Browsed by
Category: Blog Entry

New Treasures: House of Fear, edited by Jonathan Oliver

New Treasures: House of Fear, edited by Jonathan Oliver

Comments 4 comments

house-of-fear-smallI tip my hat to Solaris Books, the Oxford division of comic publisher Rebellion Developments, who have shown a real commitment to short fiction.

It started with George Mann’s The Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction, which lasted three volumes, only to be reborn as Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction under new editor Ian Whates (two volumes so far). In May of this year, they finally showed fantasy some love with Fearsome Journeys: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy.

And you know what? I totally missed their horror volume — an all-original collection of haunted house stories featuring tales from Christopher Priest, Joe R. Lansdale, Eric Brown, Tim Lebbon, Chaz Brenchley, Christopher Fowler, Gary Kilworth, Sarah Pinborough, Lisa Tuttle, Nina Allan, Stephen Volk, and many more. It was released nearly two years ago, but I just got my hands on a copy this week.

The tread on the landing outside the door, when you know you are the only one in the house. The wind whistling through the eves, carrying the voices of the dead. The figure glimpsed briefly through the cracked window of a derelict house. Editor Jonathan Oliver brings horror home with a collection of haunted house stories. The tread on the landing outside the door, when you know you are the only one in the house. The wind whistling through the eves, carrying the voices of the dead. The figure glimpsed briefly through the cracked window of a derelict house.

Editor Jonathan Oliver brings horror home with a collection of haunted house stories by some of the finest writers working in the horror genre.

The book is edited by Solaris Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Oliver, who also directs the Abaddon books line. Where he finds the time to oversee two major publishing houses and edit original fiction anthologies on the side, I have no idea. I was hard-pressed to edit one issue of Black Gate per year, believe me.

House of Fear was edited by Jonathan Oliver and published by Solaris on September 27, 2011. It is 485 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. Learn more at the Solaris website.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Robert Bloch

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Robert Bloch

Comments 29 comments

The Best of Robert BlochRobert Bloch — who died in 1994 at the age of 77 — had a lengthy and enviable career as a dark fantasy and horror writer, producing over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories.

Of course, all of that was overshadowed by his greatest success: the 1959 novel, Psycho, adapted by legendary director Alfred Hitchcock as perhaps his most famous film.

But there’s a lot more to Robert Bloch than just Psycho, as most fans know. Bloch was one of the earliest members of the Lovecraft Circle and Lovecraft was his early mentor. Bloch began writing to Lovecraft in 1933, after discovering his stories in Weird Tales, and his first professional sales to the same magazine a year later — when he was only 17 — were heavily influenced by him. Bloch even used Lovecraft as a (doomed) character in his 1935 short story “The Shambler from the Stars.” Lovecraft returned the favor, killing off his character “Robert Blake” in “The Haunter of the Dark” (1936), which he dedicated to Bloch.

Bloch gradually expanded his correspondence to Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, and others laying the groundwork for what would eventually be known as the Cthulhu Mythos. Together, they built on Lovecraft’s work, kicking off a tradition that is still very much alive today.

Bloch didn’t just hobnob with the Lovecraft Circle — in 1935, he joined The Milwaukee Fictioneers, a group of pulp fiction writers including Ralph Milne Farley, Raymond A. Palmer, and Stanley Weinbaum. Around the same time, he became friends with C.L. Moore and her husband Henry Kuttner. Man, those pulp writers sure stuck together.

After Lovecraft’s death in 1937, Bloch continued writing for Weird Tales, but also expanded to other markets, including Amazing Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, F&SF, and many others. Real notice came with his early story, “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” which originally appeared in Weird Tales in 1943 and became one of the most reprinted fantasy tales of the 20th Century.

…

Read More Read More

Spanish Castle Magic, Part Three

Spanish Castle Magic, Part Three

Comments 2 comments

madrid

In my previous Spanish castle magic posts, I’ve talked about some of the classic castles of Spain. The country is filled with castles thanks to the Reconquista and all the fighting that happened before that period.

As we all know, however, these weren’t the last battles on Spanish soil. The most bitter fighting happened during the Spanish Civil War from 1936-39. Some of Spain’s castles were actually used in the fighting. Strategic positions don’t tend to change, and when visiting Spanish castles, I’ve often seen evidence of more modern conflicts.

One such castle is the fifteenth-century Castillo de Alameda de Osuna, which guarded one of the main approaches to Madrid. Improved and fitted for artillery in the 16th century, the stone-lined moat and rectangular outline of walls with round towers at the corners are still well preserved. Right next to it, as you can see, is a bunker from the Spanish Civil War. There was fighting around here and the castle took a couple of hits. Luckily it’s in the process of being restored.

