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A Review of Osprey’s Dragonslayers

A Review of Osprey’s Dragonslayers

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Dragonslayers: From Beowulf to St. George
Mythsandlegends_DragonslayersBy Joseph McCullough
Osprey (80 pages, May 2013, $17.95)

Osprey is justly famous for its Men-at-Arms series. Probably almost everyone who’s a military history buff, historical gamer, or historical fiction writer has at least heard of the series, which illustrates the arms, armor, capabilities and customs of different forces from different eras in extremely well-researched detail. Need to know just how fast the Mongolian cavalry from the era of Genghis Khan moved, or what they ate on the ride? Curious to find out more about the forces from the 2nd Punic war? The Men-at-Arms series is a crucial stop.

Now Osprey is advancing its standard of excellence into new territory. Its Myths and Legends line strives to bring the same sterling level of research to fantasy and myth. Several weeks ago, Osprey sent me the first book of their new series, Dragonslayers.

It’s different from the older Men-At-Arms series books on my shelves in that it’s more profusely and colorfully illustrated, but the information is just as thorough and well presented. I have to admit that I wasn’t initially that curious about the subject matter, but writer Joe McCullough pulled me right in to both the tales I was already familiar with and the sagas of dragonslayers unfamiliar to me, which is no small feat considering how busy I’ve been. It’s pretty impressive that such a small book can pack in so much information, and make it engaging besides.

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What is SHE Doing Here?

What is SHE Doing Here?

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AthenaWhen I was growing up, Athena was my favourite goddess. What’s not to like? She springs fully-armed from the head of Zeus. She’s the goddess of Wisdom, as well as the goddess of War – oh, and the Liberal Arts. Except for that silly apple of discord episode, she’s the perfect role model for a young girl.

The thing is, when I was growing up, and there were only male heroes in the type of story I liked to read, it didn’t really bother me. When you have nothing else to compare it to, the world you have seems normal. For some reason, I didn’t feel excluded, nor did I feel that women couldn’t be the hero. I just thought no one had written those stories yet. See, all the writers seemed to be men, so I guess I figured that explained it. Certainly all the stories I made up to tell my friends had female leads. Swashbuckling, sword-wielding female leads.

Nowadays we tend toward using words like “protagonist” and “main character” rather than “hero,” and I think that’s to avoid the connotations that come along with the word. For some reason, when people say “hero,” they think it means some flawless gem of humanity. Well, maybe there were some of those, somewhere along the way, but if so, I never read about them. Every hero I’ve personally encountered, from Oedipus to Iron Man, is flawed – some even have a “tragic flaw” that results in their undoing.

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Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Two

Blogging Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, Part Two

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2520373-ama1ggpb1542“The Butterfly Men” was artist Dan Barry and writer Harvey Kurtzman’s follow-up to “The City of Ice” and was published by King Features Syndicate from June 16 to August 9, 1952. The storyline is simple sci-fi hokum, but of a type not previously seen in the series. Flash and Queen Marla materialize on the planet Tanium in the Alpha Centauri system. Of course, it is sheer luck that has brought them to the same planet that Dale and the crew of the X-3 have journeyed to in their quest for the missing Dr. Carson. It is also sheer coincidence that Flash and Marla are met by Ray Carson, the doctor’s young son who broke away from the crew of the X-3 in his eagerness to search for his father. The trio reaches the X-3 only to discover the ship deserted with disturbing telltale signs of a struggle, including Dale’s torn, bloodstained clothing.

Weakened by their hunger and thirst, they scour the barren landscape where they encounter a giant insect. Marla shoots the creature with a heat ray, although Flash is convinced it is harmless. The wounded creature limps off and spins a cocoon around its injured body. The visitors then see the strange sight of giant butterflies with the bodies of men descending upon them from the air. The butterfly men are the dominant life form of Tanium and are the adult form of the strange giant insects following their natural metamorphosis.

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Goth Chick News: Joe Hill Takes Us for a Ride in a Vampire Rolls Royce

Goth Chick News: Joe Hill Takes Us for a Ride in a Vampire Rolls Royce

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NOS4A2_coverJoseph Hillstrom King, eldest son of Stephen King and better known by his pen name Joe Hill, released his third novel NOS4A2 back on April 30th.  And though I was clutching it possessively in my hot little hands that very same day, I did not to rush to tell you about it.

I was instead preparing to take one for the team.

Hill’s first two outings, Horns and Heart Shaped Box were so amazingly entertaining, so thoroughly well written, and hold such esteemed places in my personal library that I felt there was more than a fair chance that Hill could not maintain this level of performance for a third time. I was prepared to be magnanimous; to assume that pressured by his publisher to stop spending so much time on his comic (Locke and Key) and crank out another best seller, Hill might have caved and produced something along the lines of From a Buick 8.

Never heard of it?

Most people haven’t: that’s because a similar scenario happened to Hill’s dad back in 2002.

