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Month: December 2018

In 500 Words or Less: Short Fiction Roundup #2!

In 500 Words or Less: Short Fiction Roundup #2!

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Rich-Horton-Years-Best-SF-2017-medium The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017 Rich Horton-small

To round out the calendar year, I decided it’s high time I wrote up another Short Fiction Roundup. I will freely admit I read way more novels than short fiction, but here are some of my recent reads that I want to spotlight:

The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 Edition

Yes, I realize we’re at the end of 2018, and yes, this edition means stories from 2016. Best Of anthologies are always hit or miss with me, since critic appeal and mass market appeal don’t always mean the same thing. But I was pleasantly surprised here.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Dress Rehearsal” starts with a theater troupe escaping a dangerous patronage and takes a wild turn involving devilish creatures given a furlough from Hell. In “All That Robot Shit,” my Ottawa buddy Rich Larson provides a post-apocalyptic Castaway setting featuring robots that’s equal parts touching and hilarious (which is consistent with Rich). And Charlotte Ashley’s story of honor and respect between paired nemeses in “A Fine Balance” is coupled with the thrills of master warriors hunting each other in the streets. (Oh, and check out Charlotte’s Archipelago project, too!). There are a bunch of other engaging stories here, and I’ll be checking out Rich Horton’s 2018 edition for sure.

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Birthday Reviews: George Zebrowski’s “Lords of Imagination”

Birthday Reviews: George Zebrowski’s “Lords of Imagination”

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Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts

Cover by Bob Eggleton

George Zebrowski was born in Austria on December 28, 1945. He is married to author Pamela Sargent.

In 1999 Zebrowski’s novel Brute Orbits won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. In 2000 he and Sargent were presented with the Service to SFWA Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He has also been nominated for the Nebula Award for Short Story three times, for “Heathen God,” “The Eichmann Variations,” and for “Wound the Wind.” Zebrowski has collaborated on fiction with Sargent, Charles Pellegrino, Jack Dann, Gerald Hull, and Grant Carrington. He has co-edited anthologies with Thomas N. Scortia, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, Dann, and Gregory Benford.

Zebrowski first published  “Lords of Information” in the Spring 1990 issue of Science Fiction Review, edited by Elton Elliott. He substantially reworked the story and retitled it “Lords of Imagination” for its reprinting in his collection Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts in 2006.

“Lords of Imagination” is not just a rumination on the role of science fiction in the world of the future once aliens discover Earth and make it a protectorate, but is also a look at the role science fiction plays in our own time, partly, according to Zebrowski’s character, as a means of preparing mankind for the eventual discovery of alien species, and, by extension, technological and cultural advancement as well.

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Goth Chick News: The Stranger Things Kids Wrap Gifts for Stranger Things Fans

Goth Chick News: The Stranger Things Kids Wrap Gifts for Stranger Things Fans

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Stranger Things cast

This is every bit as awesome as it sounds.

As you likely are aware, we have to wait all the way until summer before getting to binge the next eight episodes of Netflix’s Stranger Things so we’ve spent quite a lot of time scrounging for clues on what to expect. Executive producer Shawn Levy already confirmed that season 3 would take place a year after season 2 during the summer of 1985. Steve has graduated from high school and is working at an ice cream shop in the Starcourt Mall, which is where we see him in the teaser trailer. Levy also indicated the romantic pairings of Eleven-Mike and Max-Lucas remained steady and also revealed this tidbit, “We ended season two with a clear signal that the Shadow Monster was not eliminated, and maybe he’s even identified his foe. And that darkness, and the battle that it requires, only grows in Season Three.”

David Harbour, who plays Sheriff Hopper, told The Hollywood Reporter that everyone on the cast was “taking a lot of risks.” These may or may not include Hopper’s new dynamic as Eleven’s adoptive father.

