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Year: 2021

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Classic, Mythic, and Epic

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Classic, Mythic, and Epic

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Silvana Mangano and Kirk Douglas in Ulysses (1954)

Ryan Harvey has written extensively here about the peplum movie or Italian sword-and-sandal craze of 1959-65, a phenomenon that had an immediate origin in three films: Ulysses, which showed that there was a postwar Italian market for adventure films from the era of myth; Hercules, which proved you could make such a movie popular on both sides of the Atlantic; and Hercules Unchained, which demonstrated there was a formula for repeated success. These were well-crafted movies that aimed much higher than most of their successors and provided solid, and occasionally even thoughtful entertainment. If you’re unfamiliar with them I’m pleased to introduce you, and if they’re old friends you can join me in appreciation.

Ulysses

Rating: ****
Origin: Italy, 1954
Director: Mario Camerini
Source: Lionsgate DVD

Kirk Douglas made his reputation in Hollywood in the late Forties as a leading man in a series of intense, dramatic roles. By 1954 he was ready for a change of pace: action hero! He signed on with Disney for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and with Dino De Laurentiis in Italy for the epic Ulysses, based, of course, on Homer’s The Odyssey. This was a big-budget production, with lavish sets, exteriors shot on Mediterranean islands, and a lovely full-scale Greek galley. Plus, of course, a cyclops.

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Immortality, Truth-Telling and Snow Witches: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 47

Immortality, Truth-Telling and Snow Witches: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 47

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We let Heroic Fantasy Quarterly loose on a chaotic world on January 31st. We’ve got a full compliment of stories and poems, including:

The Medallion’s Song, by Ginny Patrick, with artwork by Karolina Wellartova. Having been gifted a mysterious amulet by her imperious owner, young Serena is on the run, trying to get the funds to hitch a ride on a caravan out of town. But Macaea City has more than its share of dangers, and Serena has more than her own share of secrets.

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Future Treasures: Machinehood by S.B. Divya

Future Treasures: Machinehood by S.B. Divya

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Machinehood (Saga Press, March 2, 2021). Cover by Richard Yoo and Zi Won Wang

S.B. Divya was nominated for a Hugo award for her groundbreaking work with Mur Lafferty on the hugely popular Escape Pod podcast. She’s published over a dozen short stories since 2014 in top-tier markets like Lightspeed, Tor.com, and Uncanny magazine, but her breakout book was Runtime (Tor.com, 2016), which was nominated for a Nebula Award for Best Novella.

Her latest is a near-future thriller with plenty of cyberpunk elements, set in a gritty futurescape run mostly by AIs. Publishers Weekly called Machinehood “stunning” in a rave review; here’s an excerpt.

Bodyguard Welga Ramírez is a disillusioned former Special Forces soldier who makes her living protecting CEOs and celebrities, using mechanical implants and a course of high-tech drugs to enhance her combat skills… Welga especially enjoys the opportunity to perform for the ubiquitous microdrone swarms that film and broadcast her every move. She even adds stylish action moves to her fights to improve her tips from her viewers. But when a job goes wrong, Welga faces a mysterious pro-AI terrorist group called The Machinehood. Determined to learn who they are and what they want, Welga heads into the very heart of The Machinehood’s operation… Divya keeps the pace rapid, and her crack worldbuilding and vivid characters make for a memorable, page-turning adventure, while the thematic inquiries into human and AI labor rights offer plenty to chew on for fans of big idea sci-fi. Readers will be blown away.

Machinehood will be published by Saga Press on March 2, 2021. It is 404 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover, $9.99 in digital formats, and $44.99 on audio CD. The cover was designed by Richard Yoo and feature 3D art by Zi Won Wang.

See all our recent coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy releases here.

Surviving the Sci-Fi Horror of Mothership, Maybe

Surviving the Sci-Fi Horror of Mothership, Maybe

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Mothership, by Tuesday Night Games and written by Sean McCoy, started making the rounds in beta format in 2018, causing quite a big splash amongst the RPG community. Styled as sci-fi horror RPG, its tag is: “Survive. Solve. Save. Pick one.” In other words, watch out.

Mothership falls into the OSR-style of game. OSR, which stands for Old School Revival or Old School Renaissance. OSR RPGs take their cues from the earliest days of the hobby, often with a focus on play style and use of Open Gaming License (OGL). In my mind, the former is the more important. OSR games are often as much about player skill as they are about rolling dice. The classic difference in this is that players often say, “Check for traps” before entering a room. The player then rolls an Awareness skill or like check. If they pass, they confirm the presence of traps or not. This is very mechanical.

