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The Double-A Western Detective Agency joins Holmes on the Range (Sorta…)

The Double-A Western Detective Agency joins Holmes on the Range (Sorta…)

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Last year, I did a three-part series on Steve Hockensmith’s terrific Holmes on the Range series. This essay, a comprehensive chronology, and a Q&A which Steve kindly did with me, represent the deepest dive anyone has done on these fun books. Since then, two novels (and a short story) in a spin-off series about the Double-A Western Detective Agency, came out. As well as one Old Red short story. I’m (yet again) listening to the Holmes on the Range audiobooks –  mixing in the short stories in chronological order this time – and loving the series all over again. I’m also reading the second Double-A novel (No Hallowed Ground).

I’ve added some info on the new series at the end of this post. And I’ve updated the Chronology. If I still haven’t convinced you to try that first novel, Holmes on the Range (or the short story collection, Dear Mr. Holmes), give me the benefit of the doubt. Steve’s a really good writer, and these are fun Western mysteries, with a Holmes underlay. Don’t be a saphead. 🙂

There are a lot of ways to go about writing a Sherlock Holmes story. Some folks attempt to very carefully emulate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own style, and to turn out a tale that feels as if it might have been penned (or typed these days) by the creator of the great detective himself. No surprise that results vary. GREATLY. Hugh Ashton and Denis O. Smith are the best I’ve found in this regard.

You can find stories ranging from pretty good to not suitable for (digital) toilet paper. I’ve had a half dozen of my own stories published and I’m still working on better voicing the good doctor.

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What I’ve Been Watching: October 2025

What I’ve Been Watching: October 2025

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Well, August was the last time I shared What I’ve Been Watching, and I know you’re always wondering what is getting my attention.

This week we’ve got three British crime shows, one American comedy cop show, and…an action movie.

RETURN TO PARADISE

I have written more than once about Death in Paradise This British cop show, set in a Caribbean island, is one of my favorites, through 117 episodes over 14 seasons. Click here to read about it.

There have been multiple cast changes, with several Detective Inspectors from Britain assigned. One, Humphrey Goodman (played by Kris Marshall), has his own spin-off, Beyond Paradise. Season three just began dropping on Britbox this week, and has been renewed for a fourth.

There’s another spin-off, set in Australia. It’s a bit different. There’s mild tie to Death in Paradise, but it’s not a sequel, like Beyond Paradise is. More on that below.

Anna Samson is DI Mackenzie Clark. She had been a police officer in her Australian hometown, when she dumped her fiance and went off to work in London. She’s under investigation there and returns home. She ends up working there again, where her ex-fiance is the ME, and his mother is her boss – before and again. So, you get the set-up.

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The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 4-8

The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery – Episodes 4-8

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August 3rd, we highlighted the first three stories of The Chain Story 2 – Sword and Sorcery. All these stand-alone stories are “chained” together with a common element (a common magical artifact represented in the logo), with different contributors showcasing their own characters/worlds. They can be read in any order, for free (at least for several months, many times indefinitely)!

Stories will be released every few weeks, so check the Chain Story website continuously!  This post highlights the next five!

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Writing Advice: Creating Character (Red Sneaker Writers)

Writing Advice: Creating Character (Red Sneaker Writers)

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It’s been a year, so let’s look at another volume of William Bernhardt’s awesome Red Sneaker Writers books. These things are absolute treasures.

I started reading William Bernhardt’s Ben Kincaid books back in the mid-nineties. I seem to recall I went on a ‘lawyer’ kick and read him, Steve Martini, and Robert K. Tannenbaum, all around the same time. But years later, Bernhardt made a bigger impact on me with his Red Sneaker Writers series. These slim volumes with the brightly attractive colors are jam-packed with great writing advice. The first book I read was on story structure, and I think it’s still my favorite. Though every one has been both interesting to read and thought-provoking. If I ever get my act together, I’ll add “taught me a lot.”

I’ve read through a couple of them more than once, making notes on paper (I CANNOT highlight a physical book. I’m incapable of it). Last year, I decided to be a little more systematic and I went through EVERY title, be it Theme, Plot, Character – all of them: and I outlined the key points in each chapter. I printed them all out and have a very cool binder. Which, if I ever actually sit down and write a novel, will be of great use.

