Browsed by
Category: Essays

Sci-ficionados: Our Insatiable Hunger for Stories, and What it Means for the Human Race

Sci-ficionados: Our Insatiable Hunger for Stories, and What it Means for the Human Race

Comments 7 comments

third eyeFans of science fiction and fantasy tend to have an innate curiosity, one that is not sated simply by day-to-day life and the world as it is. They cannot content themselves with the rote script written for them.

There are people all around who are content simply to go to school, get a job, have a family, raise kids to follow the same formula, retire. And some of these people are well informed — they read the news to see what’s going on. They have hobbies. They like to be entertained — they watch sitcoms to have a laugh at the status quo. They may even watch some of those movies with zombies and giant robots and superheroes to let a little bit of their imagination off the leash: what if this predictable old world were shaken up by something like that?

But the real sci-ficionados, they aren’t content with an occasional, half-winking excursion into the game of what-if before settling back down onto the landing pad of Reality. Because they recognize, deep down, that this is not the only possible world, and that this so-called reality is also utterly strange. They want to know about nano-tech and parasites and the Inquisition and how and why homo sapiens developed a larger prefrontal cortex and what the hell are dreams anyway? And a hundred, a thousand, a million other things. Why is this society the way it is, and is it foreordained that we must follow this script?

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: John Cleese as Holmes – Take One

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: John Cleese as Holmes – Take One

Comments 5 comments

Cleese_ElementaryJohn Cleese is best known, of course, as the sardonic Q opposite Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond in Die Another Day. Though not as well remembered, he also played a key role in the British comedy troupe, Monty Python.

I’m kidding!

On January 18, 1973, the final episode of Python’s third season aired. It was Cleese’s last episode with the group, which would continue on for one more season. That very same same day, Cleese’s next project aired – Comedy Playhouse Presents: Elementary, My Dear Watson. It was produced by Barry Took, who had brought the Python members together.

I’m going to tackle the Achilles heel (really, it’s more like the entire torso) of this show, the plot: or rather, the lack of one. It’s barely a story. Try to stick with me, and no, I’m not leaving things out: it really goes like this…

The show opens in a room full of dead lawyers, slumped over their desks, each with a knife in the back.  Some would say that’s a pretty good start, but let’s stay focused. Thus the show’s subtitle, The Strange Case of the Dead Solicitors. A policeman and a secretary exchange what are intended to be witty comments, which immediately brings the lame laugh track to the viewer’s attention. This is not the most robust laugh track you’ll come across.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Ronald Howard Dons the Deerstalker

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Ronald Howard Dons the Deerstalker

Comments 2 comments

RonHoward2SmileArthur Wontner was the first great screen Holmes of the sound era, followed by Basil Rathbone. Wontner was 56 when he first donned the deerstalker and looked older. Rathbone was 54 for his last Holmes film, though he came across as younger.

I’ve already written a post here at Black Gate (Go ahead: read that before continuing on with this one. You know you want to…) on Ronald Howard’s under-appreciated performance as Holmes in Sheldon Reynolds’ television series, which was filmed in France. Howard, son of British actor Leslie Howard (familiar to Bogart fans), was 36 and portrayed a much younger Holmes than the previous standards. His Watson, H. Marion Crawford, was less of a doofus than we’d seen from Nigel Bruce (Rathbone) and Ian Fleming and Ian Hunter (Wontner).

It’s Elementary – Rathbone was not impressed with his successor: “All I can say is, I think he’s too young for the role. I never thought of Holmes being so young…”

While the scripts often left something to be desired, Howard and Crawford gave fresh performances in the 39 episodes they filmed. The first two, while self-supporting, actually formed a two-parter, by design.

The second episode, The Case of Lady Beryl, took place immediately after the conclusion of the first, The Case of the Cunningham Heritage. Reynolds was a savvy operator and he was hedging his bets. If the pilot episode failed to sell, he could splice the two together and sell it as a filler movie. However, the series was picked up and the two episodes aired in back-to-back weeks in October of 1954 on NBC stations in America. Today, we’re going to look at those two episodes.

…

Read More Read More

The Thing In the Lower Rack: A Tale of Truly Lovecraftian Experience

The Thing In the Lower Rack: A Tale of Truly Lovecraftian Experience

Comments 6 comments

dishwasher baby-smallHP Lovecraft once said that “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the-” wait, wait a second. If I never have to hear that quote again I’ll die happy.

HP Lovecraft also said:

One of my strongest and most persistent wishes being to achieve, momentarily, the illusion of some strange suspension or violation of the galling limitations of time, space, and natural law which for ever imprison us and frustrate our curiosity about the infinite cosmic spaces beyond the radius of our sight and analysis.

