Browsed by
Category: Blog Entry

New Treasures: Against the Slave Lords

New Treasures: Against the Slave Lords

Comments 10 comments

Against the Slave LordsI think the release of Against the Slave Lords is cause for celebration.

Against the Slave Lords is a hardcover collection of four interconnected Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules, the A1 – A4 series Scourge of the Slave Lords, originally published in 1980 and 1981. It includes new forewords by the four surviving designers. Lawrence Schick, for example, relates how his inspiration came from fellow author and dungeon master Harold Johnson:

In his campaign one night, Harold had our characters get captured, whereupon he took away all our stuff and threw us in a dungeon. The challenge: escape without relying on all our carefully hoarded adventuring gear. Were our characters people with skills and brains, or were they really just lists of equipment?

It also includes the maps and all of the original black-and-white interior art. Most intriguing of all, there’s also a brand new fifth adventure that sets the stage for the entire series, published here for the first time. Danger at Darkshelf Quarry is designed for low-level players (levels 1-3).

Why celebrate? It signals that publishers Wizards of the Coast are serious about bringing the canonical works of first edition D&D back into print. I was plenty excited at their last premium hardcover reprint, Dungeons of Dread, as it collected some of the most famous adventures written by AD&D‘s creator, Gary Gygax — including Tomb of Horrors and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (still one of my favorite adventure modules of all time) — all of which were long out of print and hard to find.

…

Read More Read More

“Hi-yo, Silver! Awayzzzzzz…” The Lone Ranger Defeats Insomnia!

“Hi-yo, Silver! Awayzzzzzz…” The Lone Ranger Defeats Insomnia!

Comments 11 comments

TheLoneRanger2013PosterThe Lone Ranger (2013)
Directed by Gore Verbinski. Starring Silver, Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, Ruth Wilson, James Badge Dale, Helena Bonham Carter.

At the climax of the new cinematic exploit of the Lone Ranger, director Gore Verbinski finally busts out his skills at orchestrating thrilling and intricately choreographed action set pieces. He hits viewers with a top-notch closer aboard a train full of silver roaring around a Mousetrap structure of parallel tracks. The sudden eruption of “The William Tell Overture” on the theater sound system stirs listless audience members awake. For a few minutes, The Lone Ranger feels like The Lone Ranger: old-fashioned Western thrills starring one of the great Do-Gooder heroes. A few folks in the audience clap. Some notice they haven’t finished their popcorn.

Then everybody leaves the multiplex to go home and catch up on their nap times, which they never realized they needed.

That’s the most damning criticism I can lob at this new Lone Ranger: I nearly nodded off twice during my screening. I say this as a hardcore fan of the Western genre, a nostalgia monster, and a fellow who has never before fallen asleep during a theatrical showing of a movie. Not even Meet Joe Black. The only other time I came as close to the narcoleptic fit I experienced here was due to an unfortunate application of medicine that carried warnings regarding heavy machinery.

…

Read More Read More

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part I

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part I

Comments 3 comments

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

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 the 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 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 few years, but more and more I was seeing successful projects being started and completed on the platform. I saw how impressive some of them were as well, how caught up I got in the “community” that successful projects could bring about. I saw how savvy 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.

The first Kickstarter I ran was for Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories, my premiere short story collection.

The second Kickstarter I ran was for the third book in my Lays of Anuskaya Trilogy, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, and it came about all quick-like. That is, I hadn’t planned on running a second Kickstarter, but there were a few, well, “issues” with my publisher, Night Shade Books.

…

Read More Read More

Magic Realm Lives Again

Magic Realm Lives Again

Comments 4 comments

DIGITAL CAMERAMagic Realm, designed by Richard Hamblen and released by Avalon Hill in 1979, is adventure fantasy role-playing wrapped up in a board game. No surprise, given the time. It has a complexity rating of 9 on Avalon Hill’s 10-point scale, is loaded with chits, and has a rule book approaching 100 pages of two-column small print.

In modern parlance, Magic Realm has crunch. And all that crunchy goodness is now available for free on your computer.

Before we examine the computer version, let’s have a look at the basics of play. There are sixteen characters for players to choose from in Magic Realm. Most of the usual tropes are covered: White Knight, Black Knight, Amazon, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf, etc.

Players choose their own victory conditions, setting goals of Gold, Fame, Notoriety, Usable Spells, and Great Treasures. They travel roads, caves, hidden paths and secret passages that stretch across the twenty tiles making up the board, and you’re not likely to see the same board configuration twice.

The exploration element is handled well. Goblins and dragons both show up on a tiles with caves, but until you get to a tile and hear a howl or roar, see the ruins or smell the smoke, you don’t know if goblins, dragons, neither, or both live there.

And knowing is critical. The White Knight can probably take a dragon, but a group of goblins will overwhelm him. The Amazon, on the other hand, can’t scratch a dragon with her starting equipment, but she can usually work her way through a half-dozen of the weakest goblins. (The Elf doesn’t care either way, as he can run away from both.)

