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Month: May 2015

Check Out the Hyperborea Adventure Kickstarter

Check Out the Hyperborea Adventure Kickstarter

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Hyperborea Adventure Three-Pack Kickstarter-small

A little over two years ago, I reviewed Jeffrey Talanian’s delightfully inventive RPG Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, a massive boxed set created in homage to the original boxed edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Time has not diminished my admiration; it remains one of my favorite games released in the last ten years. In fact, my only criticism — as I mentioned in my review — was the small number of supporting products.

That’s why I was so pleased to see a new Kickstarter, for the Hyperborea Adventure Three-Pack, a campaign created to fund the publication of a trio of deluxe adventures for the game: Ghost Ship of the Desert Dunes by Jeff Talanian, Forgotten Fane of the Coiled Goddess, by Joseph D. Salvador, and Beneath the Comet, by Ben Ball. These sword-and-sorcery adventure modules will each flesh out a different chuck of Hyperborean geography, and each is suitable for use with other games, such as Labyrinth Lord, Castles and Crusades, Swords & Wizardry, and of course, the game start started it all, D&D.

The campaign has a goal of $14,000 and, after less than 48 hours, has already raised over $12,000. Stretch goals include inside cover maps, additional art, and bookmarks, and I think the odds are good that more will be added. Check out all the details here.

Black Gate 4 is Sold Out

Black Gate 4 is Sold Out

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Black Gate Magazine 4-smallBlack Gate 4, originally published in Summer 2002, is now sold out.

BG 4 featured the start of a major fantasy series from Hugo Award-winning author Bill Johnson, a new novelette from David B. Coe, and fiction from Cory Doctorow, Tina Jens, Mark McLaughlin, Patrice Sarath, Keith Allen Daniels, and many others. The terrific cover art was by Charles Keegan. Here’s the issue summary:

A Chicago pub where the ghosts of Blues legends gather to swap tales and jam one final time… a post-apocalyptic cityscape where automated bombers still cruise overhead and the last rock band hears the sound of extinction… a wild west where a trio of demons test the wits of a lone bounty hunter… and the dungeons of Chateau Machecoul, where an aging knight comes face-to-face with a horror unlike anything he’s ever known.

Since the end of the print version of Black Gate, we’ve been selling the last of our back issues at ridiculously low prices. BG 14 and 15 were cover priced at $15.95 and $18.85 each, but now you can get any two two issues for just $15 — plus $5 for each additional issue after that. That includes our rare first issue. Get our first three issues for just $20!

Stock is running very low on most of our early issues, however, and we sold our last copy of BG 4 today. Back issues of Black Gate contain original short stories and novellas from Michael Moorcock, Charles de Lint, James Enge, Cory Doctorow, Devon Monk, Harry Connolly, Martha Wells, Howard Andrew Jones, Myke Cole, and many others.

Get all the details on our back issue sale here.

Future Treasures: Mech edited by Tim Marquitz and Nick Sharps

Future Treasures: Mech edited by Tim Marquitz and Nick Sharps

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Mech Age of Steel-smallLast year we told you about Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters, the book that founded Ragnarok Publications. Since then I’ve been very impressed with the astonishing energy from Ragnarok’s founders, Joe Martin and Tim Marquitz. In their first year they released 22 titles, and their recent releases have included Martin’s Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries. and Rogues, which we covered here, Stacey Turner’s Grimm Mistresses, Kenny Soward’s Gnomesaga trilogy, and many others.

Ragnarok recently announced plans for a companion anthology to Kaiju Rising, Mech: Age of Steel, edited by Tim Marquitz and Nick Sharps. Here’s the scoop:

Growing up there was only one thing I loved more than giant monsters and that would be giant robots! The anthology will feature a diverse array of tales from some of the genre’s finest talent (including some returning favorites from Kaiju Rising) and each story will be accompanied by a piece of interior art by either Frankie B. Washington or Oksana Dmitrienko (the latter’s work is seen throughout Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues)…

The Mech: Age of Steel Kickstarter campaign will launch in Q3/4 2015 and feature stories from some of the genre’s finest talent.

They’ve already announced a preliminary line-up of authors for the book, and it includes several names that will be familiar to Black Gate authors, including Martha Wells and Jennifer Brozek, as well as Jeremy Robinson, Graham McNeill, C.L. Werner, and many others.

