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Author: Joe Bonadonna

I write mostly sword and sorcery stories with a film noir sensibility, set in a world I call Tanyime. I've published a few stories in the past, and have written 3 novels and 5 screenplays--none of which were published or produced. I am a former board member of the Chicago Screenwriters Network, where I lectured on writing screenplays. I played rock guitar and wrote songs during a 20-year span. I recently published my first collection of sword and sorcery tales, MAD SHADOWS: THE WEIRD TALES OF DORGO THE DOWSER, through iUniverse. Dorgo is the "Sam Spade/Dashiell Hammett" of my alternate world of Tanyime, and he solves crimes using a dowsing rod that can detect the ectoplasmic residue of any supernatural presence or demonic entity, and sense the vestiges of vile sorcery used in the commission of crimes. It's available online from iuniverse.com, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and other online retailers. It's also available as an eBook for Nook and Kindle. I recently sold a new Dorgo the Dowser tale to Weird Tales magazine: "The Order of the Serpent." It should be published sometime in 2012. You can find me on Facebook, under Joe Bonadonna Author.
William Patrick Maynard’s The Terror of Fu Manchu

William Patrick Maynard’s The Terror of Fu Manchu

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the-terror-of-fu-manchu2The Terror of Fu Manchu
William Patrick Maynard
Black Coat Press (248 pp, $20.95 in paperback, $6.99 eBook, April 2009)
Reviewed by Joe Bonadonna

Usually I don’t read stories and novels based on a character created by one author and then later written by another—not if I have already read the original author’s work. Back in the day, I read all the pastiches: Conan, Red Sonja, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac, Kull, Black Vulmea… and have enjoyed many of them. I’m even friends with a few of the writers (and a collaborator with one) who were lucky enough to have been chosen to carry on with Robert E. Howard’s characters. But nowadays there are just too many new characters, too many new stories and novels to read, and time and money seem to be in limited supply the older I get.

All that being said, let me tell you a little bit about William Patrick Maynard’s wonderful novel based on Sax Rohmer’s immortal character, The Terror of Fu Manchu, which was published in 2009 in a beautiful edition by Black Coat Press. I had already heard many great things about Maynard’s novel and was familiar with his writing from the stories he published through Airship27 Productions.

So I decided to read this novel and man, I’m glad that I did. It opened up a whole new world for me, and as a fellow writer, it taught me a few things, too.

Now, I have never read any of Rohmer’s original novels, though of course I’m very familiar with Fu Manchu by way of the Boris Karloff, Warner Oland, and Christopher Lee films. So I did a little digging around and sampled enough chapters of several of Sax Rohmer’s novels in order to familiarize myself with his writing, and to see how well Maynard’s style captures the essence of his work.

Doing that also added to my enjoyment as I immersed myself in Maynard’s version of the Chinese mastermind and one of literature’s greatest villains. However, this being the 21st century and not the early part of the 20th, I thought some of Rohmer’s writing to be a bit old-fashioned and a little slower-paced than we are accustomed to in this fast-moving age of cell phones, CGI, and all things high-tech. But Maynard breathes new life and a touch of modern sensibility in his novel, while remaining faithful to Rohmer’s original vision.

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How I Met Your Cimmerian (and other Barbarian Swordsmen)

How I Met Your Cimmerian (and other Barbarian Swordsmen)

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the-tritonian-ring2It was the summer of 1969. Very much like the one described in the song by Bryan Adams.

I quit the rock and roll band I’d been playing with since high school, went to work with my Dad, and had just finished reading The Lord of the Rings; a year earlier, while still in high school, I’d read The Hobbit. Now, after completing my magical journey through Middle-earth, I was totally hooked. I had found a liking — no, a craving for Heroic and Epic Fantasy.

Not long after that I discovered the Ballantine Books Adult Fantasy Series, wonderfully edited and championed by Lin Carter. Novels by Mervyn Peake, Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison, David Lindsay, William Morris, James Branch Cabell, Poul Anderson, and others fanned the flames of my passion.

