah Pardee is coping as best she can with a loveless marriage to a man who cares more about his dead daughter than his living wife. Graham Johnson is a suicidal newsman who falls hopelessly in love with a remorseless psychopath. Hester Garlan is a remorseless psychopath, searching for the lost son whom she believes has stolen her psychic abilities. Nathan Garlan is a young man trying to cope with his ability to speak with the dead.

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Vintage Treasures: Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Vintage Treasures: Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

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Analog Cemetery World-small Cemetery World-small Cemetery World 1976-small

Clifford D. Simak practically introduced me to science fiction.

This was, as you may have guessed, a while back. A cold spring day in 1976, if I recall correctly. I was too sick to go to school, and my friend John MacMaster brought me two novels to read while I recuperated. I was already an avid reader, a huge fan of Scholastic books like The Case of the Marble Monster, and Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. But the books John brought me weren’t like those. They were adult novels and they were unlike anything I’d ever read before. Most of the details of that long ago school semester have long since faded, but I remember those two books vividly: they were Ox by Piers Anthony and Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak.

Piers Anthony, of course, was a fine choice to introduce an eleven-year old to science fiction. But Simak was inspired. If I had the opportunity to introduce young readers to SF and fantasy today, I think I might still choose the novels and stories of Clifford D. Simak. His deceptively simple adventure tales were wrapped up in some of the most imaginative settings — and featured some of the most delightfully quirky characters — of any SF writer of the era.

In the years since, I’ve gotten much more acquainted with the work of Clifford D. Simak. I believe his Hugo Award-winning novelette “The Big Front Yard” may well be the finest science fiction story of the 20th Century — it’s certainly in the running, anyway. His classic City (1952) is probably his most acclaimed work, but Way Station, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1964, is perhaps best remembered today.

Simak produced a total of 29 novels and 19 short story collections, and even after all these years I’ve read only a fraction of them. He’s the writer I return to when I find myself frustrated, or when other authors disappoint. I returned to him this week, and while my hand hovered over several other enticing choices, including The Werewolf Principle and The Goblin Reservation, ultimately it was Cemetery World that proved irresistible.

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Joe Abercrombie’s Half a King Hits Half the Mark

Joe Abercrombie’s Half a King Hits Half the Mark

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Half a King Joe Abercrombie-smallHalf a King
By Joe Abercrombie
Del Rey (352 pages, July 15, 2014, $26 in hardcover/ $10.99 digital)
Cover by Mike Bryan

Yarvi was never meant to be King. For one thing, he’s second in line behind his older brother. For another his left hand is deformed, and because of this deformity, Yarvi has been told his entire life (mostly by his father, the current king) that he will never truly be a man. He certainly could never be King, which is fine by him. He has trained for several years to be a Minister — a skilled confidant to Kings and others in power — and will soon qualify to take the vows that will break his ties to his family and make him Brother Yarvi.

That is, until his father and older brother are killed in a battle with a neighboring King. During their funeral, Yarvi swears an oath to kill those who killed his family. During the subsequent battle, he learns his uncle murdered his father and brother. After this revelation, Yarvi is thrown from a tower window and into the sea. He is presumed dead, sold into slavery, and becomes an oarsman on a pirate ship. He must use his skills and gather allies if he hopes to fulfill his oath to avenge his father and brother.

Half a King is marketed as a YA novel. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Abercrombie and I was curious to see how an epic fantasist would do YA. Most epic fantasy readers I know love Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy, so I thought I would give this book a shot. I found it enjoyable enough to consider reading his other work, but didn’t like it enough to continue reading this series.

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Walter Booth: Pioneer of British Science Fiction Film

Walter Booth: Pioneer of British Science Fiction Film

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A fearsome foe in The Magic Sword (1901)
A fearsome foe in The Magic Sword (1901)

Last week, I talked about the Spanish master of silent film, Segundo de Chomón. This week, I’d like to talk about another early genre filmmaker who has also been all but forgotten.

Walter R. Booth was an English stage magician who teamed up with film pioneer Robert W. Paul, who was making and screening films as early as 1896 at London’s Egyptian Hall, where Booth did his magic act. In 1899, Booth and Paul co-founded Paul’s Animatograph Works, a production house that specialized in trick films using Paul’s technical know-how and Booth’s skill at magic and illusion. These short films wowed audiences with special effects such as animation, split screen, jump cuts, superimposition, multiple exposures, and stop motion animation.

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Art of the Genre: The Top 10 TSR Cover Paintings of All Time

Art of the Genre: The Top 10 TSR Cover Paintings of All Time

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Sorry Wayne, you aren't making this list
Sorry Wayne, you aren’t making this list

I’ve spent 30+ years looking at RPG artwork and I’ve yet to get tired of doing so. Sure, there are days when I wonder how the fantasy art world went to hell, but those are few and far between, as there are enough great new artists that still manage to inspire me in the mix of things [yeah Cynthia Sheppard I’m talking to you].

Nonetheless, I did begin thinking about well-aged TSR art this past month when James and I started digging in the nostalgia mines of old boxed sets. It prompted me to consider just what a ‘Top 10 list of TSR cover artwork’ would look like.

And to be clear, I wasn’t thinking about D&D in particular, but simply TSR catalogue stuff, which of course puts any artwork post WotC acquisition out of the picture. It does, however, allow for the additional inclusion of other games, although as I comprised this list I found it nearly impossible to include them. D&D, as it should be, dominated the RPG landscape from the mid-1970s, and thus is the bag of holding that any role-player will go back to again and again.

There are so many ‘things’ that could go into the making of this list, but for today I’m going to go with my gut. If I had feelings for it, it gets considered. If I know a lot of people owned it, it gets considered. Other than that, I don’t really have much to lean on other than the fact that this is what I do. I deal in old art. I buy it, I sell it, I broker it, I contract for it, I agent for its creators, and as you can see here, I blog about it. My only regret is that I wish it paid more, but since when does living your dream always to come with luxury?

That said, one name found on most RPG art lists these days won’t appear here because he came too late, and frankly, his greatest recognizable cover was done not for TSR, or WotC, but for Paizo. Yes, this means no Wayne Reynolds, but that is how this list is going to roll, so without further introduction, I give you my personal list of ‘Top 10 TSR Cover Paintings.’

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A Mining Colony, a Blind Date, and a Ghostly Alien Hand: Outpassage by Janet Morris & Chris Morris

A Mining Colony, a Blind Date, and a Ghostly Alien Hand: Outpassage by Janet Morris & Chris Morris

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Outpassage-smallOutpassage
By Janet Morris & Chris Morris
Perseid Press (430 pages, February 10, 2014, $24.95 trade paperback/$6.99 digital)
Cover by Vincent Di Fate

You only live once.

That is not only the theme of this excellent science fiction novel — it is also at the very heart of the novel’s story premise. Once again, I continue with my reviews of my favorite novels by Janet Morris and Chris Morris. But how I ever missed Outpassage when it was first published in 1988 I cannot say, because this is exactly the type of science fiction story I grew up reading in the pages of Amazing Stories and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. So this is the first time I’ve had the pleasure to read this great science fiction adventure.

Outpassage is action-packed, character-driven, and thought-provoking. The science is grounded in reality, but isn’t integral to the plot, and the tech never gets in the way of story and character: there is no garbage science or techno babble to muddle the plot. While this story has the feel of an old-fashioned, traditional science fiction novel from back in the day, it has a hip and modern sensibility to it. The characters are vivid and memorable, and the lean prose style is perfectly suited to the story. The dialogue is perfectly matched to each character — crisp and sharp, and very smart, with a fine balance of humor and gravitas.

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