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Year: 2021

Twilight: 2000 — Roleplaying in a Post-Nuclear Holocaust World

Twilight: 2000 — Roleplaying in a Post-Nuclear Holocaust World

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Nostalgia: noun — a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.

Dictionary.com

I have heard about a phenomenon in film making that when the decision makers and creators get into places of power (usually in their 40s and 50s), the public often sees an uptick in nostalgic films about the creator’s formative years. A cycle that repeats itself not unlike the cycle for fashions coming back in style (though, mercifully, some fashions remain purely historical). TV and film reboots are often the result of this nostalgia as well.

RPGs have reached the age where nostalgia is becoming more apparent — at least it is to this long-time RPGer. While Dungeons & Dragons, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and a few other games have had an ongoing existence through multiple editions from the late 70s and early 80s, many games have come and gone.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 20 and 21

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: 2020 Stay at Home – Days 20 and 21

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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 reposted days one through fifteen. Here are days twenty (April 10) and twenty-one (April 11). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries. I enjoy channeling Archie more than any other writing which I do.

DAY TWENTY – 2020 Stay at Home

I tried calling Inspector Cramer after breakfast, but he was out. Apparently my fellow New Yorkers are still committing homicide. I’ll call the station later in the day. I’d like to visit a crime scene and try to do some detecting.

I had more success calling the hospital to check on Bill Gore. I found out that he had gotten through the worst of it and recovered enough to be sent home. I wasn’t going to call him up, but it was good to know he had survived the virus.

It’s Good Friday. I am not religiously inclined, but I will say that I’m glad that those who are, received some hope today. That commodity seems to be in pretty short supply these days. New York City has had more deaths than all but four entire countries. Instead of 32,000 fans watching the Mets at Citi Field, they’re digging mass graves out on Hart Island. If somebody wants to believe that a man dying on a cross is good for mankind, then that’s one death I’ll tip my hat to. Just don’t expect me to kneel.

I’m generally a pretty orderly guy, and I keep my stuff neat and tidy. I don’t like messy. This lock down has given me the opportunity to really organize my things. I was moving a couple boxes around and started looking through some of my old notebooks. I saw my notes on the Adam Nicoll murder. I might type that one up if we’re stuck at home for another couple months. That’s one I worked on while I was self-employed during Wolfe’s ‘great hiatus.’ He had simply vanished as he put operation ‘Get Zeck’ into effect, without even telling me. I opened up shop for myself and kept reasonably busy until Wolfe suddenly reappeared. Lily was the source of the Nicoll case. Indirectly.

I have a Facebook account. I don’t use it much, and I could, and often do, live without it. But I do post occasionally – Often related to baseball. Today, someone left a comment on my post, letting me know they were going to snooze me for 30 days. Now, you don’t have to like what I say. It’s a free country. Well, lately it hasn’t been as free as usual, but still: Why in the world would you tell me, on my own post, that you’re snoozing me? Whether you see my posts or not isn’t going to change my day. Just do it. It reminds me of the Pharisees preaching in the Temple square, so everyone would see them. Hey – I didn’t say I haven’t read the Bible. You don’t grow up in rural Ohio and not get some religion lessons.

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Would You Spend $44 on a Collection of 30 Vintage DAW Paperbacks?

Would You Spend $44 on a Collection of 30 Vintage DAW Paperbacks?

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Would you spend $44 on these 30 vintage DAW paperbacks?

I buy a lot of paperbacks on eBay.  I mean, a lot. But believe it or not, I don’t spend a lot of money. I’ve gotten in the habit of buying small collections; because shipping costs work out better and I spend much less per item. I haven’t done the math recently, but I budget anywhere from $0.25 to $0.50 per book when I go hunting, and usually stick to it.

Of course, there are plenty of expensive paperbacks on eBay. Crazy-priced paperbacks, if you want to go looking for them. But eBay is also a clearing house for hundreds of individuals dumping collections en masse, often with very little description, and if you’re willing to dig a bit and take a chance, you can find bargains every day of the week. (And every hour of the day). In fact, eBay has become my go-to site for bargain-basement vintage paperback collections. Someday collectors will stop dying off, and their put-upon spouses will stop dumping their collections on auction sites at rock-bottom prices as they clean out the attic, but today is not that day.

I can’t remember the last time I spent more than $25 for a lot of paperbacks. But last month I scrambled all over myself to hit the buy button on the lot above: 30 vintage DAW paperbacks priced at $44.

Sure, I love DAW. And I’m happy to welcome all these books into my collection, But if you look carefully, you’ll see exactly why I wrecked my monthly collecting budget to acquire these books — and would’ve been happy to spend a lot more. I didn’t buy this lot because it’s a fine assortment of books (though it is). I spent the money because of one author, and one author only. Do you know which one?

