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August 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

August 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

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Lightspeed August 2016-smallThe August issue of Lightspeed is now fully available online. This month editor John Joseph Adams offers us original fantasy by Adam-Troy Castro and Tristina Wright, and fantasy reprints by co-authors Kevin J. Anderson & Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Delia Sherman, plus original science fiction by Mercurio D. Rivera, along with SF reprints by Kameron Hurley and Maureen F. McHugh.

Best of all, there’s also a brand new SF tale by Black Gate author Jeremiah Tolbert (“Groob’s Stupid Grubs,” BG 15), which has hands-down the best title of the issue, and maybe the entire year: “Taste the Singularity at the Food Truck Circus.” Admit it, you want to read that story.

Here’s what my new favorite short fiction reviewer, Charles Payseur, had this to say about it at Quick Sip Reviews.

This is a story about food. Glorious, glorious food. It’s also a story about friendship and a bout passion and about dreams and about talent. The setting is subtle woven but vivid, an America dealing with rising sea levels and increased scarcity and refugees from the coasts. And the main character, Nico, is working as accountant but passionate about food, having to stifle that passion in the hopes of raising enough money to start out on his own out from under the thumb of a rather oppressive job. Food keeps calling him away, though, and when he bumps into an old friend who introduces him to the food underground…well, things get kinda weird… it is a fun story and one that kept me smiling throughout. So definitely check it out!

Read Charles’ complete review of the August issue here.

I had the opportunity to hang out with John Joseph Adams and Jeremy at George R.R. Martin’s Hugo Losers party at Worldcon, and that was a blast. Both of them are intimately plugged into the pulse of short fiction, and the industry in general, and it was great catching up. JJA also introduced me to Molly Tanzer (Vermilion) and Carrie Vaughn (the Kitty novels), and that was an honor and a pleasure. I took the picture below just before midnight, when the Alfie awards were announced.

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The Art of the Con: Can*Con 2016

The Art of the Con: Can*Con 2016

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Can*Con promo image designed by Jay Odjick
Can*Con promo image designed by Jay Odjick

Earlier this year I was invited to join the programming team for Can*Con, the annual conference on speculative arts and literature held in Ottawa, Ontario. Since about January, I’ve been working with co-chair Derek Kunsken (who also blogs for Black Gate) and fellow author Evan May to develop the panels, presentations, workshops, etc, for this year’s conference, which will be held from September 9th to 11th at the Novotel Hotel. The next few paragraphs will be a glance behind the curtain at the work that goes into putting a con together.

I like to joke that behind that curtain are a few bedraggled wizards desperately seeking additional caffeine and occasionally pulling out the little hair left on their heads … but in all seriousness planning Can*Con has been a delight. My role really came into play after the Guests of Honor (GoHs) had already been confirmed by Derek. Those GoHs are critical because your programming tracks are based around them in many ways. For example, having Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s, attending this year allows us to create panels looking specifically at her magazine, analyzing what it means to be a woman in the publishing industry, and so on. If you want to have an entire track related to comics or costuming, you need a solid GoH to establish your framework. But that’s just a piece: the programming you can develop is also largely dependent on your Special Guests and panelists, and the sooner their attendance can be confirmed, the sooner you can start drafting ideas. That was pretty much where Evan and I came in earlier this year.

We started by asking potential panelists for panel ideas they would like to see or contribute to, as well as presentations, workshops, etc, they would be willing to offer. The more you can tap into people’s expertise and interest, the stronger your programming will be; you can’t have a really excellent panel focusing on queer narratives in science fiction, or the fundamentals of witchcraft, or whether The Exorcist still works in the 21st century unless you have panelists with a deep understanding of those topics. A lot of the work at this stage is emailing back and forth with panelists, to both solicit ideas and then sometimes refine them, if the idea is too similar to something that ran the year before or something that we don’t think would quite appeal to our attendees. The little brainstorming sessions with panelists hopefully yield programming that is compelling and which everyone is happy with.

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Black Gate Receives an Alfie Award from George R.R. Martin

Black Gate Receives an Alfie Award from George R.R. Martin

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George RR Martin John O'Neill Alfie Award-small

George RR Martin and John O’Neill

Yesterday, while I was walking through the crowded halls of Worldcon in the Kansas City Convention Center, I was given an invitation to the Hugo Losers party, courtesy of the party’s distinguished host, George RR Martin. I was quite flattered, as Black Gate was not even up for a Hugo (we declined the nomination, as we did last year, to make room for another nominee on the ballot), but didn’t think much more about it.