We also know that much like how Season 2 riffed on the release of the first Ghostbusters movie, Season 3 is aiming for something closer to traditional horror in its focus on movies from directors like John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing), David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome), and George Romero (Night of the Living Dead). We can only guess what that means for the residents of Hawkins, IN.

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Ring in the New Year with the Latest Issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Ring in the New Year with the Latest Issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact

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Asimov's Science Fiction January February 2019-small Analog Science Fiction and Fact January Febuary 2019-small

I’m enjoying being off work for two weeks over the holidays. This is one of the few times a year I can tackle some really ambitious reading projects.

But it’s also a marvelous time to get caught up on short fiction. It’s been a while since I’ve read an issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction cover-to-cover…. and over a year since I tried Analog at all. I picked up the latest double-sized issues at Barnes and Noble on Saturday, and the website descriptions for both sound enticing, with brand new stories by Robert Reed, Howard V. Hendrix, Edward M. Lerner, Adam-Troy Castro, Thoraiya Dyer, Mary Soon Lee, S. B. Divya, and others (in Analog), and Robert Reed, Lavie Tidhar, Suzanne Palmer, William F. Wu, Alexander Jablokov, Sandra McDonald, and many more (Asimov’s).

I was surprised to find stories from Robert Reed in both issues, and Leah Cypess credited in both summaries  — even though her Analog tale, “Parenting License,” doesn’t actually appear in the issue. C’est la vie. Here’s Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams on what’s actually in the January/February 2019 Asimov’s SF.

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Birthday Reviews: Fred Lerner’s “Rosetta Stone”

Birthday Reviews: Fred Lerner’s “Rosetta Stone”

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Cover by Alan Bean
Cover by Alan Bean

Fred Lerner was born on December 27, 1945.

Most of Lerner’s writing is non-fiction. In fact, “Rosetta Stone” seems to be his only fictional credit. He has published the fanzine Lofgeornost since 1979 and many of his articles have been collected in the A Bookman’s Fantasy. His scholarly work includes The Story of Libraries, A Silverlock Companion, and Modern Science Fiction and the American Literary Community.

“Rosetta Stone” appeared as the first story in the debut issue of Artemis: Science and Fiction for a Space-Faring Age in Spring 2000, edited by Ian Randal Strock. The story has never been reprinted.

One of the stranger books in my collection is a brief treatise written by Terry Belanger in 1985 called Lunacy and the Arrangement of Books, which discusses a variety of ways private collectors have arranged their libraries to allow them to find the books they want, which may seem to make sense to that individual collection but can look random to anyone else.

The main character of Lerner’s “Rosetta Stone” is, like the author, an information scientist who has an interest in books. Dan is called by his old college roommate, Jack Hawkins, who invites him to the lunar base for some consulting on a confidential matter. When Dan arrives, he learns that a base has been discovered on the moon which looks a lot like the ones built by Lunar Labs, but which was not built by anyone known. Furthermore, the base has a library of human books from a variety of countries. Lunar Labs is hoping that Dan might be able to figure out something about the aliens who are believed to have built the base by the way they organize their books.

There are several points raised in the story, but dropped: Who the aliens are, why they chose the books they did, how they got the books up to the moon. Other questions are actually dealt with, although not always successfully. Jack explains why they decided to call on Dan rather than archaeologists or librarians or other people who might have seemed like a better match for the conundrum. In addition to Dan’s ability as an information scientists, he was also chosen because of late night musings he had shared with Jack when they were in college, a weak reason, perhaps, but it manages to fit into the story and Dan does, eventually, begin to provide results.

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Hither Came Conan: The New Weekly Robert E. Howard Series at Black Gate!

Hither Came Conan: The New Weekly Robert E. Howard Series at Black Gate!