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Future Treasures: Out Past the Stars, Book Three of The Farian War by K. B. Wagers

Future Treasures: Out Past the Stars, Book Three of The Farian War by K. B. Wagers

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The Farian War trilogy K. B. Wagers (Orbit Books). Covers by Stephan Martiniere

You know what I appreciate? When a trilogy wraps up with three books, and the author doesn’t decide to extend it indefinitely. That’s what happens next month with Out Past the Stars, the final novel in K.B. Wagers’ popular The Farian War series. At least according to John the Librarian’s Booklist review, anyway.

Hail, Star of Indrana, seeks to broker peace between the Farian and the Shen, a task made unimaginably more difficult when she meets the Farian gods and discovers they’re not what everyone has long believed. Now, an ancient, dangerous enemy is hunting them down. To preserve peace and save her empire, Hail must discover the truth behind centuries’ worth of lies and avert an all-out war. But the cost might be more than she can bear, just when she was hoping to finally put violence behind her… The story is a compelling mix of action and politics, but Wagers’ strength is crafting character-driven science fiction, and it’s on full display. Everyone, including the villains, are complex and compelling. Relationships, both old and new, are rich. Wagers offers a well-earned, heartfelt, and hopeful conclusion to the Farian War series.

The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog called the opening novel “A perfect blend of political intrigue and realistically-conveyed action…. [with] Kick-butt women, space battles, complex relationships, and fiendish plots.” Here’s the details for all three.

There Before the Chaos (465 pages, $15.99 trade paperback/$9.99 digital, October 9, 2018)
Down Among the Dead (448 pages, $16.99 trade paperback/$9.99 digital, December 3, 2019)
Out Past the Stars (400 pages, $16.99 trade paperback/$9.99 digital, February 23 2021)

The series was published by Orbit, with covers by Stephan Martiniere. We looked at the first two here. See all our recent coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy here.

A Modest Little Magazine: Whispers edited by Stuart David Schiff

A Modest Little Magazine: Whispers edited by Stuart David Schiff

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Assorted issues of Whispers, 1973-87. Issues #1, 2, 4, 9, 13-14, 15-17, 17-18, 19-20, and the final issue, 23-24.
Covers by Tim Kirk (1,3), Stephen Fabian (2,9,13-24,23-24), John Stewart (13-15,16-17), and Kevin Eugene Johnson (19-20)

When I started Black Gate magazine, I drew inspiration from small press magazines of the 70s, 80s and 90s that I deeply admired. It was a a fairly short list, but it included W. Paul Ganley’s Weirdbook, the Terminus Weird Tales edited by George H. Scithers, John Gregory Betancourt and Darrell Schweitzer, and Stuart David Schiff’s Whispers.

Whispers was near-legendary by the late 90s, when I was getting serious about starting my own magazine. The last issue had been published in 1987, but in its 15-year run it published original fiction and poems by Stephen King, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Karl Edward Wagner, Roger Zelazny, Michael Shea, Manly Wade Wellman, Ramsey Campbell, William F. Nolan, David Drake, Ellen Kushner, Steve Rasnic Tem, Carl Jacobi, Hugh B. Cave, Phyllis Eisenstein, Joseph Payne Brennan, Dennis Etchison, Robert Aickman, Glen Cook, Charles L. Grant, Gerald W. Page, Lisa Tuttle, Richard A. Lupoff, Janet Morris, and many, many others.

It also published original artwork by many of the greatest horror and fantasy artists of the 20th Century, including Michael Whelan, Stephen Fabian, Lee Brown Coye, Allen Koszowski, Vincent Di Fate, Charles Vess, Hannes Bok, and numerous others.

One of the many inspirational things about Whispers — apart from its phenomenal success — was that it was virtually a one-man operation. Stuart Schiff grew his tiny magazine from humble beginnings as essentially a slender black-and-white fanzine in 1973 into one of the most influential horror mags of the century, with a spinoff line of paperback anthologies, limited edition hardcovers, magazines supplements, and of course a Best of collection.

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Notes and Quotes: Arthur C. Clarke’s The Deep Range (1957)

Notes and Quotes: Arthur C. Clarke’s The Deep Range (1957)

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The Deep Range (Signet, 1974). Cover art uncredited

Here’s a relatively quick take on a 1950s novel I reread this past week — not as long or as polished as my other Black Gate reviews have been. (I’ll be resuming those in February.)

The Deep Range was the 8th of 11 novels of Clarke’s early period, which I’ll define as everything before 2001 in 1968. (The 11 counts both Against the Fall of Night and the revised version The City and the Stars, and includes his non-SF novel Glide Path.)