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Professor Patrice Caldwell on Exploding Cows, Peanut Buster Parfaits, and Why Grand Masters Flock to Portales, New Mexico

Professor Patrice Caldwell on Exploding Cows, Peanut Buster Parfaits, and Why Grand Masters Flock to Portales, New Mexico

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JackW1photo patrice 600The Jack Williamson Lectureship is a little known, hidden gem of science fiction. Taking place every April in Portales, New Mexico, it always attracts an impressive list of authors, who gather in an unnaturally high concentration in places such as the local Dairy Queen.

I’ve attended the Lectureship for over a decade, so I remember the days when Jack was alive and we held events in his house. He was a brilliant, unassuming man who was one of the founding fathers of science fiction. Words such as “psionics,” “terraform,” and “genetic engineering” had their first appearance in his fiction, and he also coined concepts such as The Prime Directive and androids. He was the second ever SFWA Grand Master and holds the record for publishing stories in more consecutive decades than any other author (nine decades in total!)

This year I sat down with Professor Patrice Caldwell (far right in the picture above, next to Connie Willis and Betty Williamson, Jack’s niece). Patrice coordinates the Lectureship every year, and we took a moment to discuss Jack’s legacy, and this annual event that honors him. If you’ve never heard of the Jack Williamson Lectureship, listen up! It’s an event you won’t want to miss.

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May 2015 Lightspeed Magazine Now on Sale

May 2015 Lightspeed Magazine Now on Sale

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Lightspeed May 2015-smallIf you’re an aspiring fantasy writer, there’s even more reason to read Lightspeed this month. It has a short story by C.C. Finlay, the new editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Here’s your chance to do a little homework, and learn a little more about what kind of fantasy Charles enjoys.

There’s also a new story in Matthew Hughes’s long-running Kaslo Chronicles, as well as new fiction from Seanan McGuire and Helena Bell, and reprints from Sean Williams, Merrie Haskell, R.C. Loenen-Ruiz, and Annie Bellet.

Lightspeed publishes fantasy and SF, both new fiction and reprints. Here’s the complete fiction contents of the May issue.

Fantasy

“Sun’s East, Moon’s West” by Merrie Haskell (from Electric Velocipede #17/18, Spring 2009)
“Mouth” by Helena Bell
“Breaking the Spell” by R.C. Loenen-Ruiz (from Philippine Speculative Fiction IV, 2009) — available May 19
“The Blood of a Dragon” by Matthew Hughes — available May 26

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New Treasures: Vermilion by Molly Tanzer

New Treasures: Vermilion by Molly Tanzer

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Vermilion by Molly Tanzer-smallWasn’t I just saying that I love weird westerns? (Yes, I was.) And now comes the debut novel of British Fantasy Award nominee Molly Tanzer from Word Horde, featuring a gun-slinging 19-year-old, an undead villain, geung si (wait… what the heck are geung si?), ghosts, and an alternate San Francisco. Life is good.

Publisher Word Horde has been doing some terrific work recently, including The Children of Old Leech, Ross E. Lockhart’s Giallo Fantastique, and the upcoming anthology Cthulhu Fhtagn! Vermilion looks like a terrific edition to their catalog.

Gunslinging, chain smoking, Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp, Elouise “Lou” Merriwether might not be a normal 19-year-old, but she’s too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that. It’s an important job, though most folks consider it downright spooky. Some have even accused Lou of being more comfortable with the dead than the living, and, well… they’re not wrong. When Lou hears that a bunch of Chinatown boys have gone missing somewhere deep in the Colorado Rockies she decides to saddle up and head into the wilderness to investigate. Lou fears her particular talents make her better suited to help placate their spirits than ensure they get home alive, but it’s the right thing to do, and she’s the only one willing to do it. On the road to a mysterious sanatorium known as Fountain of Youth, Lou will encounter bears, desperate men, a very undead villain, and even stranger challenges. Lou will need every one of her talents and a whole lot of luck to make it home alive… From British Fantasy Award nominee Molly Tanzer comes debut novel Vermilion, a spirited weird Western adventure that puts the punk back into steampunk.

Vermilion was published by Word Horde on April 15, 2015. It is 386 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback and $6.99 for the digital version. The splendid cover is by Dalton Rose.