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frank-frazetta-conan-the-barbarian1_small


Hither Came Conan. Indeed. The iron-thewed Cimmerian trod the thrones of the earth under his sandaled feet. Usually, while wearing nothing more than a loincloth…

Robert E. Howard completed twenty-one tales of Conan, as well as a few more fragments. Of course, some stories were better than others, but even those generally considered among ‘the worst’ offer evidence of Howard’s expertise as a story teller. “The God in the Bowl” rarely makes anybody’s Favorites List, but I wrote an essay, positing that it was a very early example of a police procedural; before the term even existed.

Which might leave the average reader wondering, “What are the best stories in the Conan Canon?” Black Gate is here to tell you… ALL OF THEM! in a brand new weekly series.

Black Gate was proud to round up some of the best Howard scholars, and biggest fans (hey, there’s no shame in that sobriquet – I’m one!), for our award-nominated Discovering Robert E Howard series.

Reaching far beyond the stories of the sword (and axe, and dirk, and torch, and furniture, and…) swinging northern barbarian, almost two-dozen essays delved into the works and life of the pride of Cross Plains. It was a fantastic series that truly paid tribute to the man I consider to be the best fantasy writer I’ve yet read.

Well, Black Gate sure as heck didn’t win a World Fantasy Award for my posts on Sherlock Holmes and hard boiled pulp! Swords and sorcery, epic fantasy, and imagined worlds are what the visitor comes here for. And until they change the password and I can’t log in anymore, I’m going to do my best to keep the Robert E. Howard content flowing. And this time, it’s all about Conan!

Beginning on Monday morning, January 7th, an absolutely All Star roster of guest contributors and Black Gaters (and me. Hey, it’s my series!) is going to be presenting you a cogent argument on why that week’s story is the best Conan tale written by Robert E. Howard.

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Vintage Treasures: Strange Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson

Vintage Treasures: Strange Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson

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Strange Dreams Stephen R Donaldson-small Strange Dreams Stephen R Donaldson-back-small

Bantam Spectra cover by Gervase Gallardo

Twenty-five years ago oversized trade paperbacks fantasy anthologies were few and far between. Today they’re the default, but in the early 90s, when original anthologies routinely appeared as mass markets paperbacks, you had to be something special to warrant the deluxe trade paper format. (Nowadays, of course, the mass market anthology is long dead, but that’s a subject for a different post.)

Strange Dreams was something special. In the early 90s Stephen Donaldson was one of top-selling fantasy writers on the planet, with the bestelling Mordant’s Need and Chronicles of Thomas Covenant to his credit. In his introduction he relates how the book came about as a result of a conversation with master anthologist Martin H. Greenberg.

We were discussing the basis on which I might be willing — or indeed able — to pull together a collection, and I quickly dismissed the traditional anthological fundaments: Historical Development (where fantasy came from and how it grew); Defense of Genre (why fantasy is written); Technical Display (how fantasy can be written); and Thematic Modulation (what fantasy has to say about X and Y)… once all these bases have been diminished, why bother to do a collection at all?

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Birthday Reviews: Keith Taylor’s “Sepulchres of the Undead”

Birthday Reviews: Keith Taylor’s “Sepulchres of the Undead”

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The Secret History of Vampires
The Secret History of Vampires

Keith Taylor was born on December 26, 1946 in Tasmania.

Taylor has won the Ditmar Award twice. His first win was in 1982 for his short story “Where Silence Rules.” He won a second time in 1987 for his novel Bard III: The Wild Sea. He has been nominated for four additional Ditmar Awards as well as an Aurealis Award.

“Sepulchres of the Undead” appeared in the anthology The Secret History of Vampires, edited by Darrell Schweitzer, in 2007. The story has never been reprinted.

The great pyramids of Egypt have held a fascination for people for millennia. In “Sepulchres of the Undead,” Taylor explains that they are not simply vast monuments to the egos of the early Pharaohs, but actually served an important purpose. After Menkhaf kills a large bat on one of the pyramids, he learns that the pharaohs and their families are actually a separate race from most Egyptians. They are all, to some extent, vampires, and the great tombs are designed to ensure that their corpses are protected from humans and nature, for as long as their corpses remain, the vampires will retain the ability to change shapes and terrorize the population.

