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The Series Series: The Girl with Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson

The Series Series: The Girl with Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson

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The Girl with Ghost Eyes-smallHere’s a great problem to have:

Your first novel just appeared in bookstores a couple weeks ago, and you’re getting ready to host an author event. It’ll be a night of martial arts movies that inspired your story of a Daoist exorcist priestess battling malevolent ghosts in 1890’s San Francisco Chinatown. You’ll have a full house. You’re all set to give opening remarks, to field questions, and to sign autographs. Lots and lots of autographs. There’s just one problem.

The book has sold out.

Not just at all your local bookstores. Not just at the local warehouses of the big distributors. At the offices of the press that published you, and at all of Amazon, too.

Your word of mouth is so strong, an entire print run’s worth of readers couldn’t wait for author events or the holidays. They had to have your book right now. Your publisher is scrambling to print a second run to satisfy all that glorious demand, but it won’t come in time for this night’s autographing.

Man, I would love to have a problem like that. But if it couldn’t happen to me, I’m delighted that it did happen to my longtime friend M.H. Boroson.

I want to tell everybody at Black Gate how awesome The Girl with Ghost Eyes is, but I can’t pretend to objectivity about this book or its author. How can I be objective about a friend who’s been important to me since we met at 14 in a writing summer camp? I’ll have to let Publishers Weekly, and all those other review outlets that are notoriously stingy with starred reviews, do that whole objectivity thing in my stead. Brilliant, dazzling, wonderful, thrilling, say various objective reviewers who haven’t known Matthew for two-thirds of their lives. Glad they got that all those adjectives checked off for me, because really, those words do belong in any review of The Girl with Ghost Eyes.

What I can do is tell the readers who gather here why this book they might not immediately realize is for them is exactly the kind of book Black Gate readers love.

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PC Gaming Review: Endless Legend

PC Gaming Review: Endless Legend

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Endless_LegendMy first experience with 4x gaming (“eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate”) was a 1989 fantasy game called Warlords. I have many fond memories of the Orcs of Kor and super-mobile wizards and played the bits out of it for about a year, in fact the game probably holds some kind of personal record for cost per hour in gaming in fractions of pennies. I’ve played them off and on ever since, and settled into being a solid Sid Meier fan sometime around Civ III. I’ve played just about everything he’s put out since. Frankly, he’s the king of 4x.

Sid’s throne is resting on an unsteady dais these days, as Amplitude, an upstart indie publisher, captured my imagination and my heart with Endless Legend. Legend is a fantasy 4x that expertly weaves ideas, art, and gaming interface into a synergistic RPG RTS whole that tests brain, bladder, and sometimes marriage (Me: “Just one more turn, hon.” Wife: “So, three hours, then?”). Auriga, the world of Endless Legend, is a place I have a great deal of trouble leaving.

It’s a fascinating tableau, once part of a high interplanetary civilization known as the Endless. They’re gone now – Auriga suffered some planetary catastrophe and the races are just now getting themselves back on their feet. While they have mostly forgotten their higher days, there are ruins filled with secrets that may give you an advantage as you rebuild.

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Beyond the Immediate Shiver: The Rim of Morning by William Sloane

Beyond the Immediate Shiver: The Rim of Morning by William Sloane

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The Rim of Morning-smallAccording to either Google or Oz the Great and Powerful (I forget which, and for God’s sake, don’t look behind that curtain!), over 300,000 books are published in the United States every year. That’s over 800 a day, every day, day in and day out.

Most, of course, are utterly worthless and are destined to vanish without a trace almost immediately (see Sturgeon’s Law), and given the magnitude of this never-ceasing flood of words, even worthy books by fine writers will inevitably go out of print sooner or later — most likely sooner.

But here’s the thing — even when they drop out of print, books that are good enough are remembered, and sooner or later, like Marely’s Ghost or that particularly embarrassing anecdote that your mother loves telling at every family gathering (especially when a new significant other is present), the good ones come back.

Hence The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror, an omnibus volume reprinting two novels that William Sloane wrote a long time ago: To Walk the Night (1937) and The Edge of Running Water (1939). The books have been reprinted a few times, mostly in paperback, over the more than seventy five years since their first appearance, but the last editions were over thirty years ago under the Del Rey imprint (see the hardcover and paperback editions in a previous BG post here.)

