There’s been action and horror in films since the very beginning — but when did the now-distinctive “action/horror” genre come about? Join Black Gate‘s E. E. Knight on a journey across decades in search of the milestones in this longstanding admixture of spooks and dukes. Aliens, bugs, skeletons, vampires and…RVs? They’re all here for this eclectic romp through movie history.
The literary devices and themes that lie at the heart of Sword-and-Sorcery far predate the twentieth century. Join Black Gate‘s Joe McCullough on a quest back in time to visit some of the myths and legendry that led to the genre we know and love. In this first installment, McCullough takes a look at the battle-torn life of Hereward the Wake, who thrived during the time of William the Conqueror.
This week, Black Gate lets the author of the Vampire Earth and Age of Fire series of novels take you on a trip through literature and film to illuminate the importance of morality in the fantasy field. “We all need ideals,” says E. E. Knight, “gods and heroes to look up to who offer us answers and examples to the Big Questions about right and wrong, life and death.” From The Lord of the Rings to Blade Runner, from George Lucas to Carl Jung, Knight sees common moral threads coursing throughout all of the best fantasy. Intrigued?
James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (1948–2007) was one of the most popular authors in the fantasy field for decades. Writing under the pseudonym Robert Jordan, he continued the adventures of Robert E. Howard’s Conan in a series of pastiches in the ’80s, and built a name as a new fantasist worth watching. This was followed by his epic series of unprecedented scope, The Wheel of Time, which became a monstrous bestseller that delighted legions of fans — even as some began to fear that Jordan’s popularity and style would corrupt the genre’s soul. Now he’s suddenly gone, leaving his immense masterwork unfinished.
What will Robert Jordan’s enduring impact on the field be? Have we lost a revered master? A prodigious hack? Some combination of the two? Black Gate‘s Leo Grin analyses the meteoric rise and tragic fall of one of the most influential fantasists of modern times.
In this, the final chapter of Black Gate‘s deep, rich look at the extravagant worlds of the writer fondly remembered by his Cthulhuoid nickname Klarkash-Ton, explorer Ryan Harvey takes us on a tour of several of the prose-poet’s more obscure creations. From a fast-sinking Atlantis to a dying Red Planet to an extra-solar world unlike any ever put to paper, these imaginative visions may have been seldom used by Smith, but they ultimately would play host to some of his most memorable and well-regarded tales.
As Robert E. Howard’s Conan was marauding through the pages of Weird Tales, a young authoress named Catherine Moore began crafting unique adventures of a S&S heroine in the same magazine. In doing so, she blazed a trail for female fantasists to follow for decades to come. Join Black Gate‘s Ryan Harvey for a look at Jirel of Joiry, the very first female Sword-and-Sorcery series character.
It’s a well-known tale in Sword-and-Sorcery circles: in 1954 the legendary fantasist Poul Anderson wrote one of the classics of the subgenre, a thrilling homage to the myths and Icelandic sagas of old titled The Broken Sword. Over fifteen years later Anderson heavily revised the book, and ever since readers have been debating which edition is better. Black Gate‘s Ryan Harvey leads us on a textual journey through both versions, giving you all the information you need to come to your own conclusions.
“A far northern continent in its younger days before glaciers claimed it, when wizards and elder gods and wily thieves and greedy moneylenders crisscrossed its steamy jungles and ebony mountains and opulent cities.” That is how Ryan Harvey introduces us to Hyperborea, the second invented world of Clark Ashton Smith’s to be put under Black Gate‘s critical microscope. Join us on a journey to one of fantasy’s most delightfully strange milieus.
Clark Ashton Smith ranks as one of the most uniquely talented fantasists of the twentieth century, having penned a bewildering array of bizarre, erotic, thrillingly imaginative stories for the legendary 1930s-era pulp Weird Tales. In this first of a series, Black Gate‘s Ryan Harvey introduces you a haunted medieval French forest teeming with monks and vampires, lovers and succubi, knights and gargoyles. It’s Smith’s lasciviously lush and monstrously macabre woodland known as Averoigne.
The prolific David Gemmell, who died July 28, 2006, left behind a profound contribution to heroic fantasy, starting with the novel Legend and continuing with Knights of Dark Renown, Dark Moon, the recent Troy series, and literally dozens of others.
Wayne MacLaurin and Steve Tompkins offer a fresh new look at a legacy that spans thirty novels over twenty-two years. This in-depth tribute offers new understanding for his fans, and plenty of enticement for those who have not yet read Gemmell’s work.