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Month: December 2015

An Adventurer’s Guide to the Middle Ages: What if There’s No Room at the Inn (or No Inn Whatsoever?)

An Adventurer’s Guide to the Middle Ages: What if There’s No Room at the Inn (or No Inn Whatsoever?)

wassail-bout
…you are automatically interesting. You have stories to tell that people will repeat for years to come…

So, by definition, adventurers travel. Where do you stay?

With the elves is good.

Seriously, Tolkien got it right. His two parties of adventurers travel across Middle Earth (which has an empty Early Dark Age/Early Middle Ages feel) and how many times do they stay in inns?

It’s pretty much camping and hospitality all the way. In Middle Earth, this means craving the hospitality of elves, shape-shifters, and humans of various social ranks.

In the real Middle Ages, you’re stuck with just humans.

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When Mankind Shares the Earth with Vampires, Werewolves, & Trolls: Dean R. Koontz’s The Haunted Earth

When Mankind Shares the Earth with Vampires, Werewolves, & Trolls: Dean R. Koontz’s The Haunted Earth

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The Haunted Earth
Dean R. Koontz
Lancer Books original paperback (192 pages, $0.95, 1973)

Last time out, I did a retro-review of Koontz’s early 1970’s science-fiction murder mystery, A Werewolf Among Us. This time around, I’m looking at another of the genre mysteries he wrote early in his career, The Haunted Earth. I enjoyed it when I first read it in 1973, and I enjoyed it again, 42 years later. For those of you who are familiar with Clifford D. Simak’s Out of Their Minds and The Goblin Reservation, as well as the works of Ron Goulart, most notably his The Chameleon Corps, Koontz’s The Haunted Earth has much in common with those: wild imagination, fast-paced narrative, interesting characters, and plenty of humor.

The premise is this: in the “future” year of 2000, Earth is visited by a race of Lovecraft-inspired, benevolent aliens called the Maseni. Not only were we introduced to these tentacle-wearing ETs, they brought with them their supernatural brothers. Furthermore, the Maseni showed us how to “release from bondage” our own mythological and supernatural entities. Thus, Mankind now shares the Earth with vampires, werewolves, minotaurs, dryads, trolls, et cetera, et cetera.

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New Treasures: Dark Parchments: Midnight Curses and Verses by Michael H. Hanson

New Treasures: Dark Parchments: Midnight Curses and Verses by Michael H. Hanson

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I don’t see a lot of dark poetry, so I was very pleased to receive a copy of Michael Hanson’s Dark Parchments: Midnight Curses and Verses, a gorgeous volume of new poems from the author of Autumn Blush, Jubilant Whispers, and the creator of the Sha’Daa shared-world horror/fantasy anthology series. Janet Morris, in her Foreword, calls Dark Parchments “a brooding anthology exploring humanity’s awful heart, its crippling guilt and madness, its untoward dominion and unbridled power.” Hanson’s best work, including “Nevada Test Site Mannequins” and “Midnight in Moon Alley,” is fearless and intensely descriptive, and the numerous illustrations give the book an impressive visual appeal.

If the cover art looks familiar, it’s because it’s the work of the brilliant Chris Mars, whom we first took notice of for his work on Thomas Ligotti’s new Penguin collection Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe, and whom we profiled here.

Dark Parchments was published by MoonDream Press on October 25, 2015. It is 120 pages, priced at $12.95 in trade paperback and just $0.99 for the digital edition. The front and back covers are by Chris Mars.

November Issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine Now Available

November Issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine Now Available

Swords and Sorcery Magazine November 2015-smallIssue 46 of Swords and Sorcery Magazine, cover-dated November 2015, is now available — with a brand new story by Black Gate blogger Nicholas Ozment. “Last Stand at Wellworm’s Pass” is the tale of one of the most feared and powerful mages in Rilsthorn, on the run from assassins and dread night creatures.

