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One of the Finest Achievements of Heroic Fantasy in the 20th Century: Dilvish, the Damned by Roger Zelazny

One of the Finest Achievements of Heroic Fantasy in the 20th Century: Dilvish, the Damned by Roger Zelazny

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Dilvish, the Damned (Del Rey, November 1982). Cover by Michael Herring

Roger Zelazny was unquestionably one of the great American fantasists of the 20th century. That’s not to say he was perfect. His woman characters were often 2-dimensional, and he paired an unwillingness to work with an outline (“Trust your demon” was his motto) with a fondness for projects that really needed an outline.

But perfection is boring. Zelazny rarely is. Much of Zelazny’s work is on my always-reread list, anyway. He had a nifty way of putting things, and in describing the Amber series he brilliantly expressed the kind of fiction I love best and have often tried to write: “philosophic romance, shot through with elements of horror and morbidity.” Philoromhorrmorbpunk. That’s my genre. Or you could just say sword-and-sorcery.

Some people doubt whether Zelazny counts as a sword-and-sorcery writer, but he didn’t doubt it. He described not only the Corwin novels but also big chunks of Lord of Light as sword-and-sorcery. Some people think that a story only counts as S&S if it has a Clonan at its center, but as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve got an outsider hero on a personal mission in a landscape of magical adventure, and there are swords or other edged weapons, you’ve got sword-and-sorcery.

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New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine – New Jirel of Joiry!

New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine – New Jirel of Joiry!

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In 2023, New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine (NESS) emerged, and it continues to deliver outstanding magazines, renewing past classics while showcasing contemporary and veteran authors. Notably, issues 1 and 4 include Elric tales by Michael Moorcock. Black Gate featured the crowdfunding and reviewed the initial volumes, and published an interview with editor Oliver Brackenbury (links).

A new crowdfunding campaign to bring issues 5-7 to life is live on Backerkit through March 15th. NESS continues to bring us Jirel of Joiry stories! We’ll highlight Jirel of Joiry here but the magazine offers much more.

Read this to learn the trajectory of Jirel of Joiry and NESS! Jirel is alive and well!

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Goth Chick News: Getting Our Heavy Metal Back…

Goth Chick News: Getting Our Heavy Metal Back…

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Heavy Metal #319, the penultimate issue of the original run (November 2022). Cover by Pascal Blanche

Okay, strictly speaking, this topic doesn’t fall into a standard (notice I didn’t say “normal”) Goth Chick category. But bear with me for a short story.

A long time ago in a small midwestern town far, far away, I experienced my first hardcore crush. The subject in question was not only tantalizingly a few years older than me but he was decidedly gothy in a dark-warrior kind of way. Therefore, in my youthful opinion, he was perfection on two feet. That same year as I was sitting cross-legged on the floor of my local bookstore my eyes fell on an issue of Heavy Metal magazine where low and behold was my crush, or someone who looked darn close, personified in all his brooding magicalness, right there on the cover. That day my allowance went to my first issue of Heavy Metal and though I was a rabid fan for years afterward, I admittedly became hit and miss, buying only sporadic issues throughout the 2000’s.

Heavy Metal magazine, which had been in constant publication since 1977, printed its last issue in 2022 after a series of attempts to keep it viable, and an era came to an end.

Until now.

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Alternate Londons, the Future of Lotteries, and Colony Ships: January-February Print Magazines

Alternate Londons, the Future of Lotteries, and Colony Ships: January-February Print Magazines

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January-February 2025 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and Asimov’s Science
Fiction. Cover art by Tomislav Tikulin (for “Our Lady of the Gyre”) and Shutterstock

Still no sign of the next issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which is disheartening. That leaves us with only two issues published last year (Winter 2024 and Summer 2024), and no hint when the next one might arrive. I’m hearing rumors that the magazine has been sold, but I’ve been unable to confirm that, so for now it’s just gossip.