I sent one of the outlines to him, telling him that I’d like to include it in a Black Gate post, promoting the series. He kindly granted his permission. Today, it’s the third outline in this series.

I’m fortunate that many actual, real, Writers (note the capital ‘W’) with books you can buy on Amazon, or at bookstores (if you can find one that is still in business), are friends of mine. And they are FAR more qualified than I am to talk abut writing advice. I think I hold my own as a Black Gate blogger, and there are worse Sherlock Holmes short stories out there than mine (And certainly better ones!). But my unfinished novel is just a bunch of words strung together, until I finish it.

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We Are Not Commodities (Modern Marketing Scares Me)

We Are Not Commodities (Modern Marketing Scares Me)

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An old woman standing in an empty dorm points a shotgun at the viewer. On the wall behind her is scrawled the words “We are not things”
A still from Mad Max: Fury Road

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

You’ll have to excuse me as I’m currently on holidays, and the absence of the routine of heading into the office daily has thrown off my brain a little. Today, I wanted to muse about something quite personal to me. I had, for  quite a while, taken myself off most social media — I was still on Facebook a very little, and continued to watch YouTube videos — but the rest of them were used only to post a link to my blog post (such as BlueSky), or not at all (TikTok, looking at you). But I have since returned, albeit slowly and distantly.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray asks, ‘Do Lost Raymond Chandler Stories Exist?’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray asks, ‘Do Lost Raymond Chandler Stories Exist?’

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.
– Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep
(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Will Murray makes a return to A (Black) Gat in the Hand. Last month, Strand Magazine (who I wrote DVD reviews for in a prior century) published a lost Raymond Chandler story. Which got Will to thinking…

The recent discovery of a previously unknown and unpublished short story by Raymond Chandler reminded me of a question that’s lingered in my mind for a very long time.

How did Chandler in the early years the Depression support himself and his wife writing for Black Mask and other titles when he only sold a two or three stories a year?

Black Mask was then paying only a penny or a penny and a half a word for fiction to any but their top writers. Chandler was writing stories that were roughly 12 to 18,000 words long. He received $180.00 for his first sale, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot.“ Even considering what a penny could buy in 1933, when a loaf of sliced bread cost 3 cents, Chandler wouldn’t have been able to survive solely writing for Black Mask.

It wasn’t until 1935 that he broke into Munsey’s Detective Fiction Weekly, which probably paid him two cents a word, and possibly more. A considerable raise, but still far short of what was required for subsistence living. And he only sold one story to DFW, “Noon Street Nemesis.“

Since Chandler had been a well-paid oil company executive until he lost his job in 1932, conceivably his savings carried him for some period. But according to Chandler biographer Tom Hiney, by the time he started working on “Blackmailers,“ Chandler’s savings had been all but exhausted. The story took him five months to write. Add another month or so until he received the acceptance check. So that’s $30.00 a month for six months toil, paid at the end of the six-month period. At his old executive position, Chandler’s salary had approached $10,000 a year.

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By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Arthurian Elements In the Conan Canon – Part II

By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Arthurian Elements In the Conan Canon – Part II

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It’s installment three of Cimmerian September, and I’m going back to Spring of 2018 for today’s post. But it’s not a reprint (Hey: I think people should read last week’s essay on “Rogues in the House”!

I took a fantasy template developed by John Teehan, citing Arthurian elements to be found in almost any fantasy work. Well, at least one element can be, anyways. I applied the principles to the first four Conan stories: “Phoenix on the Sword,” “Frost Giant’s Daughter,” “The God in the Bowl,” and “The Tower of the Elephant.” You can click on this link to see that three of the four scored pretty low.

Well, we’re gonna look at the next three Conan stories: “The Scarlet Citadel,” Queen of the Black Coast,” Black Colossus,” and Iron Shadows in the Moon.”

So, let’s see how the stories shape up.

John Teehan, in The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy: Volume One, challenges the reader to think of their favorite contemporary fantasy novels. And we’re talking Tolkien-onwards here, not just the past few years. Then he gives a list and says it would be difficult to think of a book that didn’t have any of the five themes on the list. He is making the point that the Arthurian legend, largely brought to popular culture by Thomas Malory, was an interweaving of those five themes. High fantasy epics like David Eddings’ Belgariad still follow this path.