…

Read More Read More

Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Part 2: The Fritz Leiber Novelization

Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Part 2: The Fritz Leiber Novelization

Comments 3 comments

Tarzan Valley of Gold Novel CoverTarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966)

By Fritz Leiber, from a Screenplay by Clair Huffaker

I have never watched a movie and then immediately felt an urge to “Read the Jove Paperback” (or whatever publisher released the tie-in). Movie novelizations are marketing after-thoughts and I think most readers pick them up as after-thoughts as well. A wanderer in a bookstore might spot a paperback copy of Blockbuster Film You Kinda Enjoyed and think to herself, “Hey, this might be a fun airplane read.”

But there aren’t as many bookstores to wander in these blighted times and with the gap narrowing between the time of a film’s release and its DVD/Blu-ray popping up in the impulse item rack of the supermarket, the niche genre of the novelization has entered a slow death cycle. Fewer big tent pole movies are getting the prose treatment.

I’ve read more than my sane share of novelizations, the majority from Alan Dean Foster because Alan Dean Foster rocks (he even responded to my review of his Clash of the Titans novelization). But with Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, I found myself for the first time in the peculiar reverse position of wanting to see a movie because of the novelization.

The reason: Fritz Leiber.

The idea of one of the Grand Masters of speculative fiction, an icon of sword-and-sorcery, penning any genre film novelization is delicious. And penning a Tarzan novelization … that’s the colored sprinkles on top of the chocolate doughnut. Novelization or not, it’s a Fritz Leiber Tarzan book.

…

Read More Read More

James Enge’s Wrath-Bearing Tree Coming in August

James Enge’s Wrath-Bearing Tree Coming in August

Comments 11 comments

Wrath Bearing TreeWoo hoo! Our Bothan spies report that the second novel in James Enge’s epic new fantasy trilogy, A Tournament of Shadows, will be released by Pyr on August 13, 2013.

Many Bothans died to bring us this information. But lordy, it was worth it.

The book continues the origin story of Morlock Ambrosius, which began in A Guile of Dragons (Pyr, August 2012). Have I ever mentioned that Morlock’s first appearance was in Black Gate 8, in James Enge’s first published work of fiction, “Turn Up This Crooked Way?” True story. Morlock was in virtually every issue of Black Gate for the next five years. Morlock and Black Gate, best buds. I could tell you some stories.

Of course, he’s a big shot now. The first Morlock novel, Blood of Ambrose, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award; after that came his rapid ascent to fame and a decadent west-coast lifestyle, and he stopped taking our calls. We still get Christmas cards, with a sloppy signature forged by his agent. We treasure them.

Into the Unguarded Lands . . .

The masked powers of Fate and Chaos are killing gods in the land of Kaen, facing the Wardlands across the Narrow Sea. Vocates Aloe Oaij and Morlock Ambrosius go into the Unguarded Lands, on a mission to find the reasons for the godslaying, and to avert any threat to the lands the Graith of Guardians has sworn to protect.

After crash-landing on the hostile coast of Kaen, they will face vengeful frightened gods, a calmly murderous dragon, a demon called Andhrakhar, and a bitter old necromancer named Merlin Ambrosius.

Amid these dangers they will find that they can trust no one but themselves — and each other.

“A calmly murderous dragon.” Doesn’t that sound like a Morlock story? He’s so cool. Can’t wait.

Wrath-Bearing Tree will be published by Pyr Books on August 2013. It is 320 pages in trade paperback, priced at $18.00; $11.99 for the digital edition. Cover art by Steve Stone. See more details at the Pyr website.

New Treasures: The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

New Treasures: The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

Comments 0 Comment

The Thousand NamesWhen I was younger, I had very specific criteria for selecting fantasy reading material. I relied exclusively on the jacket copy, blurbs, and author reputation. But after reading numerous crummy books, I decided to switch things up a bit, and only buy books with great cover art.

That worked pretty well for about a decade. By the time I was 40, I’d refined my cover selection process even further. Now I base it almost solely on color. Lush greens and gold — that’s the ticket for the best in fantasy entertainment. Take it from the voice of experience.

Based on the excited buzz around Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names, and the righteous color scheme on the cover, I expect great things. But here’s the jacket copy in case you want to decide things the old fashioned way.

Enter an epic fantasy world that echoes with the thunder of muskets and the clang of steel — but where the real battle is against a subtle and sinister magic…

Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was resigned to serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost. But that was before a rebellion upended his life. And once the powder smoke settled, he was left in charge of a demoralized force clinging tenuously to a small fortress at the edge of the desert.

To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must win the hearts of her men and lead them into battle against impossible odds.

The fates of both these soldiers and all the men they lead depend on the newly arrived Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich, who has been sent by the ailing king to restore order. His military genius seems to know no bounds, and under his command, Marcus and Winter can feel the tide turning. But their allegiance will be tested as they begin to suspect that the enigmatic Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural — a realm with the power to ignite a meteoric rise, reshape the known world, and change the lives of everyone in its path.

The Thousand Names was published today by Roc Books. It is 513 pages in hardcover, priced at $25.95 ($12.99 for the digital edition). It is the first novel of The Shadow Campaigns.

Read all of our recent New Treasures articles here.

Arak Issue 2: Sympathy for the Devil?