OSR style play will ask the player to describe how they are checking for traps, and rather than relying on a detailed set of rules, the GM will “simply” establish the check. This “rulings over rules” is another hallmark of OSR games.

Interestingly, while characters are a big focus in modern RPGs (something I wholeheartedly endorse), OSR games often find ways for the players to engage in the game through the character in more meaningful ways because they eschew the “check x, roll y” mechanical formula.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 24 and 25

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 24 and 25

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So, last year, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Hortsmann. I have already re-posted days one through twenty-one. Here are days twenty-four (April 14) and twenty-five (April 15). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries.

DAY TWENTY FOUR – 2020 Stay at Home

The doorbell rang. I’ve certainly typed that many times in my accounts of Nero Wolfe’s cases. But it was something that wasn’t happening much lately. Other than food deliveries for Fritz, visitors were few and far between. Wolfe didn’t even bother acknowledging it, knowing it wouldn’t be a potential, and certainly uninvited client. I moved out into the hall and heard Fritz in the kitchen, still cleaning up from lunch.

Looking through the one-way glass, I was surprised to see the not-quite-as familiar lately profile of the head of Homicide West, Inspector Cramer. He was calling something out to his driver and turned when he heard me open the door two inches, the chain still on.

“I’m sorry, sir. Wolfe & Goodwin Investigations is temporarily closed. Our esteemed governor does not feel that private detectives provide an essential service in these troubled times. May I suggest you visit your local precinct station? Of course, it is a step down in quality of service, but those dedicated public servants are open 24/7.”

“You’ll clown at your own funeral, Goodwin. The only good thing about this lockdown is I haven’t had to listen to you for three weeks. Open up. I want to talk to Wolfe.”

“Now hold on. We’ve kept this place virus free. Who knows where you’ve been? Let me see if I can let you in.”

“Cut the crap-” I’m sure the next word was ‘Goodwin,’ but it was muffled by the door, which I had closed on him.

I stopped at the doorway to the office. “It’s the man about the chair.” That was my favorite code name for the inspector.

He looked up from his book. “What?”

“Yes sir. It seems that the New York police force cannot function without your assistance. Since we’re not on a case, he can’t be coming here to yell at us, a pastime which he greatly enjoys, as you well know. I’d guess he’s really stuck on something, and wants you to bail him out.”

“That man can still be a nuisance.”

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The Art of Things to Come, Part 2: 1958-1960

The Art of Things to Come, Part 2: 1958-1960

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The Fantastic Universe Omnibus, featured in the
September-October 1960 issue of Things to Come. Art by Virgil Finlay

As I mentioned in Part One of this series, like tens of thousands of science fiction fans before and after me, I was at one time a member of the Science Fiction Book Club (or SFBC for short). I joined just as I entered my teen years, in the fall of 1976.

The bulletin of the SFBC, Things to Come, which announced the featured selections available and alternates, sometimes just reproduced the dust jacket art for the books in question. However, in many cases the art was created solely for the bulletin, and was not used in the book or anywhere else. Nearly all of the art for the first 20 years of Things to Come is exclusive to that bulletin, and as a result hasn’t been seen by many SF fans. In this series, I’ll reproduce some of that art, chosen by virtue of the art, the story that it illustrates or the author of the story. The first installment featured art from 1957 and earlier, while this installment covers 1958-1960, presented chronologically.

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New Treasures: The Best of R. A. Lafferty, edited by Jonathan Strahan

New Treasures: The Best of R. A. Lafferty, edited by Jonathan Strahan

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Two years ago, when The Best of R.A. Lafferty was published by Gollancz SF Masterworks, I wrote an excited New Treasures article that began like this:

Fabulous! Lafferty is one of my favorite short story writers, and far too much of his work — virtually all of it, really — is either long out of print, or available only in very expensive collector’s editions from Centipede Press. The prospect of a generous collection of his best short fiction in a compact and affordable trade paperback edition… seemed too good to be true.

It almost was. The Gollancz edition was very hard to acquire in the US (and it still is). Fortunately Tor Books saw fit to reprint the book as part of their own Tor Essentials line earlier this month, and it’s now widely available in a handsome and affordable trade paperback edition. Here’s the publisher’s description.

Tor Essentials presents science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.

Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, a winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was an American original, a teller of acute, indescribably loopy tall tales whose work has been compared to that of Avram Davidson, Flannery O’Connor, Flann O’Brien, and Gene Wolfe.