…

Read More Read More

Mysteriouser, and Mysteriouser

Mysteriouser, and Mysteriouser

Comments 4 comments

Waldo and Magic Inc-smallThe idea of genre in literature is relatively recent, if you take as your time span the history of the written word. Why, I remember a time when there were only two genres, Poetry and Prose. Or, as we call them nowadays, Fiction and Non-fiction. Things have gotten more complicated since Sir Philip Sydney wrote “A Defense of Poetry,” however, as I’m sure a glance over any of our own bookshelves would tell us.

Last week, in discussing my serial-killer fantasy, Path of the Sun, I started talking about cross-genre writing. I was writing a high fantasy crime novel, but most examples of the crime/fantasy cross are urban fantasies, set in an alternate reality.

The first of these to cross my path was Robert Heinlein’s “Magic Inc” (1940). Technically, it’s an amateur sleuth mystery – the main character isn’t a professional detective of any kind – Archie Fraser lives in a world where magic is a routine service you rent or purchase, like the expertise of a plumber or a musician. When he’s threatened by the equivalent of the mob, asking him to pay “insurance” for his business and threatening him with magical reprisals, he finds an unusual ally in the shape of a very powerful, and very old, witch.

In 1987/88, Glen Cook published the three novels that make up the Garrett Files: Sweet Silver Blues, Bitter Gold Hearts, and Cold Copper Tears. (Fans of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books will recognize MacDonald’s method of keeping his books straight by using a different colour in each title.)

Cook’s Garrett is a human private investigator with supernatural allies, but he sets the stage for the more recent Dresden Files, now in, I think, its fourteenth or fifteen volume. Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden is himself a magician, part Sam Spade and part Merlin, living in an alternate version of Chicago.

…

Read More Read More

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Four

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Four

Comments 0 Comment

President CorgiPresident CassellSax Rohmer’s The Invisible President was originally serialized in Collier’s from February 29 to May 16, 1936. It was published in book form later that year by Cassell in the UK and Doubleday in the US under the title President Fu Manchu. The novel is the first in the series to fictionalize real events with characters based on familiar figures in the US in the 1930s, such as Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin. More than one critic has noted the story may have influenced the classic Cold War conspiracy thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

The key to tracking down Fu Manchu comes from the most unlikely of sources. It is Robbie Adair, Moya’s four-year old son, who mentions to Mark Hepburn about the mad man who lives at the Stratton Building, the high-rise across the street from Robbie’s apartment, who makes sculptures of a bust and hurls them down to the street below. Robbie also mentions “Yellow Uncle” who is kind to him and gave him his own auto for his birthday. Moya dismissed the stories as a little boy’s imagination, but Hepburn realizes the auto is in fact a toy car and “Yellow Uncle” is very real. The mad man Robbie sees is Professor Morgenstahl, a brilliant German scientist believed dead, who is now a slave to the Si-Fan and installed at the Stratton Building. During his free hours each day, he sculpts a bust of Fu Manchu and hurls it to the pavement below in impotent rage.

 

…

Read More Read More

Readercon 24: “A Most Readerconnish Miscellany”

Readercon 24: “A Most Readerconnish Miscellany”

Comments 3 comments
BGClaire
Yours Truly, C.S.E. Cooney

First of all…

HALLOOOOO Black Gate Readers!

I don’t even know if you remember me; it’s been so long, and I think there are probably a lot more of you now. Anyway, I’m C.S.E. Cooney, and I’m a writer, and sometimes I blog here, and today is one of those days.

So, hi. Again.

This last weekend, I attended Readercon 24, as participant and performer. This year, instead of signing up for ALL THE SCARILY CLEVER PANELS that I’m mostly unsuited for, I signed up to perform stuff.

BGBanjo
Caitlyn Paxson, Jacqueline of All Trades

Because I like performing.

Performing’s cool.

And since performing is so cool, why, Caitlyn Paxson (another writer, also a storyteller, also a harpist and banjo-player, also the Artistic Director of the Ottawa Storytellers and All-Around Belle Dame Sans Merci, only, like, Avec Merci) and I proposed to teach a workshop at Readercon called “From Page to Stage: Adapting Your Text for Performance.”

But I get ahead of myself.

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Frankenstein’s Army, Or If Nazis and Hellraiser Had Kids

Goth Chick News: Frankenstein’s Army, Or If Nazis and Hellraiser Had Kids

Comments 7 comments

image001Okay, I admit it.

Much like the kid who gets the giggles reading the “dirty” words someone highlighted in the classroom Webster (and yes, I admit doing that as well), me and my sophomoric inclinations are a sucker for anything deemed inappropriate.

I would normally conduct a dramatic eye-roll if I received an email about an upcoming film called Frankenstein’s Army. The actual email that landed in my in-box, however, was accompanied by the somewhat taboo but ultimately irresistible “Red Band” trailer.

