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Red Sonja 0

Red Sonja 0

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red-sonja-0Red Sonja first appeared in the pages of Conan the Barbarian back in the 1970s. Her distinct red hair, iconic chain mail bikini, and total indifference to absurdity quickly made her a fan-favorite. She next appeared in a string of solo adventures for Marvel Feature before getting promoted to her own series. Unfortunately, stories about a woman in a bikini fighting psychedelic monsters just became too silly and sexist as the She-Devil with a Sword made her way into the 1980s. A few years back, some hack wrote a bunch of articles for Black Gate about the glory days of Red Sonja, lamenting that she would never again be as crazy or as fun as she was in her 70s heyday.

Never say never.

Amy Chu and Carlos Gomez are heading up a new Red Sonja series in 2017 and, as a sort of pre-holiday treat, they’re offering a sixteen-page intro story at the super-low price of 25 damned cents. That’s cheaper than a lot of the original Red Sonja issues ran and I’m pretty sure they’re losing money due to printing costs alone. But they’re hoping that potential new readers will risk a quarter on a story that motivates them to stick around for the regular series. Will this gambit pay off? Time will tell.

The issue starts off with a splash page of Red Sonja running up a crumbling stairway, sword drawn in either hand, threatening a Godzilla-sized demon. It’s a badass introduction to our heroine. Or it would be, except for the fact that our first view of the She-Devil with a Sword is an upskirt shot. And Sonja’s not wearing panties. And that’s why I won’t be including panel shots with this review.

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Last of a Series… For Now: The Sea of Time by P.C. Hodgell

Last of a Series… For Now: The Sea of Time by P.C. Hodgell

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oie_1362841tq9cvryr
Baen finally does right by Jame and Hodgell

Earlier this year I promised myself I would finally finish all the volumes in P.C. Hodgell’s Kencyrath series so far. I did that yesterday, with my completion of The Sea of Time (2014). I’m really enjoying the series and book 7 is a blast. Regular readers will be shocked to read my one complaint: it’s too short. Before I explain that, let me fill you in on the book and tell you all about its good points.

First, one more time, the setup:

Thirty thousand years ago, Perimal Darkling began to devour the series of parallel universes called the Chain of Creation. To fight against it, the Three-Faced God forged three separate races into one: feline-like Arrin-Ken to serve as judges; heavily-muscled Kendar to serve as soldiers and craftsmen; fine-featured humanoid Highborn to rule them. For 27,000 years, the Kencyrath fought a losing battle, one universe after another falling to the darkness. Three thousand years ago, the High Lord Gerridon, fearful of death, betrayed his people to Perimal Darkling in exchange for immortality. Fleeing yet again, the Kencyrath landed on the world of Rathilien. Since then, they haven’t heard from their god and Perimal Darkling has seemed satisfied to lurk at the edges of their new home. Monotheists trapped on an alien world with many gods, the Kencyrath have had to struggle to make a life on Rathilien.

Now, the power of the Three-Faced God seems to be reappearing. The Kencyrath believe that only the Tyr-ridan, three Highborn reflecting the three aspects of their god — destroyer, preserver, and creator — will be able to defeat Perimal Darkling. Jame, raised in the heart of Perimal Darkling, is fated to be the Regonereth: That-Which-Destroys.

At the end of the previous book, Honor’s Paradox, series heroine, Jame, had survived all the tests and trials thrown at her by the curriculum and her enemies at the Kencyrath military academy, and was promoted to second year cadet.  The Sea of Time opens with Jame arriving at the Southern Host. The Host is the main force of Kencyrath soldiers, hired out to the wealthy city of Kothifir.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: At the Earth’s Core

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: At the Earth’s Core

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at-the-earths-core-first-edition-j-allen-st-johnOnce upon a time, I shouldered the enjoyable burden of analyzing all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus (Amtor) novels. Then, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the publication of A Princess of Mars, I took on the same task for the Mars (Barsoom) novels. It was inevitable that I would one day bring the same survey methods to the Pellucidar novels at the center of the earth. (Sorry, a Tarzan series just won’t happen. There are far too many Tarzan novels for the sanity of even the most hardcore ERB fan to take in concentrated doses.)

