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Author: Brandon Crilly

In 500 Words or Less: An Inheritance of Ashes is Absolutely Friggin’ Awesome

In 500 Words or Less: An Inheritance of Ashes is Absolutely Friggin’ Awesome

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an-inheritance-of-ashes-smallAn Inheritance of Ashes
By Leah Bobet
Clarion Books (400 pages, $9.98 in paperback/$9.99 digital, October 11, 2016)

The more I write, the harder it is for a novel to really get me excited.

Holy gods did Leah Bobet pull that off with An Inheritance of Ashes.

Though it won the Sunburst Award in the Young Adult category (and a bunch of other accolades) Inheritance has the darkness and intensity of an adult novel, much like The Hunger Games except much better written. The story opens with conflict, as young Hallie is forced to say goodbye to her uncle Matthias, who is finally being forced from their family’s farm and his ongoing feud with Hallie’s father. Flashforward eight years and Hallie is in a similar feud with her sister Marthe, as they struggle to survive in the post-apocalyptic world outside ruined Detroit. (Sidebar: it took me a while to realize Inheritance takes place in a world that once had advanced technology, and even longer to realize it’s actually our world — that’s how masterfully subtle Leah’s writing is, and how engaging her characters are.)

The feud between Hallie and Marthe perfectly captures the type of conflict you have when two loved ones are so afraid of disappointing or losing the other that they hold everything in, and then let the wound fester not because they hate each other, but because they love each other more than anything. But there is so much more to this novel than just that core relationship. There’s the cloud of a recent war against Twisted Things from another dimension, which claimed Marthe’s husband and crippled so many others. You have Heron, veteran of that conflict and secretly in possession of the weapon used to kill the Wicked God, which the military would kill to possess. How the world collapsed before the war is a mystery all its own. And every prominent side character captures your heart in different ways as they try to keep their community alive — because Inheritance is really a story about community coming together in the wake of devastation, to push back the darkness and survive despite pain, loss and disagreement.

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In 500 Words or Less: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

In 500 Words or Less: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

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oie_40735xngboxezBest Served Cold
By Joe Abercrombie
Gollancz (544 pages, £9.99 in paperback, £6.99 digital, June 2010)

Remember a few weeks ago when I talked about Steven Erikson being in my top five fantasy authors? Joe Abercrombie is in there, too – in fact, he’s probably higher than Erikson. The First Law trilogy blew me away, which makes it painful to say that its immediate sequel, Best Served Cold, left me a little disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong: this fantasy-style homage to Kill Bill is just as fast-paced and exciting as the First Law books. Monza Murcatto is a brilliantly flawed protagonist, and between the return of drunken mercenary Nicomo Cosca and newcomers like poisoner Morveer and numbers-obsessed killer Friendly, there’s plenty of Abercrombie’s dark humor. The twists and turns are intriguing, particularly with master assassin Shenkt.

But I found myself missing the epic scope, since I would’ve been surprised if (Spoiler Alert) Monza didn’t succeed in her revenge quest (End Spoiler). And while seeing familiar faces like High King Jezal dan Luthar and Vitari is great and all, along with references to other characters and elements, it’s almost like cameos by John Stamos and Bob Saget on Fuller House: it just reminds you that the original was better.

My biggest criticism is another returning character: Shivers, who appeared in the First Law trilogy as a young Northman with a grudge against Logen Ninefingers. In the previous books, Shivers was his own character, one of many distinct Northern characters and specifically a reminder for Logen about his past bloody crimes. For some reason, Shivers in this novel is like a paper cut-out of Logen without the heart: he has the same mannerisms, wants to be better but can’t, falls for someone who is clearly going to be a problem, and goes berserk with violence just like the Bloody-Nine.

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In 500 Words or Less: Chasing the Dragon by Nicholas Kaufmann

In 500 Words or Less: Chasing the Dragon by Nicholas Kaufmann

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chasing-the-dragon-nicholas-kaufmann-smallChasing the Dragon
By Nicholas Kaufmann
ChiZine Publications (170 pages, $10.95 in trade paperback, $7.99 digital, March 15, 2010)

Chasing the Dragon is the sort of novel that you would probably never see from a big publishing house. It’s a tiny paperback at only 133 pages, an urban fantasy/mythology/horror blend with an added literary focus on the topic of addiction – the sort of combination that fits right in with the kind of excellent, outside-the-box work that ChiZine Publications produces. It also functions as a tight, focused narrative that could probably work just as well as a short story if some things were cut away. But I would never want that to happen.

The premise is straightforward: Young Georgia Quincey is the latest in a long line of warriors tasked with hunting and killing the Dragon, a task that each generation of her family has failed at. In tiny Buckshot Hill, she has another chance to fulfill her family’s destiny – if she can manage her heroin addiction. Kaufmann takes the idea of the flawed hero to a different level with Georgia, as her desperate hunt for both dragons (“chasing the dragon” is also a term for your first, perfect high) and her guilt and depression over losing her parents push her to the edge again and again. As the people around Georgia fall victim to her family’s curse and their undead bodies forced into serving the Dragon, I couldn’t decide what would be better for her: to succeed in her family’s quest or finally be given a measure of peace by dying at the hands of her enemy.