The Hugo Losers party is the hottest ticket of the convention, as I soon discovered. George personally hands out the Alfie Awards to those Hugo losers whom he feels (quite rightly, I think) were unjustly robbed of an award by slate shenanigans. And this year he spared no expense to do it in style, renting out the Midland Theater, hiring a band, and plying hundreds of guests with fabulous food and drink. The Awards themselves are gorgeous, constructed of vintage hood ornaments, in honor of the design inspiration for the first Hugo Awards.

George funds and hosts the awards, but the Alfie’s are in truth a fan award… the winners are determined by the results of the Hugo voting. But after the first few were awarded, George announced that the Alfie committee had the right to give out special awards. And as the sole member of the committee, he’d decided to give a special award this year to recognize one publication “for integrity” in declining a Hugo nomination two years in a row. Without further ado, George announced the award was to be given to Black Gate, and I was called to the stage to accept it.

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Off to Worldcon

Off to Worldcon

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MidAmeriCon II-small

By the time the Black Gate supercomputer posts this article, I’ll be on a plane to Kansas City, heading to MidAmeriCon II, the 74th World Science Fiction Convention.

I haven’t been to WorldCon since 2012, when it was held right here in Chicago. That time Black Gate had a big booth in the dealer’s room — staffed by a crack team of BG writers, including Howard Andrew Jones, James Enge, Rich Horton, Donald Crankshaw, Jason Waltz, and Peadar Ó Guilín — selling what would turn out to be our last issue. (Howard has a detailed report with plenty of pics, here.) With the end of the print issue, there’s no point to a booth, so this time it’s just me flying solo. I was too lazy and preoccupied to fill out the programming form, so I’m not even on any panels. If you spot a white-bearded guy shuffling through the dealer’s room asking about copies of Perry Rhodan, it’s probably me.

But if you’re a Black Gate reader attending the con, I’d love to hear from you. Drop a comment below, and I hope to run into you in person. I will post periodic reports from the convention over the next few days, including some selfies with fans. See you there!

GenCon: The Pathfinder Post (featuring Starfinder)

GenCon: The Pathfinder Post (featuring Starfinder)

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StarFinderFor years, the publisher Paizo has been one of the major presences at GenCon. I still remember years ago (2009, I believe) coming upon their booth and seeing a pile of hardcover books for their new (at the time) Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook (now available in paperback, as well). I didn’t realize at the time that it was transforming the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons into a completely new and improved system of mechanics, and how many hours I would spend in the years to come pouring over their manuals, supplements, and novels.

Though they had some new releases this year, I was really interested in getting more information about their big 2017 release, the science fantasy game Starfinder RPG. We covered this when it was originally announced back in May, but a lot of questions were left open.

I sat down with James Sutter, the Creative Director of Starfinder, and author of two Pathfinder Tales novels, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine. He is also continuing his work as the editor of the Pathfinder Tales line of books. Together with the work as the new Creative Director of Starfinder, this means it may be hard to fit in the writing of a third novel, but as a fan I’ll keep my fingers crossed. For now, he’s definitely got his hands full in bringing Starfinder RPG into the world.

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GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 2 – Gaming Sequels and Expansions

GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 2 – Gaming Sequels and Expansions

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ImplodingKittensThe Best Four Days of Gaming have passed. I began my 2016 GenCon coverage with an earlier discussion of a handful of new and upcoming games. There will be more of those to come, as there was no shortage of new games worthy of attention, but a lot of great games at GenCon this year weren’t entirely new, they were either expansions to existing games, or sequels or variants.

Not all of these games are quite available to the public yet. For example, the wildly popular card game Exploding Kittens (Amazon) had copies of its first expansion, Imploding Kittens, available. The expansion featured only 20 new cards to the game, including several new game mechanics and allowing for a 5-player game. The size of the expansion package is because it also included a human-sized “cone of shame,” to be used on the first person who forgets that the “Reverse” card has been played. It is unclear whether this highly-amusing feature will be part of the public release of the expansion.

And yes, some potty-humor aside, this expansion falls in the “Safe for Work” category. (The core game of Exploding Kittens has a NSFW edition.)

So I’ll cover a mix of games and, when possible, link you to information on how to acquire those that are available.

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GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 1 – New Games

GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 1 – New Games

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Pikachu shows up at GenCon 2016
Pikachu shows up at GenCon 2016

The Best Four Days in Gaming has come to Indianapolis, and again I’ve made my way into the dragon’s den to seek out new and interesting games. The scope of GenCon has definitely expanded over the decade or so that I have been attending and covering it, largely swallowing up downtown Indianapolis. This year, the Lucas Oil Stadium used by the Indianapolis Pacers has become the newest participant, becoming home to the popular “True Dungeon” live dungeon crawl adventure (which, one of these years, I will actually participate in). Even the types of games have expanded. Though in the past, Pokemon has had an incredibly sparse presence at GenCon, two giant inflatable Pikachu’s dangling from the ceiling have indicated a change in that trend.

