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Dark Muse News: Blue Fire: A Jirel of Joiry Novella

Dark Muse News: Blue Fire: A Jirel of Joiry Novella

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Blue Fire, a Jirel of Jory tale by Molly Tanzer (Brackenbury Books, 2026). Cover art by Saša Đurđević

In February 2025, Black Gate covered Molly Tanzer’s release of “Jirel Meets Death” (published with permission from Moore’s estate); and in March 2026 Black Gate’s Dark Muse News covered Tanzer’s next story, “Jirel in the Forest of Night.” These were brought to us by Brackenbury Books, the same outfit that champions New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine.

And now, Dark Muse News (your biweekly Black Gate blog) has coverage of Brackenbury Books’ current campaign, bringing the first-ever Jirel of Joiry book-length adventure to life (crowdfunding launched June 11th, and is still ongoing).

Blue Fire begins with Jirel fighting a foe her sword cannot smite: a terrible illness nobody can explain, let alone heal. Her search for a cure takes her many miles across many worlds, encountering friends and foes familiar and frightening!

Like Alice in Wonderland with a big f***ing sword, Jirel has compelling adventures in bizarre dream-logic realms, balancing a rich emotional life with terrifying struggles against dark forces!  — boasts Brackenbury Books

Here ye, here ye. Read on to see:

  • A tour guide of the Jirel of Jory writings
  • Excerpts from Blue Fire
  • Special Perspectives from author Molly Tanzer, artist Saša Đurđević, and editor Oliver Brackenbury
  • Status updates on the campaign

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The Heroes of Fantasy Quiz

The Heroes of Fantasy Quiz

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Art for Carson of Venus by Frank Frazetta

They slice. They dice. They bash their way through hordes of foes. They are the heroes of fantasy and just below is a list of some of the greatest. Can you pick out the hero on the right who goes with the author on the left?

Twelve to fifteen correct means you know your bloodthirsty authors like Conan knows ale. Eight to eleven correct is pretty good but you’re not as bloodthirsty as you might like others to believe. Four to seven correct definitely means you’re squeamish at the sight of crimson gore. Below four correct? I’m afraid you’re just not an “army of one.”

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Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 2: Parker the Barbarian!

Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 2: Parker the Barbarian!

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Richard Stark’s Parker by Darwyn Cooke

Last time we discussed the character of Parker, Donald E. Westlake’s master thief and heist planner.

This time, we’ll look at why we’re talking about Parker at all, here in the hallowed spaces of this fine magazine.

Parker might seem like an odd fit. Allow me, however, to draw some parallels that will help to illustrate how and why the master criminal Parker fits in with classic sword and sorcery characters like Conan the Barbarian. For these two gentlemen have far more in common than one might guess.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand – Words of Wisdom from Black Mask‘s Joe Shaw

A (Black) Gat in the Hand – Words of Wisdom from Black Mask‘s Joe Shaw

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BlackMask_May1934EDITED“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

I closed on a house a week ago Thursday and immediately began moving in, which is a long process for me. And I then had to go to Chicago for a work conference, doubling up my stress. So, today, you get an encore from season one of A (Black) Gat in the Hand. As a hardboiled fan, I find this essay from the legendary Black Mask editor, Joe ‘Cap’ Shaw. It offers his insights into writing for the Pulps. And it’s from an issue of Writer’s Digest, not Black Mask. I add some comments throughout. I think it’s a good read. 

The hardboiled school was born in the page of Black Mask Magazine under the editorship of George W. Sutton, with Carroll John Daly’s “Three Gun Terry” (which I wrote about here…) and “Kings of the Open Palm,” and Dashiell Hammett’s “Arson Plus,” appearing in 1923. In 1924, Sutton resigned and circulation editor Phil Cody replaced him.

Cody pushed for more stories featuring Race Williams and the Continental Op, encouraged Erle Stanley Gardner to develop Ed Jenkins (‘The Phantom Crook’), and added Frederick Nebel and Raoul Whitfield to the magazine. Cody was spread too thin managing multiple publications, and he handed the reins to Joseph Shaw, a former bayonet instructor in the Army and an unsuccessful writer with zero editorial experience (I mean, sure, why not?).

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Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 1: The Master Criminal

Richard Stark’s Parker, Part 1: The Master Criminal

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All 16 original series Parker Novels by Richard Stark in 15 paperbacks (Avon and Berkely editions). Deadly Edge is a double volume also containing The Sour Lemon Score

This week we kick off an occasional new series of reviews of the Parker crime novels by Richard Stark.

If you know Parker, you understand. If you aren’t familiar with him, trust me: You are in for a treat.

In installment two, I’ll explain why he’s worthy of being discussed in this august forum.

But first, let’s chat a bit about the character, his creator, and why he matters.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Ten Things I Think I Think (Gat Edition)

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Ten Things I Think I Think (Gat Edition)

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”

— Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

I don’t think I’ve done a Ten Things I Think I Think, for A (Black) Gat in the Hand. Huh. I guess we can rectify that today.