The mid-May Fantasy Magazine Rack

The mid-May Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Apex-Magazine-71-April-2015-300 Asimovs-Science-Fiction-June-2015-300 Clarkesworld-104-300 The-Dark-Issue-8-300
Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-172-300 Heroic-Fantasy-Quarterly-24-300 Innsmouth-Magazine-15-300 Knights-of-the-Dinner-Table-219-300

The mid-May April magazine rack is crowded with a mix of print (Asimov’s, Knights of the Dinner Table) and online (The Dark, Clarkesworld, BCS, and HFQ) magazines. This month we say goodbye to Innmouth Magazine, which published its last issue last summer. Click on any of the images above to see our detailed report on each issue.

As we’ve mentioned before, all of these magazines are completely dependent on fans and readers to keep them alive. Many are marginal operations for whom a handful of subscriptions may mean the difference between life and death. Why not check one or two out, and try a sample issue? There are magazines here for every budget, from completely free to $7.50/issue. If you find something intriguing, I hope you’ll consider taking a chance on a subscription. I think you’ll find it’s money very well spent.

Our late April Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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Nine Positive Traits of the Jem Trailer

Nine Positive Traits of the Jem Trailer

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Modern adaptation that manages to keep the poofy hair = adaptation done right.
Modern adaptation that manages to keep the poofy hair = adaptation done right.

Jem and the Holograms, that quintessential 80s animated rock band, is back!

First, it returned in a monthly IDW comic book, written by Kelly Thompson and illustrated by Sophie Campbell, which is totally awesome. Then, this week, a trailer was released for the forthcoming live action movie. To say it wasn’t well received by fans is a bit like saying that the sun exploding would be bad for the Earth.

BUT, as self-help gurus would say: Try and capture the positive in your day-to-day. And slay goats. (I’m pretty sure they say that.) And so, in my continuous pursuit to see the positive in things that are easy to hate, I looked at the trailer three times (!) to pull out some positive traits.

1 – Ambition Is Tough (And Unattractive!)

Ambition is a crap shoot. You might succeed, you might not. It’s good that the trailer clearly showcases that Jerrica had absolutely no ambition and had to be convinced to pursue stardom. The lesson here is simple: Don’t pursue stuff. Be pursued! It’s a real life fairy tale! Plus, as often showcased, ambition is unattractive in girls. Who the hell wants to be unattractive???

Be pursued. Be attractive. Live the life.

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Vintage Treasures: Heroic Visions, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

Vintage Treasures: Heroic Visions, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

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Heroic Visions-small Heroic Visions II-small

We’ve covered so many classic paperbacks here at Black Gate, in so many sub-genres, that I sometimes forget that our original focus was Heroic Fantasy. We’ve kept true to that promise (more or less) here on the website, although as a matter of course we’ve broadened our focus as the years have gone by.

But it’s good to be reminded from time to time that it was heroic fantasy that lured many of us into this field. This week’s reminder came in the form of a slender 1983 Ace paperback I found titled Heroic Visions. It collects sword & sorcery tales by Jane Yolen, Alan Dean Foster, F.M. Busby, Robert Silverberg, Michael Bishop, Joanna Russ, Phyllis Ann Karr — and a brand new Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novella by Fritz Leiber. It was followed by a sequel, Heroic Visions II, with new stories from Thomas Ligotti, Manly Wade Wellman, Keith Roberts, Ellen Kushner, Michael Bishop, Avram Davidson, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and many others. Both are fine collections featuring some of the top fantasy writers of the 80s.

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Knights of the Dinner Table #219 Now on Sale

Knights of the Dinner Table #219 Now on Sale

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Knights of the Dinner Table 219-small DC Showcase 12 Challengers of the Unknown-small

The latest issue of Knights of the Dinner Table boasts another great Kirby tribute by the fabulous Fraim brothers. The cover is an homage to DC Showcase #12, featuring the Challengers of the Unknown, drawn by the great Jack Kirby and originally published in 1957. (Kirby later claimed he reused elements from this series at Marvel Comics, when he collaborated with Stan Lee to create The Fantastic Four four years later.) Click on the images for bigger versions.

I remember buying the very first issue of KoDT, at a comic convention here in Chicago. I had no idea then that it would become one of the longest-running independent comics in history.

Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine is written and drawn by my friend Jolly R. Blackburn, with editorial assistance by his talented wife Barbara. Readers of the print version of Black Gate may remember the KoDT spin-off The Java Joint, which appeared in the back of every issue (and was eventually collected in a single volume in 2012).

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