In addition to the convention expanding in size, the number of games has become truly dizzying. The game company iEllo, best known for their breakaway hit, the monster-ravages-city game King of Tokyo (and its sequel King of New York), hosted a party on Thursday evening that I was fortunate enough to be invited to, and I ended up sitting next to Eric Summerer of The Dice Tower podcast. He discussed just the sheer difficulty generated by the volume of games being produced, and how it affects not just individual game consumers, but also those of us who spend some portion of our time trying to make sense of which games to discuss. What is the best way to present information about quality games, when the general quality across the industry has become so high and there are so many publishers seeking to get the word out on their new products?

One overwhelming trend in the gaming industry is expansions and sequel games, and that’s going to be the focus of my “part 2” review. For now, I’m going to focus on brand new games, as I think they deserve a bit more attention. And by “new games” I mean brand new games. There are some fantastic new games in the Legendary series from Upper Deck, for example, but since they largely apply an existing game mechanic, I’m counting them among the sequels. Definitely watch for that.

Now, on to some of the new and upcoming games …

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On SF Conventions and Brexit

On SF Conventions and Brexit

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Brexit vote“Brilliant!” I thought — this was three and a half years ago, you understand. These days I’m more likely to use the word “awesome.” But I digress…

I had received an invite to a Science Fiction convention in Luxembourg. I was expecting a relaxing weekend, sitting in an empty room. You see, everybody knows Luxembourg is tiny, and since they never had a convention before this, the organisers were doomed to struggle for numbers. They might get twenty people, I thought. Thirty tops…

I’ve never been so wrong in my life. The place was swarming with people. In fact, it was the largest Con I had ever attended outside North America. But where the hell did they all come from?

Europe, of course.

My mistake was to think of Luxembourg as a country. Well, it is, but that’s not what’s important here. What’s important, is that it no longer possesses any borders. People arrived from Paris and Brussels by trains that never even slowed down when they passed from one state to another. They drove by car from Germany and only realised they had crossed over from their own country when they started spotting road signs in French.

Then, they reached the Con — thousands of them, overwhelmingly young, buying wonderful Belgian frites with the same currency they already had in their pockets.

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Total Pulp Victory: A Report on Windy City Pulp & Paper 2016, Part I

Total Pulp Victory: A Report on Windy City Pulp & Paper 2016, Part I

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Pulp vendors at Windy City Pulp 2016-small

Pulp and book vendors at Windy City Pulp 2016

My favorite Chicagoland convention, by a pretty wide margin, is Windy City Pulp and Paper. It’s organized by Doug Ellis and a team of volunteers, and this year it took place from April 22-24 in Lombard, Illinois, its home for the last decade or so.

It’s a little strange that Windy City has bubbled to the top of my list. I entertain myself in numerous ways at conventions, but I especially enjoy a robust reading program, lively programming and panels, and late-night conversations at parties. Windy City has none of that. Sure, they have their Sunday New Pulp reading series, and the Friday night auction, and those are fun. But at heart, Windy City is mostly just a giant Dealer’s Room.

But what a Dealer’s Room! Dozens and dozens of dealers from all over the country packed into the ballroom of the Westin Hotel, selling pulps, vintage paperbacks, DVDs, artwork, comics, rare books, new books, small press publications, posters, and so much more. It’s the kind of Dealer’s Room you can get lost in for days, and for a lifetime pulp and book collector like me, it’s paradise.

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How Does Story Happen? An Interview with Jane S. Fancher

How Does Story Happen? An Interview with Jane S. Fancher

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Ring of Lightning Jane S Fancher-small Ring of Intrigue Jane S Fancher-small Ring of Destiny Jane S Fancher-small

In my report on the 2016 Nebula Awards weekend, I talked about my two-part interview with SF and fantasy writer Jane S. Fancher, author of the Groundties trilogy and the Dance of the Rings novels. (It turned into a two-part interview because the memory on my new iPhone maxed out while recording CJ Cherryh’s epic Grand Master talk, and my first attempt at an interview lasted all of three minutes. Fortunately, Jane was understanding enough to pick up our interview 24 hours later.)

The Dance of the Rings novels were some of the first review copies I ever received, back in the late 90s when we were first getting the review site SF Site off the ground, so they meant a lot to me personally, and it was a delight to finally meet Jane in person. Turns out we had a lot in common, not the least of which was fond memories of the 90s comic scene (especially WaRP Graphics, publishers of ElfQuest, where Jane got her start in the industry), and a fascination with SF publishing. She was kind enough to share her stories of breaking into the industry, the tumultuous ups and downs of starting with short-lived Warner Questar, publisher of her first three novels, and switching to DAW for her first fantasy series.

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