Our Saga: Beneath our feet lies a realm beyond the most vivid daydreams of the fantastic… Pellucidar. A subterranean world formed along the concave curve inside the earth’s crust, surrounding an eternally stationary sun that eliminates the concept of time. A land of savage humanoids, fierce beasts, and reptilian overlords, Pellucidar is the weird stage for adventurers from the topside layer — including a certain Lord Greystoke. The series consists of six novels, one which crosses over with the Tarzan series, plus a volume of linked novellas, published between 1914 and 1963.

Today’s Installment: At the Earth’s Core (1914)

The Backstory

Subterranean realms of the fantastic have a history reaching back to antiquity. But it was the nineteenth-century speculative theories of Captain John Cleves Symmes about the hollow earth that ignited a wave of fictional explorations of What Lies Within: “I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick [sic] spheres.”

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The Complete Carpenter: Dark Star (1974)

The Complete Carpenter: Dark Star (1974)

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Dark-Star-Original-PosterJohn Carpenter, after a few years of relative silence, is back in current movie news thanks to a recent concert tour and the report that he’s once again associated with the Halloween franchise for the first time since producing Halloween III: Season of the Witch in 1983. Although we don’t know if Carpenter plans to get back in the director’s chair at some point, all this is still a reason to celebrate the career of a Titan of Genre, a global treasure and gift to science-fiction, horror, suspense, and action-movie lovers everywhere.

Today I’m inaugurating a feature-by-feature look at Carpenter’s eighteen theatrical feature films. We begin at the beginning: Carpenter’s USC student film that billowed into an accidental theatrical release — Dark Star, the Spaced-Out Spaceship.

The Story

The spacecraft Dark Star drifts through the twentieth year of its apparently infinite mission. The four crew members — accompanied by the cryogenically frozen body of the captain — use intelligent bombs to blow up unstable planets to clear the way for eventual colonization. And, hoo boy, has the crew gotten bored.

Talby (Dre Phaich, voiced by Carpenter) retreats to contemplating the stars through the ship’s dome; Pinback (Dan O’Bannon) tries to rally the crew by pestering them; Boiler (Karl Kuniholm) is into trimming his mustache and punching Pinback in the arm when nobody’s looking; and acting commander Doolittle (Brian Narelle) jams on homemade musical instruments and ponders the waves he left behind at Malibu. Pinback lets an alien captive loose on the ship and screws around with it. A bomb in the cargo bay refuses to disarm itself, Doolittle tries to stop it with a philosophical argument based on Edmund Husserl, Talby flies out the airlock, Boiler almost shoots Pinback in the head, and everyone dies when the bomb develops a god complex and detonates in the cargo bay anyway. John Carpenter went on to make eighteen more films, so apparently all this worked like a charm.

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Modular: Yggdrasill, the Roleplaying Game of “Viking Age” Adventure

Modular: Yggdrasill, the Roleplaying Game of “Viking Age” Adventure

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yggdrasillcoverRoutine visitors to this site might remember my survey of Poul Anderson’s works, a regular column that has been on indefinite hiatus for about two years now. Causes for this suspension have been 1. Anderson’s two-book Operation Chaos was an absolute drudge of a read, requiring a recovery period that only now might be over, 2. New responsibilities at home decreased available time for my recreational pursuits, 3. The time share for these recreational pursuits was almost wholly dominated by my weekly Pathfinder campaign, a campaign that now finally might be coming to an end.

It’s unlikely that, with increased time, though, I’ll be returning to the Anderson survey. This is because I’ll move onto running other games, one of which already is underway: Yggdrasill.

At first glance Yggdrasill caters to a niche crowd, and I’m certainly a member of that company. I am a Norse-phile. Within my close community, I am nearly alone in my passionate interest — but for one dear friend, who identifies as Norse neopagan. When I first learned about the game just over a month ago, I knew that this “blood brother” would play the game with me. I also guessed that some others in my community would try it out, as well, and they have.

But as I consider just how many other areas of the globe might have the dynamic of interest that I enjoy, I question how viable a business project Yggdrasill might be. Perhaps I shouldn’t: Vikings appears to be a popular TV show; perhaps that series inspired some gamers to go “full Viking.” The “northern thing” clearly is a mainstay of traditional fantasy gaming, an aspect derived from popular fantasy fiction. But in most games where efforts are made to make the northern atmosphere “authentic” — well, they’re not actually “games,” per se, so much as they are campaign settings and supplements, productions such as Lands of the Linnorm Kings in Pathfinder’s Inner Sea setting for Golarion, and The Northlands Saga in Frog God’s Lost Lands setting, and both of these properties actually are about single regions within much larger campaign settings. But with Yggdrasill the northern thing is the whole thing, and that’s catering to a specific taste indeed!

