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Category: Editor’s Blog

The blog posts of Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones and Editor John O’Neill

New Treasures: Lords of Waterdeep

New Treasures: Lords of Waterdeep

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Lords of WaterdeepWell, the holidays are finally over and all the gifts have been put away. Unless you’re like me and you piled them all in the living room so you can gaze at them happily.

My family has started to complain, though. I asked for a lot of games, and consequently this year’s haul is a little harder to step over. I can’t help it — ever since I was a kid, I’ve equated the holidays with gaming. There’s just something joyful about gathering all your closest friends and family together for a friendly game of strategy around the kitchen table at Christmas. And then, crushing them all with an iron fist.

Of course, anyone can crush their opponents in a routine game, as I’m fond of saying (every time I lose, without fail, my friends tell me). It’s only the most challenging games, those that add those rare elements of intrigue and power politics, that yield a true sense of triumph.

Forget strategy — I want a game where I can play to my strengths. Backstabbing and subterfuge, that’s what I’m good at.

Which is why I’ve been so interested in Lords of Waterdeep, the new Dungeons & Dragons board game from Wizards of the Coast.

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John R. Fultz’s Seven Kings on Sale Today

John R. Fultz’s Seven Kings on Sale Today

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seven-kingsJohn R. Fultz took the world by storm with his first novel, Seven Princes, published last January. In a starred review, Library Journal praised it as “A stand-out fantasy series from an author with an exceptional talent for characterization and world building,” and io9 labeled it “Epic with a capital EPIC.”

Seven Princes was just the down payment. The next installment arrives today. Seven Kings is the second of the Books of the Shaper, one of most hotly anticipated epic fantasy series on the market.

In the jungles of Khyrei, an escaped slave seeks vengeance and finds the key to a savage revolution.

In the drought-stricken Stormlands, the Twin Kings argue the destiny of their kingdom: one walks the path of knowledge, the other treads the road to war.

Beyond the haunted mountains King Vireon confronts a plague of demons bent on destroying his family.

With intrigue, sorcery, and war, Seven Kings continues the towering fantasy epic that began with Seven Princes.

John published three highly acclaimed short stories in the print incarnation of Black Gate: “Oblivion Is the Sweetest Wine” (BG 12), “Return of the Quill” (BG 13), and “The Vintages of Dream” (BG 15). He was this week’s featured writer in our Black Gate Online Fiction line with his sword & sorcery tale, “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye,” available free online here.

You can read last year’s announcement on Seven Princes here; and we were proud to offer readers the complete first chapter of Seven Kings right here last month.

Seven Kings was published by Orbit on January 15, 2013. It is 496 pages in trade paperback, available for $15.99 ($9.99 ePub and PDF). Learn more at the Orbit website.

Read the first chapter of Seven Kings here.

Pathfinder Online Reaches $1,000,000 Kickstarter Goal

Pathfinder Online Reaches $1,000,000 Kickstarter Goal

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PathFinder Online-smallPathfinder Online, a next-generation massively-multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) fantasy game jointly developed by Goblinworks and Paizo Publishing and funded through Kickstarter, reached its ambitious $1 million goal with scant hours to spare late this evening.

The project had until approximately 7:00 pm Central time to reach its stated goal or receive none of the pledged funding. It passed that goal with some four hours to spare, and ended its campaign with $1,091,194 in total pledges.

Pathfinder Online is a fantasy sandbox MMO developed by Goblinworks, based on the Pathfinder RPG from Paizo Publishing. One of its unique features is the developer’s promise to use democratic “Crowdforging” to prioritize feature development. Some of the other highlights include no classes, a skill system that avoids grinding, player structures, and meaningful trade.

The $1,091,194 haul makes Pathfinder Online one of the 10 largest video game projects in Kickstarter history. The campaign attained one stretch goal (adding Gnomes), but fell short of the $100,000 goal that would have added an additional WizKids Pathfinder Battles pre-painted plastic miniature.