As I write this, all 2,000+ books which I own are boxed up. They will be moving to the house I close on later this week. They made up 55 boxes of books. There’s a loft that will be my writing room/home office, with bookcases spread out across a few other rooms.

It’s weird not being able to grab a book to read, or look something up. I feel like I’m in a book version of homelessness. Definitely strange. So, I think:

1 – PHILIP MARLOWE HAS STAR POWER

Philip Marlowe was born in 1939, when Raymond Chandler cobbled together parts from short stories featuring other detectives (I’m not exaggerating, I believe he used he word ‘cannibalized’), and wrote The Big Sleep. Marlowe novels were used for movies starring The Falcon, and Mike Shayne. But the character of Marlowe has compelled some big Hollywood names to play him. Such as Dick Powell, Humphrey Bogart, James Garner, Elliot Gould, Robert Mitchum, Powers Boothe, James Caan, and Liam Neeson.

These are heavyweight male stars playing a character often from decades before.  For the most part they’re good, though I definitely like them to varying degrees. Sam Spade, Race Williams, The Continental Op: similar big names in hardboiled fiction don’t have nearly the ongoing screen impact of Philip Marlowe. I ruminated on various Marlowe incarnations here.

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My Favorite Martian

My Favorite Martian

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J Allen St. John 1919

Has any writer of science fiction or fantasy ever had a more fertile imagination than Edgar Rice Burroughs? Anyone acquainted with his work will have no trouble reeling off the names of exotic and outlandish planets, continents, oceans, cities, animals, plants, races, gods, kings, princesses, heroes, and villains, ad infinitum.  Perhaps his most fecund setting was the first one he created — Barsoom (or Mars, as it’s even now called by the unenlightened), the site of eleven books written between 1912 and 1943. Filled with startling and memorable creations, Burroughs’ Barsoom is one of the most captivating places in the Atlas of the Imagination, and none of ERB’s “children” have taken a firmer hold on readers than John Carter’s enemies and allies, the great Green Martians that roam the deserts and dry sea-bottoms of that dying world.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Rory Gallagher and the Continental Op

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Rory Gallagher and the Continental Op

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Gat_GallagherBlinds“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” — Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

I just finished the intro for Volume 4 of Steeger Books’ The Continental Op series. I’ll post it here after the book comes out, of course. But being in an Op mood, I wanted to bring back an Op mashup post which I did waaaay back in 2018.

Rory Gallagher passed in 1995. Wow – that’s 31 years ago now. An Irish blues-rock guitarist and singer, he is still revered throughout Europe. I don’t mean ‘popular.’ Think Eric Clapton status. There are statues of, and public spaces named after, him, in Ireland.

Of course musicians in America know of him. But he is not popularly-remembered here. Ask someone to name their ten favorite guitarists, and I don’t think you’ll hear his name very often.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Marvel Goes Noir. And NAILS It!!!

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Marvel Goes Noir. And NAILS It!!!

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”
– Raymond Chandler

Spider-Noir is the best thing to happen to Marvel streaming since…well, Daredevil: Born Again. So yeah, not that long ago. I’ve only watched the first three – of eight – episodes so far. Because this is too good to binge. It should be savored. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but I LOVE that it’s an homage to hardboiled Pulp and Noir. Which you might know I blog about once in awhile…

No spoilers here (if I can help it). I just wanna talk about the Noir vibe a bit. I’ll do a full blown post after I watch it all (and when some spoilers will be okay). These folks absolutely know their source material. And I’m talking about Pulp, not Marvel.

A little Spider-Man Noir history first. The character appeared in a short comic book run in 2009, which I had certainly never heard of. But I’m not a comic book guy.

Then, back in 2018, the first of the animated Spider-Verse movies came out, with Miles Morales as the main Spider-Man. In the same scene with Spider-Ham (he still cracks me up), Peter and Miles meet a Nicholas Cage-voiced Spider-Man Noir. He has a few scenes after that.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Elliot Gould’s Better Philip Marlowe

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Elliot Gould’s Better Philip Marlowe

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”

– Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

Back in the Summer of 2020, A (Black) Gat in the Hand looked at some screen and radio productions for Raymond Chandler’s private eye, Philip Marlowe. Two months before, I had done a separate post on Powers Boothe’s terrific series for HBO. That series was really the impetus to move me from not liking Raymond Chandler, to being a fan.

There was a second thing which brought me all the way in to being a Chandler guy. Now, I cannot abide Elliott Gould’s The Long Goodbye. My attempts to ‘try again’ inevitably lead to me quitting the re-watch. I don’t like my Marlowe in 1973, and it’s my least favorite Marlowe on screen.

However, as with Powers Boothe, I wouldn’t be a fan of Raymond Chandler if not for Gould. He recorded all the Marlowe novels, as well as several of Chandler’s non-Marlowe short stories, as audiobooks. This was way back in cassette days, and I was smart enough to pick up several of the CDs, even though I wasn’t into Chandler then.

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