So rather than tell you to run out and buy it based on the merit of its two older siblings, I took NOS4A2 home to vet it myself and potentially spend some time figuring out how to tell you not to bother.

Instead today, sixty pages from finishing NOS4A2, I’m not even waiting to see how it all turns out before I tell you yes – bother.  Do it now and without worrying about the sheer size of the thing or how you’re going to find the time.  Get it and curl up somewhere comfortable because you’re not going to be moving much for quite a while.

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Get the Latest on D&D Next from… Forbes?

Get the Latest on D&D Next from… Forbes?

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Ghosts of Dragonspear CastleI’m not used to seeing the latest D&D publishing news in Forbes magazine.

I’m not crazy, right? Forbes, the house organ of American capitalism, usually reports on panic-inducing Rolex shortages, fashion trends at Goldman Sachs, and how bubbly can boost brain power. Last time I read an article about role playing in Forbes was way back in… what am I saying. I’ve never read a gaming article in Forbes.

Well, last week there were two of them. Breaking news stories, even. Stuff I didn’t know about the first D&D Next release scheduled to appear at GenCon. Here, look:

A year ago today, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast launched a public playtest of a new edition of the classic fantasy role-playing game. Codenamed D&D Next, the rules are an ambitious redesign meant to unify four decades and five editions’ worth of players under one single system – and now fans will get to see them in print for the very first time.

To celebrate the playtest’s anniversary, Wizards of the Coast announced today that it will release a limited-edition commemorative book containing the most up-to-date D&D Next rules. Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle will be available exclusively at Gen Con 2013…

Wizards of the Coast will not say when it plans to will close the playtest and release a final version of the new rules, but many fans expect the game to be released in early to mid 2014, to coincide with the game’s 40th anniversary.

That reads like gaming journalism to me. What’s going on? Wait — the author is Forbes staffer David M. Ewalt, author of the upcoming book Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It. Is this Ewalt sneaking articles onto the Forbes website while his boss is on vacation? God, I hope so. That would be so cool.

As for Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle itself, it’s real news. Although you have to pre-order it to get a copy — and go to GenCon to pick it up — which probably means I won’t be getting one. It’s being described as more of a keepsake than a core publication (and even has places for owners to sign their copy), so it’s not a must-have. Still, it contains a big four-part adventure and the first publication of the D&D Next playtest rules, which is sure to make it a hot commodity.

Read Ewalt’s complete article here (and his second, “After A Year Playtesting A New Dungeons & Dragons, What’s Next?“), before his boss gets back from Maui and forces him to take them down.

Fantastic Stories, October 1964: A Retro-Review

Fantastic Stories, October 1964: A Retro-Review

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Fantastic Stories October 1964I continue my peregrinations through the Cele Goldsmith Lalli years at Amazing/Fantastic.

This issue features a George Schelling cover. I don’t know if there are Schelling fans out here – but I have to say I found it quite poor, with absurdly stiff human characters, a particularly strange looking female character, a quite inaccurate representation (as to size) of the Tharn antagonist, and also not representing the scene it apparently depicts very well. Other than that… it’s kind of colorful.

(Click on the image at left to get a full-size version).

Curiously, the cover features no author’s name – only the title of the serial, “Seed of Eloraspon,” and the description: “Magnanthropus returns in a new novel.”

The interiors are by Arndt, Schelling (rather better than the cover), Finlay, and Andragna.

The ads are mostly Ziff-Davis house ads, with one full page ad for the Rosicrucians. The editorial, as usual by editorial director Norman M. Lobsenz, is about progress towards a real life version of Donovan’s Brain (and many other stories). The only other feature is a single column on what’s “Coming Next Month.”

The fiction:

Novelet:

“Beyond the Ebon Wall,” by C. C. MacApp (18,700 words)

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Sean T. M. Stiennon reviews Game of Cages

Sean T. M. Stiennon reviews Game of Cages

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Game of Cages
By Harry Connollygames-of-cages
Del Rey (352 pages, mass market first edition August 2010, $7.99)

The opening line of Game of Cages, the chronologically third volume in the Twenty Palaces series, is:

“It was three days before Christmas, and I was not in prison.”

How’s that for a back story in a sentence? The truth, Ray Lily thinks, is that he should be in prison, given the actions he took during his battles with supernatural evil in Pacific-coast hamlet Hammer Bay. Ray broke into homes, burned down a brothel, and had a hand in the deaths of several people.

But one of the spells carved into his flesh by Annalise’s magic is the twisted path. His face is difficult to recall, his fingerprints no longer match the ones on file, and his DNA tests are inconclusive.  And so, months after the Hammer Bay incident, he’s a free man, preparing to celebrate his first Christmas since leaving prison.

But the Twenty Palaces society has other plans for him. On that night three days before Christmas, a woman named Catherine finds him at the grocery store. She’s an informer and scout for the society, and collects Ray to help her investigate a rumored auction of a captured magical predator scheduled to take place at an isolated mansion high up in the Cascade Range.