But we’ve got issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction & Fact in hand, and they’re just as enticing as usual, with contributions from John Shirley, Sean McMullen, Mark W. Teidemann, Steve Rasnic Tem, Paul Di Filippo, Sakinah Hofler, James Van Pelt, James Patrick Kelly, Siobhan Carroll, Robert Reed, Faith Merino, Matthew Kressel, Rick Wilber, Jane Yolen, Kendall Evans, and many more.

The issues contain a new Great Ship tale by Robert Reed, a new Unsettled Worlds story by Siobhan Carroll (which Sam Tomaino calls a “suspenseful, exciting tale”), a new novelette “Rejuve Blues” from John Shirley (which Victoria Silverwolf labels “a suspenseful crime story and psychological study”), and the last installment in James Patrick Kelly’s trio of stories about Marishka Volochkova, “Moon and Mars,” which Sam proclaims is “probably another Nebula nominee.”

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Alien Cults, Interstellar Wars, and a Starship Murder Mystery: November-December Print Magazines

Alien Cults, Interstellar Wars, and a Starship Murder Mystery: November-December Print Magazines

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November-December 2024 issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog
Science Fiction & Fact. Cover art by Shutterstock and John Sumrow

We’ve got issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction & Fact to see us through the dark months of winter, and they’re even more star-studded than usual, with contributions from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sean Monaghan, Dominica Phetteplace, Molly Gloss, Jack Skillingstead, Shane Tourtellotte, Sean McMullen, Alexander Jablokov, Jerry Oltion, Mary Soon Lee, and lots more.

The issues contain Rusch’s new novella “Death Benefits,” which Sam Tomaino calls “magnificent… [Rusch] at the height of her powers. It will be on my shortlist for Best Novella Hugo next year;” Peter Wood’s starship murder mystery “Murder on the Orion Express” (“ingenious… a great story”); Jack Skillingstead’s tale of a civil servant in a city beset by war tasked with recording the dead, “The Ledgers” (“Grim”); and David Cleden’s “The Touchstone of Ouroboros,” in which priests of a cult that worships an ancient alien object come face to face with the consequences of their faith, which Victoria Silverwolf praises with “Although some of the mysteries surrounding the object are explained by the end, it remains an enigma. In a sense, it is also a character, albeit one that is impossible to comprehend.”

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G.W. Thomas on Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers

G.W. Thomas on Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers

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Three collections in Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker Saga: Berserker, Brother Assassin, and The Ultimate Enemy
(Ace Books, September 1978, December 1978, and September 1979). Covers: Boris Vallejo and Michael Whelan

Ace SF blogger G.W. Thomas, working atop a demon-haunted tower in Alberta, has been digging deep into a lot of my favorite old SF paperbacks, including C. L. Moore & Henry Kuttner’s Earth’s Last Citadel, Murray Leinster’s Get Off My World!, and Space Operas You May Have Missed.

But I think my favorite recent piece was his two-part series on a writer who’s largely forgotten today: Fred Saberhagen, author of The Book of Swords, Empire of the East, and The Dracula Tape, and his most enduring creation: the galaxy-roving Berserkers. which appeared in some seventeen volumes.

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Booyah! Quatro-Decadal Review, an Introduction to the World as it was in November 1999

Booyah! Quatro-Decadal Review, an Introduction to the World as it was in November 1999

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Some of the print SF magazines of November 1999: The 50th Anniversary issue of
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, and the October-November double
issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Covers by Chesley Bonestell, Kim Poor, and Jim Burns

With the ‘69, ‘79 and ‘89 magazines behind me I prepare to delve into 1999. On the one hand, my memories of 30-year-old-me (30 YOM), while closer in time than 20YOM, are perhaps a bit hazier because unlike 20 YOM, 30 YOM could legally buy booze and did!