Menkhaf is warned that having killed a vampire, and specifically Pharaoh Khufu’s mother, he is a marked man. He joins the Brotherhood of Ra, a group dedicated to destroying the vampires among them. At the same time Prince Hemiunu, the pharaoh’s nephew and a partial vampire, is also out to destroy the vampires. The two vampire killers allow Taylor to play with different tactics, but they also muddy the waters of the story since he never really knits their plans, attacks, or stories, together. In fact, Menkhaf seems to be forgotten by the author as Hemiunu’s plans come to fruition. The resulting story has some interesting ideas regarding both vampires and Egyptian history, but doesn’t quite pull them together.

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Rebellion in an Alternate, Magic-drenched Britain: The Dark Gifts Trilogy by Vic James

Rebellion in an Alternate, Magic-drenched Britain: The Dark Gifts Trilogy by Vic James

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Gilded Cage Vic James-small Tarnished City Vic James-small Bright Ruin Vic James-small

Newcomer Vic James scored some enviable attention with the first two novels in her Dark Gifts trilogy, Gilded Cage (which we covered here), and Tarnished City (covered here), set in a modern England where magically gifted aristocrats rule and commoners are forced to serve. Andrew Liptak at The Verge included the first in his list of the top SF and fantasy novels of February 2017, saying,

Gilded Cage is the start to a new series by debut author Vic James. The world belongs to a class of gifted magical aristocrats, and commoners must serve them for a decade. A woman named Abi is a servant to a powerful family and discovers a secret that can upend the power in society, all while her brother toils away in a factory town, building a revolution.

Kirkus Reviews said Gilded Cage “Conjures up the specters of Les Misérables and Downton Abbey… an intriguing new fantasy series,” and Aliette de Bodard called it “A dark and intriguing vision of an alternate, magic-drenched Britain… kept me up long into the night.”

The third and final volume Bright Ruin, in which the people of Britain rise up against their magically gifted masters, was published in October, and was a Pick of the Month from Library Journal. Bookreporter calls it “A triumphant conclusion to this outstanding fantasy series,” and Publishers Weekly said “Rebellion comes to a deadly boil in the final chapter… [An] intricate tale of ruthless scheming and bloody betrayals.” All three volumes are now available from Del Rey. I bought the first, and I’m well tempted to complete the set.

Merry Christmas from Black Gate

Merry Christmas from Black Gate

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Black Gate Christmas tree

It’s been about as perfect a Christmas as you could wish for here at Black Gate — with the possible exception of the weather. After a ferocious November, and a whole lot of snow shoveling, December came in like a lamb and the snow melted weeks ago. I can’t remember the last time we missed out on a White Christmas in Chicago (and it’s forecast to hit the 50s by Thursday).

Weather aside, this has been a truly marvelous year for Black Gate. I look back at the last twelve months, and I know there’s a lot to be thankful for. But the thing I find myself most grateful for are those faithful readers who return every day, helping improve the site with comments and thoughtful feedback. We cherish all our readers, but it’s our regulars who have come to mean the most. Folks like Thomas Parker, smitty59, Major Wootton, Rich Horton, Eugene R, Glenn, R.K. Robinson, Aonghus Fallon, Joe H, silentdante, Charles_Martel, CMR, GusG, Jeff Stehman, Barsoomia, kelleyg, Allard, SELindberg, and many, many others, make the effort we put in every day worthwhile. Thank you.

It’s been an incredible run the last few years — an Alfie Award, a World Fantasy Award, and many other honors. We’re very well aware that the source of all that recent fame has been you, the fans, who work hard to spread the word and bring new traffic to our humble site.

So thank you once again, from the bottom of our hearts. On behalf of the vast and unruly collective that is Black Gate, I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Continue being excellent — it’s what you’re good at.