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A Bittersweet Twist on Conventional Fantasy: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

A Bittersweet Twist on Conventional Fantasy: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

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every-heart-a-doorway_seanan-mcguire-smallThe closing months of the year always bring a host of “Best of…” lists. This year I was delighted to see one of my personal top five making those lists: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. A departure from McGuire’s usual fare, Every Heart a Doorway is a bittersweet twist on conventional fantasy that neither shies from more dwells on the darker side of our encounters with the fantastic.

The premise of Every Heart a Doorway isn’t exactly new. Out in the countryside exists a boarding school for unusual children.These children are all children living in the “after” part, the “after” that comes after The End. Each student at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children has accidentally stumbled into an otherworld and then returned home to find themselves so changed that they can no longer fit in at home. Some of them are heartbroken at being kicked out of paradise. Some of them are traumatized by what they experienced there. Most of them hope to return to their individual worlds, somehow, by finding their Door again.

We find our own Door into this school through Nancy, a young woman who has just returned from one of several Lands of the Dead. Shortly after her arrival, another student is found dead and Nancy, along with her newly made friends, must find the killer before the school is closed or they become the next victims.

As a murder mystery, the plot itself isn’t innovative. It is well plotted and paced, but there are no real surprises here. It doesn’t need to be, though. The real strength comes from McGuire’s characterizations and the subtle, quiet tone to the work.

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Atlantis, Vikings, and the Hordes of Kublai Khan: Merlin’s Ring by H. Warner Munn: Part II

Atlantis, Vikings, and the Hordes of Kublai Khan: Merlin’s Ring by H. Warner Munn: Part II

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terrortales-smallTime to come clean! When I published Part 1 of my review of Merlin’s Ring last year, it was not because the article was so massive that it had to be broken down into smaller parts. Rather, it’s because I was unable to finish the book promptly, and soon enough unforeseen circumstances left me deprived of my copy, wondering what happened to Gwalchmai and Corenice. John O’Neill suggested I proceed with what I had, and commit to completing the review later.

A replacement book was not an easy find. Mr Munn’s works are like hens teeth where I live. Honestly I have only ever, quite recently, come across one in a second hand book shop – alas it was The King of the World’s Edge, which is the book that caused me to seek out Merlin’s Ring in the first place!

Well, thanks to the internet and a service called Alibris, I finally received a replacement volume from Floridas. Not in as good a nick as my previous, pristine volume, but it is the first printing Ballantine version, which I suppose is something.

Part 1 of my review left off where Gwalchmai had joined forces with Joan of Arc, and became part of the army set to liberate Orleans. One has to appreciate the admiration for St Joan that Mr Munn must have had. His passion for the subject is strong, and the resultant detail a joy to read. My own knowledge of Joan of Arc has (until now) been somewhat sketchy. Pretty much the basics: when she lived, that she was burned as a heretic, and there have been a few recent movies about her.

While I can’t say whether Munn’s account is historically accurate, at least the recent movies have acquainted me with the subject of Joan of Arc. Munn’s Secondary characters are detailed and believable, with small quirks that can easily be believed. One example is Master Jean, the best marksman in France when it comes to the “hand cannon” (predecessor to a harquebus). The secret to his skill is cleverly woven into the plot, something rather mundane by today’s standards but so revolutionary, and risky, for a gunner in those days.

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Into the Maelstrom: Berserker: Shadow of the Wolf by Chris Carlsen

Into the Maelstrom: Berserker: Shadow of the Wolf by Chris Carlsen

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oie_2231022c1px60owRobert Holdstock is best known for his Ryhope Wood series that started with the 1981 novella “Mythago Wood,” later expanded into the 1985 World Fantasy Award-winning novel of the same name. He would go on to write another six books in the series before his untimely death in 2009. I have only read the novel Mythago Wood, but recommend it highly. It is a fascinating excursion into England’s myths, Jungian archetypes, and damaged familial bonds.