Still, I had moved from a naïve 20 to a battle-tested 30. The answers? I still had them, but getting there was going to be a problem. Between ‘89 and ‘99 I had finished college, been the poorest I have ever been in my life, got a real girlfriend, got my first professional job, been in a car crash, and transitioned from taking taekwondo to teaching it. …

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Galactic War, Haunted Farmhouses, and an Occupied Earth: September-October Print Magazines

Galactic War, Haunted Farmhouses, and an Occupied Earth: September-October Print Magazines

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September-October 2024 issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog
Science Fiction & Fact, and the Summer issue of The Magazine of Fantasy
& Science Fiction. Cover art by Shutterstock, NASA, and Mondolithic Studios

The big news this month is the arrival of the new issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, after a nearly 8-month hiatus. In the pages of the new issue, publisher Gordon van Gelder reports that “Ongoing production problems have led us to skip the Spring issue and to switch to a quarterly schedule.” The new issue is cover-dated Summer 2024.

It’s a huge relief to have F&SF back on schedule — and the new issue looks terrific, with new fiction from Albert Chu, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Esther Friesner, Deborah L. Davitt, Phoenix Alexander, and lots more. The September-October issues of Asimov’s SF and Analog don’t disappoint either, with new stories from Naomi Kritzer, James Patrick Kelley, Robert Reed, Alice Towey, Stephanie Feldman, Anita Vijayakumar, Robert R. Chase, Susan Shwartz, Ray Nayler, Adam-Troy Castro, Wil McCarthy, Mar Vincent, Kedrick Brown, Tony Ballantyne, James Van Pelt, Mark W. Teidemann, and lots more.

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Southern Horror: Pigeons from Hell by Robert E Howard

Southern Horror: Pigeons from Hell by Robert E Howard

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“Voodoo!” he muttered. “I’d forgotten about that—I never could think of black magic in connection with the South. To me witchcraft was always associated with old crooked streets in waterfront towns, overhung by gabled roofs that were old when they were hanging witches in Salem; dark musty alleys where black cats and other things might steal at night. Witchcraft always meant the old towns of New England, to me—but all this is more terrible than any New England legend—these somber pines, old deserted houses, lost plantations, mysterious black people, old tales of madness and horror—God, what frightful, ancient terrors there are on this continent fools call ‘young’!”

This exclamation by Griswell, the protagonist of Robert E Howard’s racially fueled horror tale set among the piney woods of the Louisiana-Arkansas border region, always struck me as a bit of a “take that!” to the old gentleman of Providence, HP Lovecraft. I think Howard was on to something as “Pigeons from Hell,” published posthumously in 1938 is a riveting tale of well-earned revenge, voodoo, and the walking dead. Two young travelers from New England decide to spend the night in an abandoned plantation mansion. The balustrade is covered by a flock of pigeons. Its oak door sags on broken hinges, and the interior is dark and dusty. After they fall asleep, they are ensnared by events set in motion many years ago.

“Pigeons” opens with Griswell (no first name), waking up from a troubled sleep on the floor of a dilapidated plantation mansion. He had dreamt of a “vague, shadowy chamber” wherein “three silent shapes hung suspended in a row, and their stillness and their outlines woke chill horror in his soul.” In the corner crouched a “Presence of fear and lunacy.” As his eyes open, he spies something crouching at the top of a flight of stairs.

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Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery – Cover Artist Perspectives and Campaign

Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery – Cover Artist Perspectives and Campaign

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Black Gate has been tracking the inception and growth of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine, starting with Micheal Harrington’s 2022 interview with Oliver Brackenbury (author, screenwriter, podcaster, and editor of NESS), through 2023 with NESS first two magazine releases (also Mele’s review of #1), and NESS’s first book “Beating Heart and Battle Axes (July of 2024).  Now, as of Sept 19th, NESS continues this epic trend of presenting contemporary adventure fiction in fun ways with their second crowdfunded book DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD & SORCERY. It is “double-edged” because, in the tradition of the Ace Double, it’s two novellas bound in one book with unique covers on either side. Both tales are Mongol-inspired Sword & Sorcery.

In this post, we share the campaign’s information and blend in perspectives from both cover artists.
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