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September/October Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

September/October Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

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cc-finaly-at-worldcon-2016-small david-gerrold-at-worldcon-2016-small sarah-pinsker-at-worldcon-2016-small

the-magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction-september-october-2016-smallWhen I was at Worldcon last month, I attended the Friday morning reading group hosted by F&SF. It featured five writers reading their stories from the magazine — Cat Rambo, David Gerrold (above middle), Sarah Pinsker (right), William Ledbetter, and Esther Friesner — and was moderated by editor C.C. Finlay (above left).

It was a lot of fun… and it certainly built up anticipation for the upcoming September/October issue. Two of the authors, David Gerrold and Sarah Pinsker, read extremely enticing excerpts from stories appearing in that issue. At the end of the panel Charles Finlay announced early copies were available in the back. I got in line to get one, but ended up giving my precious copy to someone at the con, and I wasn’t able to retrieve it before flying back to Illinois (*sob*). So I had to wait impatiently for several weeks until the issue arrived in my local bookstore, and I snapped up a copy a few days ago.

It’s a David Gerrold Special Issue, featuring two new novellas by Gerrold, a memoir, and an appreciation by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, “The Amazing Mr. Gerrold.” It’s F&SF‘s first author special in over a decade, and I’m glad to see Finlay bringing the idea back. (Gerrold is having quite a renaissance in the pages of F&SF… his novelette “The Thing on the Shelf,” featuring a horror writer nominated for the coveted Stoker Award, appeared last issue.)

The issue’s “The Dunsmuir Horror,” a Lovecraft pastiche starring author David Gerold, is both funny and very disturbing. Written in the form of a letter to Gordon van Gelder, F&SF‘s publisher and former editor, from the narrator as he recovers in a mental institution (as I said… very Lovecraftian), the story relates Gerrod’s investigations into a sinister American town that tries to lure weary travelers into stopping.

It’s an exceptional piece and a very fun read, and already getting some good notice. Here’s Clancy Weeks at Tangent Online.

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Can-Con: The Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature

Can-Con: The Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature

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covergame-badgeLast weekend I attended Can-Con as a Special Guest. The Guests of Honour were Eric Choi (Science), Tanya Huff (Author), Sam Morgan (Agent, JABberwocky Literary Agency), and Sheila Williams (Editor, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine).

It’s a small con, as these things go, and as the full name of it indicates, its mandate limits it to speculative arts and literature in Canada – though I don’t think the attendees felt much in the way of limitation. There were workshops, and panels, and publishers and parties. The workshops covered building (both worlds and plots), researching the science, and  using mythic worlds. The organizers cleverly scheduled the workshops outside of the regular programming, so attendees didn’t have to choose between workshopping or panelling.
They also did something I’ve never seen before, they turned the entire con into an adventure game, where attendees who wished to could create characters, gain points by attending panels, book launches, getting autographs, etc, and then, with sufficient points, challenge monsters.

There were four tracks of panels, plus two extra tracks that covered readings, interviews, agent pitches, etc. The panels themselves covered topics as diverse as building a reading list to cultural barriers to translation, to Earth as a terraforming project, to superhero TV, to Lovecraft and Race – you know what? Check the website and go over the schedule yourself. I defy you to find an hour where there wasn’t something you would have liked to attend.

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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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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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