And he also said:

There will always be a small percentage of persons who feel a burning curiosity about unknown outer space, and a burning desire to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest.

So with that in mind, there is a certain way my family has always loaded the dishwasher.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Elric & “The Jade Man’s Eyes”

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Elric & “The Jade Man’s Eyes”

Comments 7 comments

Jade_FlasingBeing an avid Black Gate reader, you know that we devoted a lot of attention to the various works of Conan’s creator last year with our ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series. I was very much a latecomer to Conan, as well as Howard in general. I’ve made up a lot of ground on Solomon Kane, El Borak and others, but I’ve still got a slew of Tor paperbacks featuring the Cimmerian that I haven’t read yet, among other stuff.

However, one fantasy series that I delved far deeper into at a much younger age was Michael Moorcock’s saga of Elric and the Eternal Champion. To my middle school, Dungeons and Dragons-playing mind, that stuff, with those awesome DAW covers, was pure gold. In fact, White Wolf would have been FAR better served to use one of those instead of the craptacular cover they put on Elric: The Stealer of Souls in 1998. It is beyond awful and I’m not going to include it in this post. You can Google it if you doubt me, but I’d take my word for it.

I was going through some boxes of books that aren’t on my shelves and I came across the Dell paperback of Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords #2. First published in hardback in 1974, it included a new story of the pale Melnibonian, “The Jade Man’s Eyes.” And with a Frank Frazetta cover, it’s miles ahead of the aforementioned White Wolf cover as well.

This collection has an interesting introduction that talks about Howard’s Conan as the birth of sword and sorcery (remember: forty-plus years ago and pre-internet, what we now regard as common knowledge and what’s popular and respected often wasn’t the case then).

Carter tells of the creation of The Swordsmen and Sorceror’s Guild of America, Ltd. (SAGA), including himself, L. Sprague de Camp and John Jakes. Fritz Lieber, Mike Moorcock and Jack Vance were added soon after, followed by Poul Anderson and Andre Norton. I imagine you’ll see a SAGA post here somewhere down the line.

…

Read More Read More

The Refusal To Sprawl: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven

The Refusal To Sprawl: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven

Comments 1 comment

Station Eleven-smallTo peruse the book jacket of Station Eleven, one would think that this novel has a traditional main character (Kirsten). This, like the utterly misleading picture on the front –– the yellow tents and curving wall never crop up, so far as I can tell –– is a lie.

Station Eleven is akin in many ways to A Song Of Ice And Fire in that it positions a dozen main characters and asks us to follow them all, sometimes for moments, sometimes for chapters, in what amounts to a kind of prose chorale. The effort is largely successful, but it also suggests a grander canvas, one that Mandel, who surely thinks of herself as a writer of literary work, has no intention of pursuing.

Contrast with Mr. Martin: when he sets his dozen, then fifty, characters in motion, he follows every one, rabbit hole after rabbit hole. This is not to say that either approach is more valid than the other, but it’s telling; the one method begets only a single book, the other a series or even a cycle.

Once again, I find myself puzzled by the (apparently necessary) differences between genre and literary publishing tropes. I honestly don’t think Mandel even considered expanding her storylines, or following her characters farther afield. Expansion and long-form digressions are all but expected in fantasy and science fiction, and the short novel (say, Flowers For Algernon) is a rare bird these days, and getting rarer.

But in nominally literary work? One book, and you’re out. Covers closed, shelve the title. Move along, people. Nothing more to see here.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: More Playing Sherlock Holmes – 221B Baker Street

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: More Playing Sherlock Holmes – 221B Baker Street

Comments 4 comments

221B_BoxLast week, I looked at the reissued Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (SHCD), originally released in 1981. That game was undoubtedly influenced by 221B Baker Street: The Master Detective Game (221B), which had come out a few years earlier in 1975.

In 221B, two to six players take on the role of Sherlock Holmes, though there’s a reference in the rulebook to being “Watsons.” It makes no difference, but I’m gonna go with being the world’s first private consulting detective, myself.

The game comes with 20 Case cards, generic, colored plastic player pieces, Scotland Yard and Skeleton Key “cards,” a solution checklist pad and a slim booklet with all the rules, clues and case solutions.

Unlike SHCD, which included a map, 221B uses a board. Players start and finish at 221B Baker Street, moving to various locations on the board, such as the Apothecary, Hotel, Museum, Tobacconist, etc. Each location is assigned a number in each case. When the player moves to the location, they look up the corresponding number in the clue section of the rulebook. The clue, such as “Earl Longworth has constant headaches” is recorded on the solution checklist – kept secret from other players.