Many readers of the Ryhope books, a series lauded for its psychological depth and poetic style, don’t know that Holdstock wrote at least fifteen earlier novels under various pen names. As Richard Kirk, he contributed to the bloody Raven series (the first of which I reviewed here). His Night Hunter horror series, written as Robert Faulcon, ran to six books. Today, I’m going to look at Shadow of the Wolf (1977), the first of the Berserker trilogy of swords & sorcery novels set in historical Europe, and written under the name Chris Carlsen.

Harald Swiftaxe is a young Norse warrior raiding Ireland for the first time. Despite participating with nearly as much fury and relish as the rest of the warband he belongs to, he lets a monk live out of an odd sense of mercy he doesn’t understand. When he doesn’t rape a woman and kill her child, one of his companions nicknames him “the Innocent.”

Harald is a bit of an innocent, at least as innocent as a red-handed brigand can be. He may be a Viking at heart, primed and ready to kill and pillage, but he also longs to return to his father’s comfortable steading and Elena, the girl he plans to marry.

After leaving Ireland’s shores, Harald heads first for Elena’s town. Instead of a place of warm welcomes, he finds it destroyed and its people slaughtered. While he doesn’t discover his beloved’s body, when attacked by a wounded Berserker he does learn who annihilated the town. Even wounded near to death, Harald’s assailant almost proves too tough for him, but the young Viking survives and kills the raider.

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In 500 Words or Less: An Inheritance of Ashes is Absolutely Friggin’ Awesome

In 500 Words or Less: An Inheritance of Ashes is Absolutely Friggin’ Awesome

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an-inheritance-of-ashes-smallAn Inheritance of Ashes
By Leah Bobet
Clarion Books (400 pages, $9.98 in paperback/$9.99 digital, October 11, 2016)

The more I write, the harder it is for a novel to really get me excited.

Holy gods did Leah Bobet pull that off with An Inheritance of Ashes.

Though it won the Sunburst Award in the Young Adult category (and a bunch of other accolades) Inheritance has the darkness and intensity of an adult novel, much like The Hunger Games except much better written. The story opens with conflict, as young Hallie is forced to say goodbye to her uncle Matthias, who is finally being forced from their family’s farm and his ongoing feud with Hallie’s father. Flashforward eight years and Hallie is in a similar feud with her sister Marthe, as they struggle to survive in the post-apocalyptic world outside ruined Detroit. (Sidebar: it took me a while to realize Inheritance takes place in a world that once had advanced technology, and even longer to realize it’s actually our world — that’s how masterfully subtle Leah’s writing is, and how engaging her characters are.)

The feud between Hallie and Marthe perfectly captures the type of conflict you have when two loved ones are so afraid of disappointing or losing the other that they hold everything in, and then let the wound fester not because they hate each other, but because they love each other more than anything. But there is so much more to this novel than just that core relationship. There’s the cloud of a recent war against Twisted Things from another dimension, which claimed Marthe’s husband and crippled so many others. You have Heron, veteran of that conflict and secretly in possession of the weapon used to kill the Wicked God, which the military would kill to possess. How the world collapsed before the war is a mystery all its own. And every prominent side character captures your heart in different ways as they try to keep their community alive — because Inheritance is really a story about community coming together in the wake of devastation, to push back the darkness and survive despite pain, loss and disagreement.

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October Short Story Roundup

October Short Story Roundup

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oie_1554130bqieq2j7October brought another nice batch of heroic fantasy magazines to my electronic doorstep. Among them were regulars Swords and Sorcery Magazine and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. A newcomer was the old-school paper-and-ink fanzine, Scrolls of Legendry (two issues in fact) from the hands of Swords of Steel maestro, Dave Ritzlin.

I am not sure I have ever heard mention of Swords and Sorcery Magazine outside this column or the blogs of the authors it publishes. While it hasn’t the professional look of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly or Beneath Ceaseless Skies, its commendable dedication to the genre deserves respect and recognition. For nearly five years now, Curtis Ellett has published two new stories each and every month and for that I am very grateful.

Issue #57’s first story is shy on swordplay, but heavy with poetical sorcery. “Ephemera” by David Bowles depicts a magical contest between a Mexican princess and a Japanese monk. In an alternate timeline, Japan has been conquered by the Aztec Empire. The story occurs during the celebration of Tanabata, the Star Festival. The event is a showcase of powerful Aztec magic, held in order to deter encroachment by the Ming Empire and inspire the inhabitants of Nippon.

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