This is Clarke’s major novel of the ocean, set in a future that herds whales and farms plankton for consumption by humans. I think the theme of harvesting whales for their meat would make the novel awkward to reprint today, but I see there have been editions from Warner Aspect in 2001 and from Gollancz as recently as 2011. There are countries that still harvest whales, of course, but they do so to the condemnation of many other nations.

Clarke was of course an avid diver and had moved to Sri Lanka in 1956 (according to Science Fiction Encyclopedia), a year before this novel was published. So the descriptions here of diving, of exploring the coral reefs, are likely drawn from first-hand experience.

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Goth Chick News: The Stoker Awards Are Back, And I Need One

Goth Chick News: The Stoker Awards Are Back, And I Need One

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Gather round friends – as we’re all still stuck at home, we can at least take consolation in the idea that writers all over the world continue to have plenty of time to create stories with which to entertain us. And as always, the end of January gifts us with the most awesome reading/watching list of the year: the annual preliminary ballot list for the coolest award ever.

The Bram Stoker Awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot from the active members of the Horror Writers Association (HWA). Several members of the HWA, including Dean Koontz, were originally reluctant to endorse such writing awards, fearing it would incite competitiveness rather than friendly admiration. The HWA therefore went to great lengths to avoid mean-spirited competition by specifically seeking out new or overlooked writers and works, and officially issuing awards not based on “best of the year” criteria but for “superior achievement,” which allows for ties.

Which is lovely and all, but I believe I would not be above doing something mean-spirited — if not downright evil — to get my hands on the award itself; a haunted house whose front door opens to reveal the category and winner.

This week the HWA announced the preliminary ballot for the 2020 Bram Stoker Awards. And whatever you do, do not call these folks nominees (yet). Only works that appear on the Stoker Award’s “Final Ballot,” to be formally announced on February 23, may be called nominees.

Therefore, the preliminary ballot achievers are…

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Nerd Daily on 48 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Releases To Look Out For In 2021

Nerd Daily on 48 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Releases To Look Out For In 2021

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2020 was pretty hard on publishing. But 2021 seems to be a year of recovering — and fast recovery at that. Over at Nerd Daily Elise Dumpleton has compiled 48 Fantasy & Sci-Fi Book Releases To Look Out For In 2021, and it’s a pretty spectacular list. Here’s a few of the highlights.

Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley (Solaris, 336 pages, $24.99 hardcover/$8.99 digital, March 16, 2021)

Drink down the brew and dream of a better Earth.

Skyward Inn, within the high walls of the Western Protectorate, is a place of safety, where people come together to tell stories of the time before the war with Qita.

But safety from what? Qita surrendered without complaint when Earth invaded; Innkeepers Jem and Isley, veterans from either side, have regrets but few scars.

Their peace is disturbed when a visitor known to Isley comes to the Inn asking for help, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future.

Did humanity really win the war?

Aliya Whiteley is the author of The Arrival of Missives (2018) and The Beauty, a dystopian horror filled with cosmic weirdness, strange fungi, and terrifying tales told around post-apocalyptic campfires, which we covered back in 2018.

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Dark Orbits

Dark Orbits

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Space vampires!

Barbarian babes!

Psychedelic murder!

Dark Orbits is an animated science fiction series brimming with so many ideas that a rift had to be opened to another universe just to make room for them all. The only thing more amazing than the fact that this whole series is apparently produced by one person is the number of Youtube views it’s garnered. And by that I mean … way too few. Seriously, the first episode, Arrival, hasn’t even broken the 1,000 mark. The number of subscribers hasn’t even broken the 500 mark.

And this is absolutely the sort of show I’ve wanted to see for years. There are shades of Aeon Flux, Ralph Bakshi, and 1981’s Heavy Metal in every episode. What’s it about? Like Aeon Flux, the series is largely dialogue-free, leaving the viewer to work out exactly what’s going on. But basically, a rift in spacetime has been opened near an alien planet. Ships drawing too close to the rift encounter … strangeness. Meanwhile, inhabitants on the planet’s surface have to deal with all of these bizarre visitors.

Like Heavy Metal, there are several different stories and each episode focuses on either the spaceship crew sent to investigate the rift, the primitive pseudo-Amazon tribes on the planet’s surface, or what appear to be several different alien vampire cults vying for hosts. After ten episodes, there are hints of how the stories are connected, making it a series that rewards repeat viewing.

As for the animation, I have trouble believing that this series was done by one person, since the quality is consistently high. The animation style lends itself to action-focused storylines with bizarre alien creatures. Nothing is meant to look realistic and the plot, music, and animation come together to give the whole thing a dreamy, trippy vibe.

If you just want a taste, check out the promo trailer. The whole series (ten episodes at the time of this article) can be viewed back to back in less than an hour’s time. While it’s free on Youtube, you can also support the creator through Patreon. Check it out and let me know what you think.