Sloane was not exactly prolific; the two novels collected here are the only ones he ever wrote (or are at least the only ones that were ever published; I for one am hoping that there’s a big trunk somewhere, stuffed with manuscripts that he never bothered to mail in.) Shortly after writing them, Sloane launched a literary career of impressive solidity, especially coming from a man who had mostly given up writing himself. He started his own publishing house, edited a pair of science fiction anthologies, taught at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference for over twenty five years, and eventually became the managing director of Rutgers University Press, a position he held until his death in 1974.

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R. J. Myers and the Crucifixion of Mary Shelley

R. J. Myers and the Crucifixion of Mary Shelley

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NOTE: The following article was first published on May 16, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 250 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

Myers Cross 2Myers Cross 1Robert J. Myers is a study in contradictions. A veteran CIA operative, he became the publisher of The New Republic. In the mid-1970s, Myers authored two sequels to Mary Shelley’s classic, Frankenstein or: The Modern Prometheus (1818). Having a longstanding interest in literary pastiches, I tracked down these two long out-of-print titles and read the first, The Cross of Frankenstein (1975). The prolific nature of the Universal and Hammer Frankenstein movies was understandable, but the original novel has always seemed more challenging to extend – even more so than Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Neither story demands literary sequels, nor did their authors choose to pursue them – a fact that makes the ambitions of prospective continuation authors all the more difficult to realize with any degree of success.

Mary Shelley’s original reads like a modern fable. The scientist who transgresses nature’s laws is destroyed by the abomination he brought into existence with his own hand. It is the same fable Michael Crichton fashioned nearly 200 years later into Jurassic Park. Shelley’s alternate title for the book, The Modern Prometheus is frequently forgotten, but it is critical to an understanding of how the novel differs from the 1931 Universal horror classic that imbued itself in the public consciousness. The monster of Shelley’s novel may be lacking a flat head and neck bolts, but he makes up for it in spades with his philosophical yearning for his own place in the universe and with the father/creator who abandoned him.

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Sax Rohmer Goes Ape

Sax Rohmer Goes Ape

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Sax Rohmer The Moon is Red-smallThe Moon Is Red_2The Moon is Red was first published in the UK in hardcover by Herbert Jenkins in February 1954. A paperback edition from Digit Books followed in 1964. The first US edition was published by Bookfinger as a limited edition hardcover in January 1977. It was the last non-series Rohmer novel. While far from his best work in my view (the author was already 70 years old at the time of its writing), it is certainly of interest as a curio to devotees.

The late Rohmer scholar, Dr. Robert E. Briney (editor and publisher of The Rohmer Review) considered it the best of Rohmer’s last dozen books. In my view it is far inferior to Virgin in Flames (1952) and even less successful an effort than Bianca in Black (1958) which was written by (or at least credited to) the author’s wife. The authorship of those late period works has always been a matter of contention by fans. While Rohmer certainly never employed professional ghost writers, both his wife and his protégé and secretary, Cay Van Ash were indispensable to him in later years. Their names appear with his on a number of radio and television scripts he authored during this period. When questioned on the matter in the 1970s, Van Ash maintained he only served as a typist and did minor editing of manuscripts while the author’s widow stated her input was limited to discussing plot points and occasionally suggesting story ideas (she claimed the first Sumuru story was her original concept). Regardless, Rohmer’s best fiction of the 1950s was largely confined to the short story market as his full-length novels more evidently display the frailties of age and the passage of time to their overall detriment.

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Review: The Force Awakens (and its Roots in Vintage Space Opera)

Review: The Force Awakens (and its Roots in Vintage Space Opera)

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SWTheForceAwakensStruzanD23Poster
The Force Awakens is a movie we can be proud of. We can point to and say, “This is why we read books with lasers and rocket ships on the cover.”

(Mild spoilers below the cut.)

The John Williams theme pounded out, the yellow opening crawl rolled up the screen and I wept a little.

I was eight when I saw the Star Wars in the cinema. Now my daughter was eight and beside me seeing the new one. Full circle. A real Country and Western moment.