Editor Curtis Ellett is still looking for volunteers to help him select the contents of a Best of Swords and Sorcery Magazine anthology:

I have long been considering putting together an anthology of the best stories that have appeared in Swords & Sorcery. At this point it is likely to consist of stories from the first four years, which will end with issue 48 in January. One sticking point is that I don’t want to do the choosing. I’ve had the sole responsibility of choosing the stories that have appeared in Swords & Sorcery, I want someone else to judge them now. Three to five someones, in fact. I have enough volunteers on board to go ahead with the project, but I do have room for one or two more. If you would like to join him on this editorial board, please contact me at the above email address. The job will pay nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done and your name in the book.

If you’re interested, contact Curtis at editor@swordsandsorcerymagazine.com.

Each issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine contains two short stories, and is available free online. This issue contains stories by Brynn MacNab and Nicholas Ozment.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Was Holmes Fooled in “Thor Bridge”?

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Was Holmes Fooled in “Thor Bridge”?

Thor_GlassPart of the fun of being a Sherlockian (I use the term to mean someone who has read the stories and delves into them, studying and possibly writing about them: not having watched the BBC television show Sherlock and expounding the wonders of Benedict Cumberbatch) is speculating on the stories. In a post last November, I posed that perhaps Holmes was actually fooled by Lady Brackenstall in “The Adventure of The Abbey Grange.”

I don’t think that actually happened, but in Playing the Game, I laid out what I thought was at least a plausible scenario for it. Similarly, I pondered the possibility that Holmes set himself up in the blackmailing business after matters were concluded in “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.” Now, I don’t believe what I wrote in that one at all, but it was fun and it’s not impossible (just preposterous).

So, I ask you, is it possible that Holmes had a blind spot regarding the fairer sex and that he once again was duped by a pretty woman?

SPOILERS – SPOILERS – SPOILERS

Though frankly, if you’re reading this post and you haven’t read “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” I’m a little perplexed. But click on this link and read it. It won’t take long.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: It Was Only A Dream…

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: It Was Only A Dream…

Dallas JR EwingJust as there are certain guitar licks, walkdowns, turnarounds, and other patterns that can help with the flow and structure of a song, writing and storytelling have some generic techniques that can be used to great effect, or great failure, depending on how, when, and why they’re applied.

The most universal and familiar in fiction is probably the framing device that starts many children’s stories: “Once upon a time…” and ends them with, “And they lived happily ever after.” Those phrases are an emotional touchstone for most readers, taking them back to a magical time when stories were a centerpiece to our lives.

But most of these shortcut techniques aren’t used as often, and aren’t guaranteed to evoke a specific emotional response. Let’s look at a risky writing technique: The “It Was Only A Dream…” ending.

I generally hate this kind of ending, because it feels like a trick. It feels like the writer is chanting “Neener neener!” and laughing at the audience who fell for this prank.

However, as Eric Cherry (my frequent writing-neepery partner) and I explored specific instances of it being used, I realized that I didn’t always hate it. I just have such a strong emotional reaction when it’s used badly that it overshadows my appreciation of the times when it’s used well.

To use it in a way that respects the audience, it should shine the light of what we know about the story through a prism that reveals new facets to the story, rather than negating all that came before. It should make us embrace what we’ve already experienced within the story, and then view all of that in a new way.

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Collecting Robert A. Heinlein

Collecting Robert A. Heinlein

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Over the past few weeks I’ve discussed some interesting patterns I’ve seen among paperback SF and fantasy collectors. These are hardly profound observations — they’re obvious to anyone who’s been collecting science fiction paperbacks for the past twenty years. But it has been interesting to see some well-known trends quantified.

The catalyst for all this was a sequence of similar online auctions by a single seller, for roughly comparable lots of paperback books by some of the most popular genre writers of the 20th Century. All were in virtually perfect shape — the kind of auctions that bring out die-hard collectors. The results were fairly predictable.

32 books by Arthur C. Clarke $27.00
35 books by Isaac Asimov $82.17
56 books by Philip K. Dick $536.99

Click on the links to see the actual books in question. What we’re seeing here is a pretty fair representation of the popularly and demand for each of these writers some two to three decades after their deaths. So while there’s a wide disparity in prices, that’s to be expected. But I think the really interesting result came from the Heinlein auction.