But by the time they arrive, the auction is already over, and the predator has escaped from its buyer, leaving behind a strange plastic cage, an overturned semi-truck, and a trail of circular footprints that suddenly vanish in the snow. Ray and Catherine must race to find the creature before it settles into a feeding ground, and before any of the auction’s other participants find and claim it for their own purposes.

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‘A Strange Land Where Magic Works and the Seas are of Sand’: Tangent Online on “The Turtle in the Sea of Sand”

‘A Strange Land Where Magic Works and the Seas are of Sand’: Tangent Online on “The Turtle in the Sea of Sand”

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stone turtleDave Truesdale at Tangent Online reviews Mary Catelli’s adventure fantasy tale, published here on May 26:

Mary Catelli gives us a strange land where magic works and the seas are not of water but of sand. On the docks of a village next to such a sea comes young Kyre, a small dock-rat of a boy looking for work. A young nobleman — sailor and wizard — hails young Kyre and employs him to guard his small boat and the enchanted chest it holds while he departs for a short visit to the town. Despite his vigilance and best efforts Kyre is assailed by thieves cloaked in invisibility and the boat he has sworn to guard is stolen.

A lad of honor and practicality (he does not want his name besmirched), Kyle rents a boat and takes off after the thieves. Word of the theft has traveled quickly and ere long Kyle meets up with the nobleman-wizard as they both trail the thieves to a nearby island.

Mary Catelli started writing in her teens, when deprived of books to read. After a while, she started finishing the stories. Since then, her short stories have appeared in various Sword and Sorceress anthologies and Weird Tales. She is working on a novel. She lives in Connecticut, where she works as a computer programmer.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Martha Wells, Michael Penkas, Vera Nazarian, Ryan Harvey, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, E.E. Knight, C.S.E. Cooney, Howard Andrew Jones, Harry Connolly, and many others, is here. Read Dave’s complete review here.

“The Turtle in the Sea of Sand” is a complete 4,800-word adventure fantasy tale. It is offered at no cost. Read the complete story here.

Stephanie Burgis on Scandals in Regency England, Magickal Bathwater, and an Illness That Is No Laughing Matter

Stephanie Burgis on Scandals in Regency England, Magickal Bathwater, and an Illness That Is No Laughing Matter

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Stephanie Burgis in The Pump Room in Bath, England
Stephanie Burgis in The Pump Room in Bath, England

Stephanie Burgis got her first short story published when she was fifteen, and hasn’t stopped since.

Now the author of over thirty published short stories and the Regency fantasy novel trilogy The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson (Atheneum – US, Templar – UK), she makes her home in Wales with her husband, Patrick Samphire (also a writer).

I had the opportunity to sit down with her and ask about her research process for her novels, the path she’s taken in her career, and on a more personal note, her life with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Stephanie and I also collaborated on some jewelry pieces I designed to tie in with her novel trilogy, and here we also share the story behind those pieces and the various hurdles we had to overcome to get them into production.

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Art of the Genre: Art of the Iconic Female #4: The Baroness

Art of the Genre: Art of the Iconic Female #4: The Baroness

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It seems to me the Baroness was made to be drawn by Adam Hughes...
It seems to me the Baroness was made to be drawn by Adam Hughes…

What isn’t to love about The Baroness?  Well, I suppose a great deal if you are on the side of ‘good’, but nonetheless she’s still a character that has captured the imagination of a generation of young men growing up in the 1980s.

I was a fan of action figures, and when Hasbro initially released their G.I. Joe A Real American Hero  line in 1982, I spent three days one weekend catching nightcrawlers (bait worms in southern Indiana speak) by hand with a flashlight at five cents a pop until I had enough to purchase the first run (rough calculation, I caught upwards of 1000 of the slimy little buggers).

At the time, I was eleven, and my G.I. Joe figures provided a great combat story to be told over and over again in the woods by my house, in my sandbox, on the riverbank, and on the floors of various friends living rooms, but I must admit a purely war-driven story can get tiresome without something more meaningful to fight for.

Enter Cobra, the G.I. Joe nemesis. But still, even after you could lay hands on villains to fight, there was something lacking until women were finally added to the story.  The addition of Scarlet was a turning point for me in my action figure storylines, and yet a great deal of imagination had to be used because to this point action figure manufacturing hadn’t really ‘figured women out’.  That is to simply say, female action figures weren’t all that alluring, mostly because you couldn’t effectively produce their hair.

Sure, there was Star Wars, of which I had a nice collection as well, who had Princess Leia, and that figure was fine, but they (the manufacturers) had a huge advantage because of Leia’s famous head-buns.  Those could be sculpted, but free-flowing hair was a much more difficult endeavor and so figures like G.I. Joe alums Scarlet, Lady J, and heaven forbid Covergirl (probably the ugliest figure ever created and based on a model turned soldier of all things!) never really made boys’ hearts go pitter-pat unless you were reading the Marvel comics or watching the animation.

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