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Month: December 2015

In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Six

In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Six

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In The Wake of Sister Blue Mark Rigney-medium

Linked below, you’ll find the sixth installment of a brand-new serialized novel, In the Wake Of Sister Blue. In this latest batch of adventures and misadventures, Karai meets Vashear, we tour the Sindarin market (where disaster awaits), and Maer bargains for the lives of Doss and Cullen with –– well, I’d better keep that a secret until you get there, eh? Chapter Seven will follow in two weeks’ time, by hook or by crook.

A number of you will already be familiar with my Tales Of Gemen (“The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone“), and if you enjoyed those titles, I think you’ll also find much to like in this latest venture.

Bear in mind that this is a true serial. I haven’t written to the end; I couldn’t publish all at once even if I wished to do so. I do have the overall arc of the piece ever more firmly in mind, but as to how exactly I’ll write navigate the roads from here to there? I predict it’ll be one complication at a time –– minimum. I do promise this: I’ll dole out the breadcrumbs of story just as fast as I can tear them from the fictive loaf, and when we reach the end, we’ll get there simultaneously. Welcome to adventure, In the Wake Of Sister Blue.

Tell your friends. Sharing and linking are the highest of compliments. Off we go –– and if you’re just discovering this portal, may I suggest you begin at the beginning?

Read the first installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

Read the sixth and latest installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

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“Let’s Never Do That Again”: Check Out The First Trailer For Star Trek Beyond

“Let’s Never Do That Again”: Check Out The First Trailer For Star Trek Beyond

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Now that J.J. Abrams, who directed the last two Star Trek movies, is off doing Star Wars, Paramount Pictures has brought in Justin Lin, the director of Fast & Furious, to helm the latest installment. This one sees the crew — at long last — starting their five-year mission to explore the frontier, which certainly piques my interest.

I’ve come to accept that this new generation of Star Trek is far removed from the cerebral TV show I remember. Abrams and his Fringe writing partners Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have instead turned the property into an action-movie franchise, with fist fights, explosions, and a pounding rock soundtrack. On the other hand, the script this time was co-authored by Simon Pegg, who plays Scotty and who previously wrote Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End, so that a least promises a fresh perspective. Have a look at the first trailer, just released this morning, and let me know what you think.

Star Trek Beyond is being produced by Skydance and Bad Robot Productions, and will arrive in theaters on July 22, 2016.

New Treasures: Penguin Science Fiction Postcards: 100 Book Covers in One Box

New Treasures: Penguin Science Fiction Postcards: 100 Book Covers in One Box

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Penguin Science Fiction 2

We’ve already established that I’m a sucker for a cool cover. I don’t have time to read a fraction of the books I buy, but I can look at great cover art all day long. Put an eye-catching cover on your book, and you’ve got my immediate attention.

Put a hundred cool covers on your book, and you can just shut up and take my money.

I think that’s the overall idea behind Penguin Science Fiction Postcards: 100 Book Covers in One Box. It’s sort of like a science fiction book with a great cover, but minus the book. And with 99 other covers. And with the added bonus that you’ll never lack for postcards again, when you need to drop a note to your uncle to remind him to return your copy of The Stars Like Dust. And did I mention the cool box?

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: “Rudolph’s Performance Review”

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: “Rudolph’s Performance Review”

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Rudolph_withSantaLast year around this time, I posted a short, short story I wrote, “Watson’s Christmas Trick,” which was based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s own “How Watson Learned the Trick.” If you missed that, click on over for a little Holmesian holiday fun. Or click on this post from last year, which looks at a few Holmes pastiches for the season, including one of my all time favorite anthologies, Holmes for the Holidays.

Though I don’t use it too often when I write fiction (maybe I should start writing my own character, instead of Sherlock Holmes, Solar Pons and Nero Wolfe…), I think that my ‘voice’ involves a solid dose of humor. And on that note, I give you “Rudolph’s Performance Review” You’d think the reindeer with the shiny red nose would have knocked his annual review out of the park after that foggy Christmas Eve, eh? Well, that Santa is one tough reviewer. Read on, and I wish you a safe, happy and blessed Merry Christmas.

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Robert E. Howard: Peering Behind the Veil of Life

Robert E. Howard: Peering Behind the Veil of Life

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NOTE: The following article was first published on May 9, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 250 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

delrey-kullsubterranean-kull-limited“The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” is Robert E. Howard at his most poetic.

His writing had taken a quantum leap forward in quality compared with his earlier Kull stories as he transitioned from working in familiar genres to blazing a trail none had attempted before him. More than his gift for well-turned phrases and evoking imagery so powerful, it literally sears itself in the reader’s mind; Howard reaches for a depth of character and achieves a work that is both psychologically and philosophically rewarding.

Sadly, as the author would later tell his friend, Clyde Smith he was disappointed in the result and resolved to never attempt anything so deep again.

The tale starts off with Kull, plagued with ennui and yearning for something more substantive than riches, power, and transient beauty. The brooding king rejects the company of loyal Brule, the Pict who won his respect and friendship in “The Shadow Kingdom,” but foolishly takes the advice of an alluring Eastern female.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip from Gemma Files

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip from Gemma Files

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Gemma Files-smallFormerly a film critic, teacher, and screenwriter, Gemma Files is a Canadian horror author who’s published four novels, two short fiction collections, a story-cycle, and two chapbooks of speculative poetry.