One of the most intriguing perks for supporters was The Emerald Spire superdungeon, a book packed with additional content from a who’s who of modern RPG superstars, including Ed Greenwood, Erik Mona, Frank Mentzer, James L. Sutter, Keith Baker, Jordan Weisman, Mike Stackpole, Wolfgang Baur, Rick Baker, and many others.

For complete details see the Kickstarter page.

Vintage Treasures: The Fox Woman & Other Stories by A. Merritt

Vintage Treasures: The Fox Woman & Other Stories by A. Merritt

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The Fox Woman-smallI’m a pulp fan, and I have been for decades. The next time I’m marooned on a desert island, I’m taking as many magazines from the 1930s and ’40s as I can cram in the life raft.

Pulp novels though… you know, that’s another story. Ask me to name the great fantasy novels of the pulp era, and I run out of air pretty quickly. The fast action and colorful settings of great pulp fiction seem to work best at short length, which maybe explains why the era’s biggest names — H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith — wrote almost exclusively at that length.

Perhaps that also explains why the years have not been kind to the most popular fantasy novelists of the pulp era — Otis Adelbert Kline, Ray Cummings, John Taine, L. Ron Hubbard, Ralph Milne Farley. All were prolific novelists before the end of World War II and virtually all are long out of print.

That’s especially true of the man who was perhaps the biggest name in pulp fantasy: A. Merritt. For decades, his name on the cover of a pulp magazine guaranteed sales in the hundreds of thousands and his novels remained in print late into the ’70s.

I first tried Merritt at the age of fourteen — already a pulp fan, I’d read more than a few breathless reviews of his work from several sources. I found a copy of his 1931 novel, The Face in the Abyss, in the spinning racks of a used book store in Ottawa and snatched it up with considerable excitement… which quickly turned to disappointment.

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Seize Control of the Galaxy with Eclipse

Seize Control of the Galaxy with Eclipse

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Eclipse by AsmodeeI spent the better part of last year trying to track down this game. I first heard about it via the excited chatter at BoardGameGeek, where it bubbled near the top of their Board Game Rank, displacing such beloved games as Settlers of Catan, War of the Ring, and Civilization.

And, of course, it was no longer available. Released in 2011, the first printing sold out in record time and what few copies were still in the channel were commanding $200 or more. Publisher Asmodee announced it would not be available again until the second edition (which fixed some minor gameplay and production issues) was ready in late 2012.

It was a long wait. And the temptation to spring for one of those rapidly vanishing first edition copies was strong – especially as the year rolled on and there was no sign of the new edition. But patience is its own reward, or something. Anyway, it finally arrived, and I now have a copy in my hot little hands.

Eclipse is a game of interstellar conquest and intrigue, meaning you move starships around a colorful board and blow stuff up. That’s really all I needed to know to want a copy more than life itself. But we have a little room left, so I’ll pad this out by copying some stuff from the back of the box.

Apparently you can play as one of several races. I’m guessing the chubby green guy, blue alien, and bald supermodel on the cover are just a few of the choices. I picture my race of supermodels conquering the galaxy in slender battlecruisers, crushing all opposition beneath their stiletto heels, and suddenly I understand why copies were going for $200. I mean, damn. Now I want two copies.

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Locus Online on the Best SF & Fantasy Short Fiction of the 20th and 21st Centuries

Locus Online on the Best SF & Fantasy Short Fiction of the 20th and 21st Centuries

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The Nine Billion Names of GodTwo weeks ago, we reported that Locus Online, the web-based offshoot of the newspaper of the science fiction and fantasy field, had announced the results of their ambitious poll to determine the best science fiction and fantasy novels of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The complete poll had three additional categories: novella, novelette, and short story. Since all votes were write-ins, compiling the short fiction results took a while longer, but LO‘s diligent editor Mark R. Kelly finally published them Saturday, January 5th. Here are the Top 10 vote-getters in the short fiction categories:

20th Century Short Story

  1. Clarke, Arthur C.: “The Nine Billion Names of God” (1953)
  2. Le Guin, Ursula K.: “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973)
  3. Ellison, Harlan: “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ said the Ticktockman” (1965)
  4. Ellison, Harlan: “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967)
  5. Clarke, Arthur C.: “The Star” (1955)
  6. Bradbury, Ray: “A Sound of Thunder” (1952)
  7. Heinlein, Robert A.: “All You Zombies–” (1959)
  8. Gibson, William: “Johnny Mnemonic” (1981)
  9. Tiptree, James, Jr.: “The Screwfly Solution” (1977)
  10. Jackson, Shirley: “The Lottery” (1948)

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Gerry Anderson, April 14, 1929 – December 26, 2012

Gerry Anderson, April 14, 1929 – December 26, 2012

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Space 1999I read on Tor.com that television writer, producer, and supermarionation pioneer Gerry Anderson died last week.

His name may not mean much to modern audiences, but Gerry Anderson was beloved among science fiction fans of the 1960s-1980s — and boy, did we love him. He had a long and fruitful career, especially with science fiction-themed children’s shows such as Fireball XL5 (1962), Stingray (’64–65), Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (67-68), Joe 90 (68-69), and his biggest success, Thunderbirds (1965-1966).

Most of Anderson’s TV shows were co-produced with his wife, Sylvia Anderson. They were married from 1960 to 1981. Sylvia frequently directed the overdub sessions for the supermarionation programs, and even provided the voices of many characters, including Lady Penelope of the Thunderbirds.

Thunderbirds may have been his biggest success — and the defining kid’s show for an entire generation of science fiction fans — but there was nothing that could get my young heart rate up like the opening credits for Joe 90.

Gerry’s television career culminated in Space: 1999, the groundbreaking science-fiction television series that was the last Gerry and Sylvia Anderson co-production, and the most expensive series produced for British television up to that time. It ran for two seasons, from 1975 to 1977, and starred Martin Landau, the painfully wooden Barbara Bain, Barry Morse, and (in season two) Catherine Schell as Maya, the shape-changing alien hottie.

While it had an original premise and showcased enough intriguing plotlines to captivate its teenage fans, Space: 1999 is primarily remembered today for the superb results of effects artist Brian Johnson, whose detailed model work was hugely influential on Alien and other films that decade. His work was so impressive that George Lucas visited Johnson during production and offered him the role of effects supervisor for Star Wars. He later received an Academy Award for his work on The Empire Strikes Back.

Gerry Anderson continued to work well into the last decade; his New Captain Scarlet premiered in the UK in February 2005, and was said to be the most expensive children’s programme ever made in the UK. He died peacefully in his sleep on December 26, 2012 at the age of 83.

Vintage Treasures: Andre Norton’s Velvet Shadows

Vintage Treasures: Andre Norton’s Velvet Shadows

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Andre Norton Velvet Shadows-smallMy home is pretty cool. There are teetering piles of unread books everywhere, ready to topple like late August sunflowers. And if I only had time to review a few, it might be even cooler.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who lives here. Occasionally, the other inhabitants find something that catches their eye, and when I see that happen I grab a notepad and try and coerce some comments out of them. It’s not the perfect family dynamic, but at least it’s something we do together.

I don’t get to choose what my family reads, obviously, so these reviews-by-proxy tend to be an odd lot (the last one was The House of Dead Maids, which I discovered my daughter enjoying a while back). Last weekend, I noticed my wife had casually picked up a copy of Andre Norton’s Velvet Shadows. I debated for a second before grabbing my notepad. Andre Norton, vintage paperback, gothic romance… Well, close enough to Black Gate territory for our purposes.

What follows is a raw transcript of our conversation, which she agreed to have published here only after I promised not to use her real name on the Internet. Not everyone has a taste for fame, I guess.

John O’Neill: Well, how was it?