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Thinking About What Makes The Shining and The Exorcist Work

Thinking About What Makes The Shining and The Exorcist Work

Linda-Blair-in-The-Exorcist-1973
Aw, man. This just ain’t right.

Sometimes in the course of growing as a writer, you fluke into a success before you grow the skills to consistently hit that success. My second-ever fiction sale was to Asimov’s Science Fiction in 2008 and over the following two-and-a-half years, I collected nothing but rejections from them.

My 2008 story had accidentally included enough good elements that it made it into the magazine, but I didn’t understand what those science fictional elements were or how to use them properly until about 2011.

I think the same thing happened to me with a story called “Dog’s Paw.” I thought I’d been writing a lit story when in fact, I had included horror elements that eventually got it published in a horror anthology, Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, and a superb audio version at Pseudopod.org (British people make everything sound extra-good). After my experience with my 2008 Asimov’s story, I was under no illusions that I was a competent horror writer, just a lucky one.

This spring, I decided to try to write a horror story. Knowing my weakness, I deliberately tried to figure out what goes into a good horror story. And when I want to analyze story structure, I go first to movies, because I find it easier to see the moving parts.

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A Slick and Stylish Potpourri of Geeky Hipness: Ernest Cline’s Armada

A Slick and Stylish Potpourri of Geeky Hipness: Ernest Cline’s Armada

Ernest Cline Armada-smallArmada
By Earnest Cline
Crown Books (368 pages, $26 in hardcover, July 14, 2015)

Ernest Cline’s 2011 debut novel Ready Player One was quite the achievement. As I said in my review earlier this year here at Black GateReady Player One was more than just a cute cyberpunk romp. I think it showed real ingenuity, portraying what science fiction could be for a new generation. And I thoroughly enjoyed it! It’s no surprise to me that Steven Spielberg is slated to direct a movie version, hopefully sometime in the near future. I was incredibly excited about reading Ernest Cline’s second novel Armada.

There are quite a few similarities between Armada and Ready Player One. For example, Armada‘s protagonist, Zack Lightman, fits the standard NSA profile for contemporary geek: young loner who spends more time in a make-believe world of science fiction and fantasy books, movies, and videogames than he does in the “real” world. Zack particularly dreams of flying off on some grand space-faring adventure, mainly because he spends most of his time on a hugely popular online flight simulator called, coincidentally, Armada.

Zack later learns, however, along with everyone else on the planet, that the Armada game is actually a testing device for evaluating and then recruiting people for real spaceflight and warfare against an alien force. And — surprise, surprise — it turns out that Zack Lightman is one of the top players. Does this sound anything like The Last Starfighter to anyone? Similar, but not quite.

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Future Treasures: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

Future Treasures: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

City of Blades-smallRobert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs, the first volume in The Divine Cities, was nominated for the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards, and came in second for the Locus Award. That’s a very impressive trifecta, and not something you see very often. Tor.com described it as “an atmospheric and intrigue-filled novel of dead gods, buried histories, and a mysterious, protean city,” (and Peadar Ó Guilín called it “The best fantasy I’ve read so far this year. Great stuff”), and that’s what first sparked my interest. The second volume, City of Blades, arrives next month, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

A generation ago, the city of Voortyashtan was the stronghold of the god of war and death, the birthplace of fearsome supernatural sentinels who killed and subjugated millions.

Now, the city’s god is dead. The city itself lies in ruins. And to its new military occupiers, the once-powerful capital is a wasteland of sectarian violence and bloody uprisings.

So it makes perfect sense that General Turyin Mulaghesh — foul-mouthed hero of the battle of Bulikov, rumored war criminal, ally of an embattled Prime Minister — has been exiled there to count down the days until she can draw her pension and be forgotten.

At least, it makes the perfect cover story.

The truth is that the general has been pressed into service one last time, dispatched to investigate a discovery with the potential to change the world — or destroy it.

The trouble is that this old soldier isn’t sure she’s still got what it takes to be the hero.

City of Blades will be published by Broadway Books on January 26, 2016. It is 296 pages, priced at $15 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.