…

Read More Read More

Discovering Robert E Howard: The New Conan RPG

Discovering Robert E Howard: The New Conan RPG

Comments 5 comments

ConanRPG_QuickstartThere’s a massively successful Conan Kickstarter wrapping up this week.

I’m a fan of Mongoose’s Conan RPG. It ran from 2004 through 2010, with over three dozen books between the 1st and 2nd Editions. It used the Open Game License. Well, dice rollers will once again be wreaking havoc throughout the Hyborian Age. Modiphius Games seems to have hit the jackpot with Robert E Howard’s Conan: Adventures in An Age Undreamed Of.

The base goal of $65,344 was to produce the Core Rulebook. As I type this, the KS is at $393,000. 13 stretch goals have been unlocked, adding 1 adventure book, 1 bestiary, 6 sourcebooks, 2 sets of geomorph tiles, 2 maps and double the art in the Core book. With the late surge successful Kickstarters inevitably get, I expect a few more items to be unlocked. There’s also a slew of add-ons (need a Conan backpack?) you can toss more money at, as well as stuff like a sourcebook tie-in to Monolith’s massively successful Conan board game.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: SH – Consulting Detective

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: SH – Consulting Detective

Comments 9 comments

SHCD_CoverLast week, we talked about the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Game line. Today, we shift to something a bit more in line with this column’s title. Back in 1981, Sleuth Publications produced Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective (SHCD). Expansions, containing additional cases followed and it was also turned in to a PC game. I never played any of these games. Which might make you wonder why I’m doing a post on it now. Well, if you’ve visited this column before, you know that I don’t let little things like that get in my way. However, I have played the 2015 reprint of SHCD and that’s what we’re looking at today.

In the game, you are one of the famed ‘Baker Street Irregulars,’ the ragged street urchins. I’ve read in reviews that you play Wiggins, but that’s not quite the case. But that makes no difference to the game: just wanted to point it out. Holmes is too busy (and presumably Watson is too clueless) to deal with some unsolved crimes, so he sends you (and Wiggins) out to do his job for him. Really, that’s what’s going on.

The game box contains five components. First is a very slender rulebook. There’s also a map of London with quadrant and building numbers. There is a London Directory that tells you where to find people and places on the map. This ID system ties back to the Casebook, which briefly describes the crime (this is where Holmes gives you your marching orders) and contains all the leads you will follow to try and solve the case. And there are some replica newspapers that contain mostly chaff, but there is also a little bit of wheat to be sorted out.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The D&D Adventure (Board) Games

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The D&D Adventure (Board) Games

Comments 10 comments

Wrath_BoxBack in 2010, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) decided to put out a board game that replicated playing 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. Now, 4th Edition was a debacle, but Castle Ravenloft, which was the first of four games in the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Game line, is quite the opposite. It’s a cooperative dungeon crawl with set scenarios but random tile placement and in which the game itself serves as the dungeon master.

I’ve not played Castle Ravenloft (previously discussed here at Black Gate), which uses the iconic D&D setting. However, I am pretty familiar with 2011’s follow-up, Wrath of Ashardalon. Ashardalon is a red dragon and the party explores a cave system to eventually try and stop him. It was followed by The Legend of Drizz’t (here atBlack Gate), based on the NY Times best-selling books by R. A. Salvatore. I have also played this one several times. It looked like that was the end of the series, but last year, WizKids stepped in and in conjunction with WotC, produced a fourth installment, Temple of Elemental Evil (and also here at Black Gate). I own that but haven’t played it yet.

The games are all quite similar. There were a few changes in the first three, but I would say they’re at least 90% the same, maybe even a bit more. Temple added a campaign mode, (where you can keep items between scenarios!) that looks to be a notable change and one I look forward to exploring.

THE PARTS

Wrath_ComponentsWrathEach game comes with about a dozen sheets of interlocking tiles that make up the dungeon, as well as on average, 200 Encounter, Monster, Treasure and Hero cards that are the game play, plus tokens of various types. There’s a nice glossy, short, easy to read rule book as well as a similar Scenario book. And of course, one 20 sided die. But the real draw is the figures.

Each has about 40 heroes and monsters! They are not painted and all are reissues of official D&D minis. But where else are you going to get this many minis for the price? And you can always paint them or buy painted versions (I did that for some) if you want to jazz it up. For me, the components are well worth the cost. It all comes in a HUGE, sturdy box. I sleeved one game and everything still fits (though not in the same places). If you like to buy board games that come with a LOT of stuff, these games absolutely are the kind of thing you’re looking for. And nothing looks cheap: they use solid components.

…

Read More Read More