My one main criticism of Chasing the Dragon is that the novel’s ending is telegraphed pretty early in the novel, and I can’t quite decide whether the subtle reveal (and the fact that Georgia doesn’t realize her ace in the hole until the end) is meant to be noticed by the reader or not. I hope that Kaufmann intended for the reader to catch it; the information needed is, I think, pretty common knowledge. If it isn’t, that might say something about me (and I promise the last few sentences will make sense after you read the novel; I just don’t want to give anything away). At the end of the day, though, the way that Georgia ultimately faces the Dragon isn’t nearly as important as watching her deal with her demons and wondering whether she’ll make it to the end, both physically and mentally. There’s more than enough carnage and death around her, involving a series of really well-developed supporting characters, to make it hard to predict whether she will.

Cliched as it might sound, Chasing the Dragon is unlike any other novel I’ve read, and easily one of my favorite reads of 2016. It is definitely worth checking out if you like fantasy, horror, stories about the darker side of things (cuz heroin addiction is pretty dark) and deep, unique character work.

An Ottawa teacher by day, Brandon has published work in On Spec, Third Flatiron Anthologies, and elsewhere. Learn more at brandoncrilly.wordpress.com or on Twitter: @B_Crilly.

In 500 words or Less … The Wurms of Blearmouth by Steven Erikson

In 500 words or Less … The Wurms of Blearmouth by Steven Erikson

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the-wurms-of-blearmouth-smallWhen someone asks my favorite fantasy series, Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen is usually one that I mention. It’s one of those sprawling epics with great characters and a complex, vibrant world that sucked me in and inspired me to write fantasy of my own.

After the series ended, I grabbed the next Erikson book I could find — The First Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach — and was delighted. I read the next in that series, Crack’d Pot Trail … and put it down after a couple chapters.

Erikson’s most recent work is a series of prequels (which I avoid) and his other recent books haven’t interested me, so when I found another Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novella, The Wurms of Blearmouth, I almost didn’t pick it up.

Overall, though, this latest tale was satisfying. The theme in the Bauchelain and Korbal Broach stories seems to be that everyone is a terrible person, but the residents of Spendrugle take things to a new level of depravity. I balked a little at first with the female characters specifically, who are stupid or vile or both — but then I realized that you can describe every character from Wurms that way, and so I got over it (mostly). In this case, Erikson is very “equal opportunity” when it comes to negative characteristics, so don’t be turned off by what’s depicted in the opening chapters (you probably will be anyway).

The real point to these stories, after all, is to follow famed necromancers Bauchelain and Korbal Broach and their manservant, Emancipor, from screwed-up situation to screwed-up situation; they’re the real draw for me, and Erikson consistently entertains me with the way that they go about doing evil work without seeming to care about the consequences.

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The Art of the Con: Can*Con 2016

The Art of the Con: Can*Con 2016

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Can*Con promo image designed by Jay Odjick
Can*Con promo image designed by Jay Odjick

Earlier this year I was invited to join the programming team for Can*Con, the annual conference on speculative arts and literature held in Ottawa, Ontario. Since about January, I’ve been working with co-chair Derek Kunsken (who also blogs for Black Gate) and fellow author Evan May to develop the panels, presentations, workshops, etc, for this year’s conference, which will be held from September 9th to 11th at the Novotel Hotel. The next few paragraphs will be a glance behind the curtain at the work that goes into putting a con together.

I like to joke that behind that curtain are a few bedraggled wizards desperately seeking additional caffeine and occasionally pulling out the little hair left on their heads … but in all seriousness planning Can*Con has been a delight. My role really came into play after the Guests of Honor (GoHs) had already been confirmed by Derek. Those GoHs are critical because your programming tracks are based around them in many ways. For example, having Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s, attending this year allows us to create panels looking specifically at her magazine, analyzing what it means to be a woman in the publishing industry, and so on. If you want to have an entire track related to comics or costuming, you need a solid GoH to establish your framework. But that’s just a piece: the programming you can develop is also largely dependent on your Special Guests and panelists, and the sooner their attendance can be confirmed, the sooner you can start drafting ideas. That was pretty much where Evan and I came in earlier this year.

We started by asking potential panelists for panel ideas they would like to see or contribute to, as well as presentations, workshops, etc, they would be willing to offer. The more you can tap into people’s expertise and interest, the stronger your programming will be; you can’t have a really excellent panel focusing on queer narratives in science fiction, or the fundamentals of witchcraft, or whether The Exorcist still works in the 21st century unless you have panelists with a deep understanding of those topics. A lot of the work at this stage is emailing back and forth with panelists, to both solicit ideas and then sometimes refine them, if the idea is too similar to something that ran the year before or something that we don’t think would quite appeal to our attendees. The little brainstorming sessions with panelists hopefully yield programming that is compelling and which everyone is happy with.

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I Want to Believe: A Review of A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson & Jeff Rovin

I Want to Believe: A Review of A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson & Jeff Rovin

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A Vision of Fire-small A Vision of Fire-back-small

We have this long history of actors trying to make a name for themselves through other creative endeavors, and it seems to be getting popular. Actors jumping into the music industry, like Kiefer Sutherland, David Duchovney and Malin Akerman. Actors exploring the world of visual art (Anthony Hopkins is an avid painter, I learned recently). And there are a lot of actors who try their hand at writing. And I don’t mean cookbooks (no disrespect to Gwyneth Paltrow) but writing fiction, which takes a little more talent and skill.

As my inaugural post here at Black Gate I want to talk about Gillian Anderson, specifically her debut novel A Vision of Fire, which she co-wrote with NYT-bestselling author Jeff Rovin. As the blurbs on the back of the book jacket say (click the image above right to sample them), the idea of Agent Dana Scully writing speculative fiction is enough to get our attention, even if expectations aren’t particularly high. But luckily for us, it turns out Anderson knows what she’s doing.

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