February 2017 – Page 9

Goth Chick News: A Penny for More Dreadfuls

Thursday, February 2, 2017 Sue Granquist Comments 1 comment

You may not be familiar with the term “penny dreadful.” And no one would blame you considering that, until 2014, the term had not been in popular use since the 1890’s.

Back to the 1830s, “penny dreadfuls”were serial stories published weekly on cheap wood-pulp paper aimed at young, working-class men. Each costing one penny, the subject matter of these publications typically focused on the sensationalized and bloody (or “dreadful”) exploits of detectives, criminals, or supernatural entities. Varney the Vampire, a precursor to Dracula, as well as Sweeny Todd made their first appearances in print as subjects of the penny dreadful.

However in 2014, Showtime launched a very successful series by the same name starring Eva Green, Timothy Dalton and Josh Hartnett. Penny Dreadful featured classic characters from Victorian gothic literature such as the Frankenstein’s monster, the wolfman, Dorian Gray and Dracula as well as a host of new human characters including Vanessa Ives, Sir Malcolm Murray and Ethan Chandler. The series ran for three seasons, coming to what many fans (me included) felt was a highly unsatisfying end in 2016 .

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Conversation with Ryan Harvey

Thursday, February 2, 2017 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

Dream Tower Media, the mad geniuses behind The Blue Lamp by Robert Zoltan (which Fletcher Vredenburgh called “marvelous… a full sound production, like a radio show”), have released Episode 2 of their new audio series, the Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast. The title is spot on, as this one-hour episode is a thoroughly entertaining and far-ranging discussion of the great Edgar Rice Burroughs, featuring Robert Zoltan and Black Gate‘s own Ryan Harvey.

Like The Blue Lamp, this is no typical podcast, but an imaginatively designed (and frequently hilarious) radio show set in the windswept Dream Tower (with a talking raven). But stellar production aside, the real star of the show is the always-interesting Ryan Harvey, whose deep knowledge and profound enthusiasm for his subject prove infectious. Even if you’re not an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan, you will be by the end their discussion. Terrific stuff.

I was also pleased to hear that the Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast will be produced on a regular schedule. Robert tells us:

I made a real effort to create something unique and engaging, almost like a MST 3000 feel, that would be an ongoing serial. The third episode in February is going to be Orcs!: A Conversation with Historical Fantasy Author Scott Oden.

Great news! Check out all the episodes of the Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast here.

B&N Blog on 96 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in 2017

Thursday, February 2, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog has gradually become one of my favorite places on the web. It’s well written, entertaining, and has a lot of content — virtually all of it focused on books. What’s not to love?

It’s not afraid of tackling big projects either. While lesser blogs may give you a peek at 10 upcoming releases and then head down to the pub, the hard-working crew at the B&N Sci-Fi Blog labor late into the night to compile a monster list of nearly 100 of the best genre books coming your way. How do they do it? Here’s Joel Cunningham with the scoop.

We asked sci-fi and fantasy editors from all the major publishing houses to share with us the books they are most excited to release into the wild in 2017. Let us just say, these editors are very excited — so excited, the list quickly ballooned to nearly 100 books. That’s 100 books that we’re really excited about too, even if the knowledge that we can’t possibly hope to read every one of them makes us lament, again, our pesky mortality.

Grab a fresh cup of coffee or your beverage of choice, and settle in. This is a big one.

Yeah, Joel’s right about that. It took a lot of work with compile this list, and I guarantee you that you’ll find something that will catch your interest. Here’s a handful of titles that I found especially intriguing.

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The Arian Baptistry in Ravenna, Italy

Wednesday, February 1, 2017 Sean McLachlan Comments 4 comments

Ceiling of the Arian Baptistry

Last week I blogged about the fantastic Basilica of San Vitale, in Ravenna, Italy. That’s only one of several fine examples of Late Antique art in the city and only one of eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites there.

Another is the Arian Baptistry, built by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great at the end of the 5th century. Theodoric was an Arian Christian, following a creed that believed that Christ was distinct from, and subordinate to, God the Father. This is because Christ did not always exist but was created by God the Father. More orthodox Christians at the time believed that Christ was both human and divine but was one and equal to God the Father. Theodoric had both types of Christians in his kingdom and to avoid trouble, kept them in separate neighborhoods with separate houses of worship

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Another Magazine Gone: Fantastic Stories of the Imagination Packs it In

Wednesday, February 1, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

There’s a healthy number of genre magazines on the market in 2017… but that doesn’t mean that all (or even most) of them are healthy. The vast majority of independent and small press magazines operate on paper-thin margins, which means that even minor setbacks can put the whole enterprise at risk.

We lost one of the highest-paying short fiction markets in the industry last month, as publisher Warren Lapine announced on January 18th that a combination of financial difficulties and personal setbacks had conspired to doom Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. In his Message From the Publisher he writes:

It’s with deep regret that I announce the closing of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. The January issue will be our final regular issue and the People of Color Take Over issue will be our final issue. I’m really proud of the body of work that we produced at Fantastic. There are a number of reasons that now is the time for me to close the webzine. According to my projection, it’ll take more than five years for Fantastic to become self sustaining, and I simply don’t feel that that is a reasonable time frame.

I had planned to stick it out another year, but my personal life has made that much more difficult. Last month my daughter’s house burned down and she and her family are staying with us while we try to sort everything out with an insurance company that doesn’t want to pay; and this month my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer… For those of you who are owed portions of an electronic subscription. Your subscription will be filled with electronic copies of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Cascadia Subduction Zone. That means you’ll be getting two magazines for every one we owe you.

Fantastic Stories of the Imagination was founded in August 2014, and published 17 issues over the past two and a half years. It took its name from the fondly-remembered digest Fantastic Stories, published from 1952-1980 by Ziff-Davis, and continued the original’s numbering scheme. The modern version was a free webzine that published two new stories every issue, plus reprints, reviews and commentary. It was edited by Warren Lapine and published by Wilder Publications, and available free online, and in a variety of digital formats for $2.99.

We last covered Fantastic Stories of the Imagination with the September-October 2015 issue. The final issue will be the Kickstarter-funded People Of Color Take Over Fantastic Stories, inspired by the hugely-successful People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction special issues of Lightspeed and Nightmare. The last regular issue contains new fiction by Wendy Nikel and Tamoha Sengupta; check it out here.

Steven Brust’s Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed His Life

Wednesday, February 1, 2017 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Over at Tor.com, Steven Brust (The Incrementalists, the Vlad Taltos novels) talks about what may be my favorite fantasy novel, Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light (1967).

You always get asked, “When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” And, of course, there’s no answer, or a thousand answers that are all equally valid. But I usually say, “In high school, when I read Zelazny’s Lord of Light.”

You see, until then, I had never known you could do that. I never knew you could make someone feel all those different things at the same time, with all of that intensity, just by how you used 26 characters and a few punctuation marks. What was it? Well, everything: Sam and Yama were the most compelling characters I’d come across; it was the first time I’d ever stopped reading to just admire a sentence; it gave me the feeling (which proved correct) that there were layers I wouldn’t get without a few rereadings; and, above all, it was when I became of what could be done with voice — how much could be done with just the way the author addressed the reader. I remember putting that book down and thinking, “If I could make someone feel like this, how cool would that be?” Then I started reading it again. And then I went and grabbed everything else of his I could find.

Steven uses this as a springboard to discuss Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed My Life by Being Awesome, including the spiritual successor to Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969), which includes the brilliant “Madrak’s Possibly Proper Death Litany, or the “agnostic’s prayer” as it has come to be called.” Read the entire article here.

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Adventures in Fantasy Literature

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Month: February 2017