The Best of R. A. Lafferty presents 22 of his best flights of offbeat imagination, ranging from classics like “Nine Hundred Grandmothers” and “The Primary Education of the Cameroi” to his Hugo Award-winning “Eurema’s Dam.”

Introduced by Neil Gaiman, the volume also contains story introductions and afterwords by, among many others, Michael Dirda, Samuel R. Delany, John Scalzi, Connie Willis, Jeff VanderMeer, Kelly Robson, Harlan Ellison, Michael Swanwick, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, and Patton Oswalt.

This is a joyous, wonderful, and wholly surprising book that belongs in the collection of every serious science fiction reader. Here the complete Table of Contents.

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L. Frank Baum’s Oz Series #3: Ozma of Oz

L. Frank Baum’s Oz Series #3: Ozma of Oz

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I’ve been doing more reading with my 10-year old niece and book 3 of L. Frank Baum’s Oz series was a real treat. While I’d seen the Wizard of Oz of course, Ozma of Oz was the first book I’d read and luckily it can be read entirely fine with nothing more than the 1939 movie as an introduction. This book was also my introduction to the otherworldly art of John R. Neill.

Ozma of Oz was published in 1907, and as I’ve noted in my previous posts, L. Frank Baum’s series is really the first major American fantasy world. The story begins with Dorothy travelling with Uncle Henry on a steamer to Australia. A storm picks up and Dorothy is washed overboard.

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Vintage Treasures: Nebula Award Stories 17 edited by Joe Haldeman

Vintage Treasures: Nebula Award Stories 17 edited by Joe Haldeman

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Nebula Award Stories 17 (Ace Books, 1985). Cover by Jeffrey Ridge

I’ve covered a few noteworthy anthologies here in the last few weeks, including Isaac Asimov’s surprising Tin Stars, and Donald A. Wollheim’s excellent 1989 Annual World’s Best SF. It’s sharpened my appetite for good anthologies, and when I found Nebula Award Stories 17 in a small collection of vintage paperbacks I bought in eBay last month, I knew I’d found my next weekend read.

The Nebula Awards anthologies have been published continuously for over five decades, ever since Damon Knight launched the series in 1966 to raise money to fund the Nebula Awards for the Science Fiction Writers of America. Volume 17 was the first (and only) one to be edited by Joe Haldeman, who by then had won a Nebula for his groundbreaking novel The Forever War (1975), and would win it again for the novella “The Hemingway Hoax” (1990), the short story “Graves” (1993), and the novels Forever Peace (1998) and Camouflage (2004).

Nebula Award Story 17 appeared in hardcover in 1983, but wasn’t published in paperback by Ace until 1985. It contains stories still remembered warmly today, including William Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic,” made into a Keanu Reeves film in 1995, Poul Anderson’s Hugo and Nebula-award willing novella “The Saturn Game,” Michael Bishop’s Hugo and Nebula nominee “The Quickening,” an excerpt from Gene Wolfe’s classic novel The Claw of the Conciliator, and a lot more. There are two stories from Terry Carr’s Universe 11, two each from Omni and F&SF, and the rest from magazines and anthologies like Asimov’s SF, Analog, and More Wandering Stars. Here’s the complete TOC, and a look at some of the magazines the stories originally appeared in.

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Ghost Lovers with Educated Minds: Ghosts of the Chit-Chat, edited by Robert Lloyd Parry

Ghost Lovers with Educated Minds: Ghosts of the Chit-Chat, edited by Robert Lloyd Parry

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Ghosts of the Chit-Chat (Swan River Press, December 2020).
Cover by John Coulthart

Ghosts of the Chit-Chat
Edited by Robert Lloyd Parry
Swan River Press (255 pages, December 2020)
Cover by John Coulthart

There are books and BOOKS. And this one is of the latter. Not simply an anthology of supernatural  and ghost stories, but also the faithful, fascinating description of a Society (or Club) flourishing at Cambridge University, the Chit-Chat, members of which included famous authors of dark fiction such as Montague Rhodes James, the three Benson brothers and others.

The volume includes profiles of the more distinguished members, their activity at Cambridge and their consequent literary achievements. For each of these writers,  examples of their fictional output are featured. 

MR James’ work is represented here by the two “ghost” stories he read at the Chit-Chat meeting on October 28, 1893 ( “The Scrap-book of Canon Alberic” and “Lost Hearts”) in slightly different versions from those included in his subsequent collections. The stories are too well known to require any specific comment in the present review.

EF Benson’s contribution is “ The Other Bed,” a classic ghostly tale conveying a strong sense of dread, set in a hotel room where a suicide had taken place.

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