I immediately thought about Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales and how they didn’t really emulate this pattern. Or so it seemed to me. My friend Deuce Richardson immediately pointed out two stories that did significantly incorporate these elements. So, I decided to start at the beginning and take a good look at “The Phoenix on the Sword”: then, do a less detailed survey of the following stories.

This time around, we’ll give “The Scarlet Citadel extra attention, then move on to the other two.

So, here we go!

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A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

A Bloody Good Time for Young and Old: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales

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These days, deciding what to get depressed about is like visiting a fabulous smorgasbord where the presentation is first-class and every delicious dish is cooked to perfection. Hmmm… what shall I have today? Let’s see… a generous spoonful of climate-change anxiety is guaranteed to make a good appetizer. Now let’s have some sides… umm… a little state of the economy worry is always tasty, and… where are they hiding it? Oh! There it is — it’s just not a meal without a steaming portion of AI apocalypticism. And now for the main course. Well, we all know that there’s nothing as filling as… er, let’s just stop there, shall we?

For myself, I tend to go in for the more exotic entrees. For instance, one of my favorites is a heaping plateful of “dammit, kids just don’t read comic books as much as they did when I was their age!” Though it might not be enough for a whole meal, it is something that I frequently find myself chewing on.

It’s true, too — in my role as a fourth-grade teacher, I spend every day in the company of elementary-age children, and I can attest that actual comic books play almost no role in their lives, certainly compared with the space those gaudy booklets took up in my life — and my bedroom closet — when I was a child.

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By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

By Crom, It’s Cimmerian September: Rogues in the House

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We’re rolling through Cimmerian September here at Black Gate. Well, on Monday mornings we sure are! I was fortunate enough to be asked to do some Youtube panels for the Robert E. Howard Foundation folks this month. And we had a great time talking about the first Del Rey Conan volume – The Coming of Conan – in the first one.

I got to give my thoughts on “Rogues in the House,” which was my Hither Came Conan title. That had been a mid-level Conan story for me. But it moved up the ranks after I finished my essay project. So, with some tweaks, here’s my take on a pretty cool story. And HOW was this six years ago??

When I was pitching this series to folks, I was using the title, The Best of Conan. I didn’t come up with Hither Came Conan for about eight months, I think. Yeah, I know… The idea behind the series came from an essay in my first (and so far, only) Nero Wolfe Newsletter. The plan for 3 Good Reasons is to look at a story and list three reasons why it’s the ‘best’ Wolfe story. And I toss in one ‘bad’ reason why it’s not. And finish it off with some quotes.

So, I’m going to take a somewhat different tack from those who have come before me (I doubt I could have measured up, anyways) and pick out two elements that make this story one of Howard’s best accounts of the mighty-thewed Cimmerian. Then, throw a curveball from the Wolfe approach and highlight a few items worthy of note.

OUR STORY

Obviously, you need to read this story, but here’s a Cliff’s Notes version: Nabonidus, the Red Priest, is the real power in this unnamed Corinthian city. He gives a golden cask to Murilo, a young aristocrat. And inside the cask is a human ear (remind you of Sherlock Holmes? It should.). We learn a little later on that Murillo has been selling state secrets, and the ear is from a clerk he had dealings with. The jig is up!

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Back Into the AI Debate

Back Into the AI Debate

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Image courtesy of Pixabay, found under the “authentic only” search (not AI)

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

This post is going to be a little “old lady yells at clouds” today, so prepare!

With the news that Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude Chaptbot, was sued and settled for their large-scale theft of books in order to train its AI model, I have been reading a glut of articles both for and against the use of AI, specifically to write fiction novels. Naturally, not being AI (I swear!), I’m firmly against. The theft of creative works to train these programs, and the environmental damage required to get the up and keep them running aside (and those two reasons alone are strong enough, I feel, to abandon AI) I don’t think AI belongs in creative fields; some aids, perhaps, some tools, yes. But I don’t think creating AI that can “write” a novel is in any way valuable.

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