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Author: C.S.E. Cooney

C.S.E. Cooney's fiction and poetry can be found in Apex, Subterranean, Strange Horizons, Clockwork Phoenix 3, Ideomancer, Goblin Fruit, and Mythic Delirium. She has novellas forthcoming with Papaveria Press, Drollerie Press, and Black Gate Magazine. She keeps a blog at http://csecooney.livejournal.com/.
Epic Black Gate Trailer of AWESOMENESS!

Epic Black Gate Trailer of AWESOMENESS!

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Claire: How do we do this, O’Neill? I’m still new at this website editing.

John: Just type everything I say, Cooney.  First, we wanna hype Magill and Sam.

Claire: Easy!

John: Wow, you type fast. This can’t be too long. We’ve got to get right to it.

Claire: Okay. So, dear Black Gate readers, look at this cool thing my friends Magill Foote and Sam Rahn did. It’s so 21st Century. And it makes Black Gate look so cool. Not that it needed any help. And now we just post it? Beneath the cut?

John: No, no, no. It’s gotta be right here!  Do it now!

Mortals, Meet the Dark and Twisty: A Review of Goblin Fruit, Part III

Mortals, Meet the Dark and Twisty: A Review of Goblin Fruit, Part III

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header2Hallo again, Ye Faithful Paladins of the Black Gate!

So nice to hobnob with you here, with every mother’s child of you looking so ruddy and so spry. Ah. I notice that since last we met you’ve invested in cold iron and a few sprigs of rowanberries. Protective charms. Hedge-witchery. Well done! I mean, it probably won’t protect you from the wrath of the mighty Goblin Hordes in the long run, but nice try anyway! You’re learning.

So, look. In Part I and Part II of this here saga, I introduced y’all to the myth, mischief and magic that is Goblin Fruit Magazine. In my final homage to the Goblin Queens, editrices Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica P. Wick, I feel it worth mentioning their literary endeavors independent of Goblin Fruit, both prose and poetry, which may be found in such places as Strange Horizons (Amal’s “And Their Lips Rang with the Sun, for example, and Jess’s “How Wizards Duel”), Mythic Delirium, and Cabinet des Fées.

That’s just the beginning of their genre-spanning conquest, of course, but this is the 21st Century. Our friend “Google” will take you the rest of the way.

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Mortals, meet Demon Lovers: A review of Goblin Fruit Magazine, Part II

Mortals, meet Demon Lovers: A review of Goblin Fruit Magazine, Part II

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goblin-fruit-autumn2Okay, this is the Age of the Internet, so you’ve probably had this experience.

Say you’ve met a couple of like-minded ladies at a few writing conventions (as described in Part I). Say these conventions were World Fantasy 2007 and WisCon 2008 respectively. Say you’ve set about exchanging a million emails with these ladies, the occasional phone call, friending them on LiveJournal and Facebook, and rediscovering, happily, the merits of snail mail. These ladies just happen to be the two editors of Goblin Fruit Magazine.

Fantastic! You send them your really long rhyme-y poems nobody else wants, and sometimes they even take them, and even when they don’t, they seem to like you anyway. Life is totally Utopian.

You all read fantasy, right? What happens after Utopia?

DOOM!

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Mortals, Meet Goblins: A Review of Goblin Fruit Magazine (Part I)

Mortals, Meet Goblins: A Review of Goblin Fruit Magazine (Part I)

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gobspr08cropIt was a cool November night in 2007. It was, in fact, All Souls Night.

Two friends and I had driven all day from Chicago, Illinois to Saratoga Springs, New York for the World Fantasy Convention. The Open Mic Poetry Reading I wanted to attend started at 10 PM, so there was barely enough time to dump our things in our room and slide into Broadway 1, all bedraggled and a bit unnerved.

The room was crowded, the poets plenteous and eager. I’d planned to recite “Sedna,” which is one doozy of a story-poem, but as the moderator was looking slightly harassed at her list of readers, I assured her I’d go at the end, and only if there was time. The mood I was in, I’d probably have been happy just to tuck tail and run.

Then the poetry began.

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Exploring Fantasy in Metal, Part III: Dangerous Side Effects

Exploring Fantasy in Metal, Part III: Dangerous Side Effects

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Or, How Metal Messed With Mike Allen’s Already Dark and Twisty Mind

Blue Oyster Cult's Cultösaurus Erectus, with lyrics by Michael Moorcock
Blue Oyster Cult's Cultösaurus Erectus, with lyrics by Michael Moorcock

For the last seven months, I have been (with great reluctance and an even greater determination to finish the thing or be consigned to a heretofore undiscovered circle of Dante’s Inferno) exploring some of the fantastical aspects of Heavy Metal.

Part One and Part Two of that adventure can be found here on the Black Gate blog.

I had lots of help. Because I knew next to nothing of this musical genre, I turned to those who did.

I had noticed, you see, some time ago, that some of my smartest guy-friends, all who liked reading the same books I do (and who led me by my snooty nose to such works as Beowulf and George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, which I’d avoided due to their being “boy books”), were all, well, Metalheads.

It got me curious. So I started asking questions. Among those men I interrogated was Mike Allen.