To say I was addicted would be a gross understatement. No, I had found novels that had changed my life and would continue to do so for the next 40-plus years!

Then one day, while browsing through a used book store on State Street and Congress in downtown Chicago, I came across three more novels that would further alter my life. The Tritonian Ring by L. Sprague de Camp, The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber, and an anthology of short-stories by Lin Carter, Beyond the Gates of Dream.

What was this new and exciting genre of fantasy fiction I had discovered? Sword and sorcery, of course! I was not only caught like an unwary Hyrkanian soldier, I was taken captive — axe, mace, and broadsword.

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Celluloid Heroes

Celluloid Heroes

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the-vikings1The year was 1958. I was six years-old. Life was a waking dream filled with magic, mystery, and wonder. It was a year that would have a lasting effect on me.

It was the year I first encountered the cinematic “ancestors” of the warriors and heroes I would go on to discover ten or so years later in the paperback pages of Lancer, Ballantine, Avon, Signet, Paperback Library, Pyramid, and other publishers who had taken up the banner of sword and sorcery, and heroic fantasy.

Of course, I had already become a fan of Disney’s Zorro, had seen the Errol Flynn swashbucklers on television, and had desperately wanted to become a pirate when I grew up. I would also see Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas, The Mongols, starring Jack Palance, Hannibal, starring Victor Mature, and other films like Genghis Khan, The 300 Spartans, and Ben Hur a few years later. On television I would later see the silent Thief of Baghdad and Siegfried, and other adventure films of the 1930s and 40s.

But the movie theater in 1958 would have the most profound impact on my life.

The film that started it all was The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, and the wonderful Ernest Borgnine, whom I recently had the pleasure of meeting.

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Special Fiction Feature: “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum” by Joe Bonadonna

Special Fiction Feature: “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum” by Joe Bonadonna

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mad_shadowsBack on August 9, 2011, I wrote an article entitled “Dorgo the Dowser and Me,” which John O’Neill graciously posted on the Black Gate website here.

It was all about my first published novel of swords and sorcery, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, the influences that inspired the book, plus some teaser “trailers” about each story. Mad Shadows is really a picaresque novel — a collection of six stories linked together by a main character, and a cast of recurring characters. While the first three stories are somewhat humorous in tone, they contain all the ingredients of sword and sorcery fiction: magic, mayhem, monsters, and murder. The final three stories are darker, grimmer, and deal with loss and tragedy.

Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser can be purchased online at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, or directly from the publisher, at iuniverse.com. It’s available in hardcover, trade paperback, and as an eBook for both Nook and Kindle.

The story I’ve chosen for the Black Gate website is “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum.” This is the third story in the book, and the only one not told in first person. While it contains its share of humorous scenes and amusing characters, the theme is one of loss. And of course, the shadow of death is constantly lurking in the shadows…

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Dorgo the Dowser and Me

Dorgo the Dowser and Me

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mad_shadowsWhen John O’Neill invited me to write article about my collection of sword and sorcery stories, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, for the Black Gate blog, I was naturally thrilled and honored. I was also somewhat uncertain.

Where do I begin? What should I say?

So I asked myself… why not first tell readers something about your book — the world of Tanyime, the kingdom of Rojahndria, the city of Valdar, and its main character — and then talk a little bit about how it all came to be? Well, here goes.

Mad Shadows is a picaresque novel — six interconnected sword and sorcery tales featuring Dorgo the Dowser, a sort of private eye set in the 14thcentury of my alternate world. It is pulp-fiction, old-school sword and sorcery with a film noir twist. That’s one of the reasons for the subtitle, The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, and the retro look of the cover.

One reason of the reasons Dorgo is known as the Dowser is because he’s a sort of private investigator, searching for clues and answers like someone searching for water with a dowsing rod. The other reason for his epithet is that he actually uses a special kind of dowsing rod in his line of work. There are all kinds of dowsing tools, and each has its own special use or “power.” I even think that dowsing rods may be the inspiration for what we call “magic wands.”

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