If you’re not familiar with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) classifications, movie trailers are generally tailored for “All Audiences,” even if the movie itself is rated “R.” Such trailers state as much with the wording housed in a green “band” across the screen.

A “Red Band” trailer is definitely not for all audiences, and generally contains something naughty. Sadly, red band trailers often signal that shock value will be replacing story/production/acting values… although there are rare exceptions.

But unable to resist the red band, I opened it – oh yes I did.

And I watched the trailer for Frankenstein’s Army.

And I understood why it received a “red band” designation.

…

Read More Read More

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part II

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part II

Comments 0 Comment

This is Part II of a two-part series on How to Run a Successful Novel Kickstarter

Find Part I here.

For years, I’d been planning on pulling together my short fiction into a collection of some sort to get it out and into the world. And for years I hemmed and hawed about actually doing it. I didn’t have time. It wouldn’t do well. My time would be better spent on my next novel. You’ve probably said many of the same things yourself.

Well, late last year, a few things changed. One, I wrapped up my debut trilogy, The Lays of Anuskaya, which finally freed up a fair bit of time for me to work on something besides novel-length work. And two, Kickstarter happened. What do I mean by that? Well, Kickstarter had been around for a while, but more and more I was seeing successful projects being started and completed on the platform. I saw how impressive some of them were, how caught up I got in the “community” that successful projects could bring about. I saw how effective some project owners were about running the Kickstarters during the ‘Starter itself.

And it got me to thinking: it may take some time and effort, but if they can do it, so can I.

And if I can do it, so can you.

…

Read More Read More

Watch This Awesome Teaser Trailer for The Boxtrolls, Because it’s Good for You

Watch This Awesome Teaser Trailer for The Boxtrolls, Because it’s Good for You

Comments 0 Comment

Seriously, this trailer will make you smile, turn you into a better person, and maybe even teach you a foreign language. All in 72 seconds.

As I reported last week, Alan Snow’s criminally overlooked YA series The Ratbridge Chronicles — so overlooked that America forgot to publish it — is being adapted into a feature film by stop-motion studio Laika, creators of Coraline and ParaNorman. Any studio that takes their name from the first dog in space is okay in my book.

Technically, I think The Boxtrolls adapts only the first novel, the marvelous Here Be Monsters, which appeared in 2006. The second, Worse Things Happen at Sea, was released in the UK in October 2010, and cruelly snubbed here in the US — at least until last week, when it was finally published by Atheneum Books (you guys rock). The third, Thar She Blows, is scheduled to appear in December 2013.

The Boxtrolls will be released September 26, 2014. It is directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, and stars the voice talents of Ben Kingsley, Simon Pegg, Elle Fanning, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Toni Collette, and Jared Harris.

New Treasures: Cobweb Bride by Vera Nazarian

New Treasures: Cobweb Bride by Vera Nazarian

Comments 3 comments

Cobweb Bride-smallThere’s lots of perks to running the Black Gate global mega-publishing empire. For one thing, I enjoy being part of the “lamestream media,” telling America what to think and do, ignoring today’s critical issues so I can focus on movies about giant robots. That’s satisfaction right there. Plus, those Manhattan press parties are a blast. Seriously, I could tell you stories.

But the best part of publishing is discovering new talent, the emerging short fiction writers of today who will be the towering giants of the field tomorrow. Writers like Vera Nazarian, whose brilliant short story, “Niola’s Last Stand,” we published earlier this year. Strangely, no one seems to have told Vera that she’s expected to toil away in obscurity for years before vaulting to superstardom — she’s already accumulated two Nebula noms, and her just-released novel, Cobweb Bride, looks like a clear contender for one of the most talked-about books of the year. Some people have no respect for due process.

Well, we know how to cash in on a good thing. So we asked Vera for an exclusive quote explaining Cobweb Bride to our readers (“Quick — while she’s still taking our calls.”) Here’s what she told us:

Cobweb Bride is a story of Death and Love and loss and intensity, a strange twist on the Persephone myth set in an alternate Renaissance Europe. Enter the Uncanny Valley of the Shadow of Death. This is a place at the heart of the Brothers Grimm and in the mind of Dante, in the gut of Ouroboros, in the mouth of Hell, and in the eye of a glittering Imperial Court rivaling the splendor of Louis XIV’s Versailles.

It is an epic fantasy of love and eldritch wonder, about death’s ultimatum to the world.

Does that sound awesome, or what? What did we tell you? Pay attention, we won’t steer you wrong.

Cobweb Bride is the first book of the Cobweb Bride Trilogy. It was published by Leda on July 15. It is $14.95 in trade paperback, and just $5.99 for the digital edition.