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Exploring Fantasy in Metal, Part II: Six Albums In the Dark of Night

Exploring Fantasy in Metal, Part II: Six Albums In the Dark of Night

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metal-dragonflameOnce upon a time, on a dark winter’s night, a black-clad adventurer came to my apartment to tutor me in the ways of Heavy Metal. Such Metal, that is, as pertained to my favorite genre ever, Fantasy. The long and fraught road leading to this nocturnal excursion can be found here, if you care for a saga’s beginnings.

So there we were. We sat on the floor of my bedroom. I was nervous and babbling; he was amused and patient. Before us like a Tarot spread: six CDs, each with songs or themes based in the fantastical or epic.

The night was long, but not infinite. Neither were my powers of concentration, my will, or my bladder.

In order to preserve my sanity, I asked Metal Master Sam to choose one or two songs from each of the six albums that best typified the whole. I felt a little guilty making him do all the work, but we had to focus.

Focus we did. We listened to two songs on every album but The Odyssey. We only listened to Track 8, “The Odyssey” on “The Odyssey,” because it was perforce very long. One cannot, after all, embark on only part of an Odyssey. It’s unseemly. More on that later.

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It Droppeth as a Heavy Metal Unto The Place Beneath: Exploring Fantasy in Metal

It Droppeth as a Heavy Metal Unto The Place Beneath: Exploring Fantasy in Metal

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Part One: The Adventure Begins

metal1aThere’s this thing I do when I know a given task will be difficult. I announce my intentions. Loudly, casually, on Facebook, in blogs, emails, telephone conversations.

I talk about my task (usually self-appointed and with no particular due-date) blithely, in capital letters, as if the execution thereof were going to be the easiest thing in the world, done up all djinn-like, in the twinkling of an eye.

Then comes an indeterminate period of time wherein I do nuthin’ at all.

So a while ago – I won’t say how long – I mentioned somewhere that I wanted to write a blogicle about Metal and Fantasy.

I said it once. I repeated it often. I went about soliciting interviews on the subject. I coaxed tutorials in remedial Metal out of long-suffering friends. I spent endless midnight hours with a notebook in my lap and a double bass beat booming from my speakers.

“Why,” you ask, “did you do this to yourself?”

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Mischief and Starlight: The Fantastical Music of S.J. Tucker

Mischief and Starlight: The Fantastical Music of S.J. Tucker

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witches-pagans21So I said to myself, “Self, let us write a blog about the presence of High Fantasy in Music.”

To which I replied, in my characteristic thought-bubble: “AWESOME! That should be EASY PEASY! …Right?”

Well, I told me direly, we’ll just have to see.

I knew I should avoid scribbling about how music itself has influenced Fantasy literature since time immemorial. After all, that’s been written before, and by people with Ph.D.’s no less, and even if I felt like giving it a go, I’d have to memorize all those ballads about Tam Lin and talk intelligently about Margaret Atwood and Ellen Kushner, and learn Old English; I just couldn’t stir myself to that level of scholarship.

What I wanted to explore is the music of now. What does music right here, right now, today, this moment, have to do with Fantasy as a genre? Is there some kind of movement? Are there professional musicians who make their livings singing about dragons and elves and ghosts and, I dunno, Time Lords – and if so, where can I find them?

Two things immediately came to mind when the words “Fantasy” and “Music” collided. The first was S.J. Tucker. The second, Heavy Metal.

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LAST OF THE DRAGONS

LAST OF THE DRAGONS

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last-of-the-dragons2I don’t think I’ve gone to see a children’s play since my youngest brother was in a community church production of Grease. I’ve certainly never attended one with an eye out for analysis.

What would be the point? It’s children’s theatre. It’s so easy to dismiss with contempt, unless you’ve got a sparkly-eyed niece accompanying you, all gung-ho to see sword-fighting Princesses and golden Dragon puppets singing and dancing – which I didn’t. I had to guard against any immediately snarky but-I-studied-acting-in-college reactions.

See, I’ve got this new gig reviewing shows. This means free theatre. I love theatre. I love it. And I’m not the kind of girl who can afford this particular jones regularly – only when very special friends are in very special productions. So – free ticket? The word “Dragons” in the title? And, oh, hey – fantasy! I write this stuff! I read this stuff. I’m totally game.

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Last Night I Finished This Crooked Way

Last Night I Finished This Crooked Way

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thiscrookedway
Last night I finished This Crooked Way, by James Enge.

I was on the train, halfway home. There is very little more irritating than finishing a book when you’re just halfway to your destination. Luckily, I had George R.R. Martin’s Fevre Dream in my backpack, the first two chapters of which were quite good, so I didn’t suffer long. And anyway, good as it was, I kept being drawn back to thoughts of This Crooked Way, connecting dots, remembering the heights, the depths, the scaffolding of each story, and how it made me laugh – out loud – so often that I surprised myself.

There are some books that make me read them aloud – mostly their dialogue, but also certain killer phrases or descriptions. It’s my actor’s training, I suppose. Plays are not meant to be read on the page; you have to voice them lest they lose vibrancy and dimension. Some books, my favorite kind of books, leap into my throat and start declaiming themselves. And it doesn’t matter if I’m on a public train, or tromping to work in the snow with my fingers freezing, because I’ve left off my gloves, because it’s hard to turn pages with gloves on – none of that matters, because the words are just that important.

And This Crooked Way is like that.

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