Arak Issue 2: Sympathy for the Devil?

Comments 3 comments

Arak_Vol_1_2See that nine-year-old boy spinning the revolving comic-book rack, seeking out the most lurid covers of monsters and aliens and skeletons in battle fatigues. He’ll rifle through his pocket for some quarters to buy the latest issue of Weird War Tales or House of Mystery or Arak, Son of Thunder.

See that forty-year-old man picking up a thirty-year-old issue of Arak, Son of Thunder, its cheap newsprint pages now yellowing, the staples loose, an older but still potent artifact promising strange adventures and magical mayhem in dreamed-of faraway lands.  This relic of boyhood — the feel of the thin paper; the primitive, splotchy look of the four-color panels; even the smell of it — brings back inchoate memories and associations of a simpler, more carefree time when his future was expanding, not shrinking, when everything was out there to be gotten, not closing in to get him.

Strange Tales 90Something as simple as a comic book can be the bridge between the boy and the man, reminding him that he is still the same being, the same conscious self who lived those years and is living these years and lived all the years in between. It is why, even though he doesn’t collect Star Wars figures, he’d love to hold again a 1978 Kenner Snaggletooth (that little guy from the Mos Eisley Cantina), because he can remember the feel of it in his hands, out in the sandbox at recess, when it was one of the most prized possessions in the world (along with Walrus and Hammerhead).

These, then, are our totems, and the old comics our sacred books.

So let’s get to the second installment of Arak, Son of Thunder, shall we?

…

Read More Read More

Fantasy Out Loud III: Suffer the Children?

Fantasy Out Loud III: Suffer the Children?

Comments 8 comments

the-mysterious-benedict-society-0316003956-l_5462In the original 2011 edition of Fantasy Out Loud, I took a stab at reviewing the fantasy books I had read aloud to my children. Back in those halcyon days, The Hobbit was front and center.

Some eighteen months later, my boys are older and taller, but not necessarily wiser. Much to my chagrin, older son Corey, aged thirteen as of this writing, no longer wants me to read aloud to him prior to bedtime. On his own, he’s lately polished off all four of the Hitchhiker’s Guide books, and is now slamming through Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, which he describes as “weird.” (We’ll see what he says when he gets to the end, one of the best reveals in written English.)

But, because Corey is tackling these titles on his lonesome ownsome, this column is necessarily dedicated to eight-year-old Evan, who still can’t get enough of pre-bed daddy readings.

In the last year, fantasy titles we’ve tackled include The Warriors: Into the Wild, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Black Beauty, Summerland, Tuck Everlasting, and Magic By the Lake.

Well, all right: Black Beauty isn’t strictly fantasy, since author Anna Sewell never allows Beauty to actually speak, but for a horse to be so observant, so proscriptive, so downright brilliant?  Sounds like fantasy to me.

Here’s the rub: Evan did not like these books equally. Nor do his growing sense of taste and literary discretion always parallel, sadly, my own. At least two of the books above were volumes I would have preferred to hurl across the room, but in one case especially, despite my jaundice, Evan was enraptured.

…

Read More Read More

“A Great Place to let Your Imagination Run Wild:” Joe Bonadonna Reviews Rogues in Hell

“A Great Place to let Your Imagination Run Wild:” Joe Bonadonna Reviews Rogues in Hell

Comments 5 comments

Rogues in HellI’ve always been a fan of the shared-world universe of Thieves World. It’s sword and sorcery at its best: character-oriented, with great plots and stories. Janet Morris has been editing and writing stories for her Heroes in Hell shared-world universe for quite some time now, starting with Heroes in Hell in 1986.

The most recent volume, the twelfth, was Lawyers in Hell (2011, co-edited with Chris Morris). And now, continuing with the series, she brings us Rogues in Hell, which IMHO is the best of the lot.

I love the whole concept behind the series, the cultures, inhabitants and levels of Hell. It’s quite a cool concept, and for writers this is a great place to let your imagination run wild. And I like the use of historical, legendary, and mythic characters.

My favorite of the 22 stories that comprise this anthology is “Colony,” by Bruce Durham. It’s a solid read: well-told, with great momentum to keep things moving and fun, crackling dialog, and prose that engages all the senses. Here, General James Wolfe has recently been resurrected — and once again finds himself in Hell, aboard a Satanic ship searching for an island not unlike Skull island.

The tale is told with plenty of action and humor, and never once breaks that magic spell that keeps you inside the story.

“Which Way I Fly,” by Janet Morris, is a very complex tale, and quite hard to describe. It’s a two-fold story, with Lysicles, an Athenian general, seeking revenge against Alexander of Macedon. With Lealaps the dog, guardian hound of Zeus, Lysicles joins with Xenophon the mercenary, and their demon allies in an epic battle in Hell.

The other part of this story involves Irkalla, Queen of Arali, and her son, Ninazu, who is of the winged Eshi, and is Prince of Ki-Gal. The plot revolves around the Royal House of Demons, and Erra and the Seven Sibitti, the sons of Heaven and Earth, the weapons of the gods who terrorize the dead.

…

Read More Read More