Five of her stories were adapted into episodes of The Hunger, an erotic horror anthology series made for Showtime by Tony and Ridley Scott. Her story “The Emperor’s Old Bones” won the International Horror Guild’s 1999 Best Short Fiction award. She’s a two-time Shirley Jackson Award nominee, and has twice appeared in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her latest release is Experimental Film (a contemporary ghost story novel) from ChiZine Publications.

Plot vs. Character — What’s Your Opinion?

My opinion on Plot vs. Character is that you really do need time, space and wordage in order to explore both at once, like in a novel: a long-form, chaptered narrative which develops organically, changing as much through reaction as it does through action. That’s why, when I’m writing a short story, I often find myself making a calculated decision to sacrifice one for the other. It all depends on where you want to place your emphasis: if it’s a deeper exploration of character you’re after, that can mean an overall flattening and simplification of plot, whereas a complicated plot with lots of exposition involved doesn’t leave a lot of room for complex characters. Instead, you get a conglomerate of sketches as your main cast, trope-y but hopefully not cliché, people easily reduced to a few simple traits — the kind of people who show up in movie credits as Angry Librarian or Homeless Artist.

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The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 3

The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 3

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This series explores the Savage Sword of Conan collections from Dark Horse reprinting Marvel Comics’ premiere black-and-white fantasy mag from the 1970s. Click to read previous installments: Volume 1 / Volume 2

Vol3The third collected volume of Savage Sword of Conan includes issues #25 – 36 but begins with a short Barry Windsor-Smith piece that first ran in Savage Tales #2 a few years earlier. BWS adapts a Robert E. Howard poem called “Cimmeria” in a gorgeous 5-page feature. His black-and-white work is every bit as lush as his color work on the Conan the Barbarian comic (for which he is most well-known). The artists who did the black-and-white comic magazines of the 60s and 70s knew that drawing for a colorless publication demanded more from both pencilers and inkers. Especially inkers.

Savage Sword #25 was the last issue of 1977, hitting the stands while the original Star Wars movie mania was reaching its peak, and spiking sales of the Marvel Comics Star Wars title brought the company a new influx of capital. Roy Thomas had built an excellent Sword and Sorcery magazine during the turblent mid-70s, when publishers had to cut the number of pages in their comics and constantly raise their prices. This issue is another super job by Thomas, who faithfully adapts Howard’s “The Jewels of Gwahlur.” DC legend Dick Giordano steps in to illustrate this issue — seemingly from out of nowhere — and it’s obvious that Giordano is reaching for a Neal Adams-style Conan tale.

Adams had drawn a couple of landmark Conan tales by this time (in Savage Tales #4 and Savage Sword #14), and he left his unique imprint behind as usual — setting standards for other artists to follow. Giordano does a solid job on SS#25, but unless you’re an old-school fan of his work it comes off as Neal-Adams-Lite: a stiffer, less consistent version of the Neal Adams Conan from “Shadows in Zamboula.” Maybe if Giordano had stuck around he would have time to find his mojo on this book, but this feels like a filler issue. It has moments of greatness — certain panels and effects — but the consistency that marks John Buscema’s ongoing Savage Sword work is noticeably absent. The next issue solved this problem and started a new era of Conan greatness, thanks to the arrival of inker extraordinaire Tony DeZuniga.

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SyFy’s The Expanse Exclusive! An Interview with Actor Elias Toufexis

SyFy’s The Expanse Exclusive! An Interview with Actor Elias Toufexis

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394e3f_4525ea3eb84a46d083f3453fe1be86bfSo, yes, I was a lucky dog and got to visit the set of The Expanse while they were shooting Season One, and I recently attended the cast and crew premiere of the show here in Santa Fe.

Given my good fortune, it seemed only right that I find some exclusive content to share with readers of Black Gate, so here it is.

Elias Toufexis plays Kenzo, a character that has a lot of fans concerned because he’s not in the books. In the interview we discuss how this character was developed especially for Elias by James SA Corey.

We also say as much as we can say about the show, which is mostly stories and anecdotes of what was going on behind the scenes. This is content you won’t get anywhere else!

While I had him on Skype, we also discussed his career as a video game actor in franchises such as Deus Ex and FarCry. To finish off the interview, I asked him all sorts of basic questions about how one builds a career as an actor, and he gives some excellent advice.

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Future Treasures: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Future Treasures: Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

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Passenger Alexandra Bracken-smallI’m a sucker for an eye-catching cover. And Alexandra Bracken’s new novel, the opening volume in a new series featuring an accidental time-traveler, definitely qualifies. It will be published in hardcover by Disney-Hyperion in January.

In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles, but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods — a powerful family in the Colonies — and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, his passenger, can find. In order to protect her, Nick must ensure she brings it back to them-whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home forever.

Alexandra Bracken is also the author of Star Wars: A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy and the Darkest Minds series. Passenger will be published by Disney-Hyperion on January 5, 2016. It is 496 pages, priced at $17.99 for both the hardcover and digital versions.

The December Fantasy Magazine Rack

The December Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Apex-Magazine-Issue-78-rack Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-187-rack Holdfast-Magazine-7-rack Fantasy-and-Science-Fiction-November-December-2015-rack
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December is a great month to try some new magazines. We started our coverage of the British Fantasy Award-winning Holdfast with issue #7, and revealed the details on the massive Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume 1. Nick Ozment took a look at the special Horror Issue of the St. Paul-Minneapolis literary journal Whistling Shade, and Bob Byrne reported on facsimile editions of The Strand Magazine. For vintage fiction fans, Rich Horton cracked open a 56-year old copy of Amazing Science Fiction Stories from October 1959, with fiction by Harlan Ellison and Tom Purdom.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our Late November Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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 $12.95/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.

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