Unidentified Reviewer #1: It was terrible.

JO: Okay that’s a little more, uh… concise than our usual reviews. What else you can tell us?

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Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Best Fantasy Releases of 2012: Jones, Fultz, Cole, Lawrence

Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Best Fantasy Releases of 2012: Jones, Fultz, Cole, Lawrence

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bones-of-the-old-ones-contest-win11The editors and staff of Black Gate are very proud to note that the Barnes & Noble Book Club’s annual list of The Best Fantasy Releases is thick with Black Gate authors, including Howard Andrew Jones, John R. Fultz, Myke Cole, and Mark Lawrence. Here’s reviewer Paul Goat Allen:

2012 was a surprisingly strong year for fantasy… In fact, several debut novels made my year’s best fantasy list: John R. Fultz’s Seven Princes, Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed, Myke Cole’s Control Point, and Scourge of the Betrayer by Jeff Salyards.

Mark Lawrence’s sequel to his debut novel Prince of Thorns was absolutely breathtaking; John R. Fultz’s debut was flawless epic fantasy… The sheer diversity of fantasy releases this year was impressive. From the epic fantasy sagas of Fultz, Weeks, and Lawrence to the glorious sword-and-sorcery adventure of Howard Andrew Jones and Saladin Ahmed to the military-powered fantasy of Myke Cole and Joe Abercrombie, the releases of 2012 were as diverse as the realms in which they were set.

While we’re pleased to see Mr’s Jones, Fultz, Cole, and Lawrence get some well-deserved recognition, I can’t say we’re too surprised. Black Gate readers were treated to early work from all four authors — and we recently published generous excerpts from both Prince of Thorns and The Bones of the Old Ones.

And you can read an advance excerpt from the sure-fire candidate for next year’s list, John R. Fultz’s exciting Seven Kings, the sequel to Seven Princes, on sale January 15, 2013.

Howard Andrew Jones is the Managing Editor of Black Gate magazine; his Dabir & Asim stories, “Sight of Vengeance” and “Whispers from the Stone,” appeared in Black Gate 10 and 12. John R. Fultz has published four stories in our pages; his epic sword & sorcery tale, “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye,” will be published this Sunday as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction line.

Myke Cole’s “Naktong Flow” appeared in Black Gate 13 and Mark Lawrence’s “Bulletproof” will be published as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction line late this Winter.

Paul Goat Allen’s complete list of The Best Fantasy Releases of 2012 is available here.

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in November

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in November

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theavengers2012posterWe’ve had a great fall here at Black Gate: more folks visited us than at any time in our history, and we’ve had steady increases in readership every month since June. We’ve nearly doubled our traffic since this time last year — which would be terrific, if we could just get all you folks to wipe your feet before stepping on the carpet. In any event, thanks for the support, and here’s to an even better 2013.

The most popular fiction at Black Gate in November was:

  1. “Godmother Llizard,” by C.S.E. Cooney
  2. Pathfinder Tales: Queen of Thorns, Chapter One, by Dave Gross
  3. “The Whoremaster of Pald,” by Harry Connolly
  4. “The Poison Well,” by Judith Berman
  5. “Awakening,” by Judith Berman
  6. “A Phoenix in Darkness,” by Donald S. Crankshaw
  7. “The Quintessence of Absence,” by Sean McLachlan
  8. “The Daughter’s Dowry,” by Aaron Bradford Starr
  9. “The Duelist,” by Jason Thummel
  10. “The Moonstones of- Sor Lunaru,” by Joe Bonadonna

And the Top 50 articles of the month were:

  1. Where Life is Cheap and Secrets are Plentiful: Vox Day’s A Magic Broken
  2. Avengers Commentary
  3. Teaching and Fantasy Literature Breaking and Entering in the House of John Gardner
  4. Goth Chick News: Gird Your Loins
  5. Art of the Genre: Art of the Disappearing MMORPG

    6. …

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