The word was that this was not the debacle that the prequels were, but a proper SciFi movie where Stuff Happens and other Stuff Gets Blown Up.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

This was Star Wars as it should have always been, with The Empire Strikes Back as a benchmark, a grown-up family movie with few concessions to the younger audience… no jarring Jar Jar Binx… no slapstick farce, just comic moments arising from the plot. Even the stupid looking beach-ball droid makes a kind of sense.

So we can be proud of The Force Awakens. We can point to and say, “This is why we read books with lasers and rocket ships on the cover.”

It’s also playing our tune. The “we” of “our” being fans not just of Star Wars, but of Vintage and Pulp Science Fiction, and of Science Fiction in general.

Let me explain, but behind the Spoiler Shield (though the spoilers are oblique).

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Packed Full of Fantasy Goodness: The Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls RPG

Packed Full of Fantasy Goodness: The Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls RPG

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Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls-smallBack in 1980, on my last day of my first year at secondary school in the UK, an 11-year old me saw a kid with a copy of the paperback Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook. I’d discovered Tolkien a year or two earlier, and, leafing through the book, the pictures of dragons and swords and — most particularly — the dungeon map and diagram of the Planes of Existence at the back both enchanted and fascinated me. But as an 11-year-old I hadn’t much pocket money, and on the first day of my summer holidays and clutching a single sheet pricelist catalog from Games of Liverpool, I spent £1.75 on the only thing I could afford which looked even remotely similar — a slim booklet called Buffalo Castle.

I had no idea what I was doing. When the booklet turned up at my house a few days later I realized it wasn’t even a complete game, but part of another game called Tunnels & Trolls — something called a “solo adventure.” Undaunted, I made up my own rules, played the hell out of Buffalo Castle, and made up several solo adventures of my own — and saved my pocket money for the rule book for Tunnels & Trolls.

Completely accidentally, I’d stumbled onto a path which would shape my whole life.

Fast forward 35 years (and try to say “35” quickly so you don’t feel it…). A couple of months ago I bought the newest and greatest ever edition of the Tunnels & Trolls roleplaying game, funded by Kickstarter over the past couple of years and only now hitting games stores and general release. Designed and written by Ken St. Andre, Liz Danforth, and James “Bear” Peters, and dubbed Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, it’s effectively the 8th edition of the rules — but unlike many other RPGs, even this 8th edition isn’t too far removed from earlier editions, and if (like me) you grew up on the 5th edition rules, you won’t find yourself in too foreign territory. It’s very much the same game — just better.

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The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 1, 2009-2011 Compiled by the Editors of HFQ

The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 1, 2009-2011 Compiled by the Editors of HFQ

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oie_28203924eCuQXbPYRegular readers of my monthly short story roundup know how great I think Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is, ranking it the most consistent forum for the best in contemporary swords & sorcery. Some may think I’m laying it on a little thick, but The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 1, 2009-2011, a distillation of the mag’s first three years, should prove that I’m not.

While we are living in a time when some magnificent S&S short stories are being written, most are confined to the ephemeral pages of the web. So I consider it important that Adrian Simmons, David Farney, and the rest of the HFQ crew have endeavored to preserve some of their very best in book form.

Before diving into the stories (and poems — never let it be forgotten that HFQ is one of the few places publishing heroic poetry), let me start with the cover. By the very existence of that “Volume 1” in the title you know to expect more. It implies that the editors know there’s an audience hungering for S&S right now, and that they have faith it will still be there in the future, waiting for “Volume 2.”

Then there’s the art by Justin Sweet. Eschewing either the violent moment of battle or the smoldering embers of its aftermath, we see the warrior and his companions as their adventure is about to begin. From a mountainous vantage they can survey the tower below ready to be plundered, or the prisoner within its walls rescued. Maybe it’s the squadron of ships in which they’re interested. Of course, the fact that all three seem to be looking at something just out of the frame to the left could mean the bounty hunters looking for them, or a pack of ghouls, has just broken from the forest. Whatever the specifics of the painting, for me it’s a picture from just before the events of the story. It promises there’s something coming that will get my blood pumping and transport me, if only for a dozen pages, out of the humdrum and into the extraordinary.

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Three Classic Books for Medieval Worldbuilders and Armchair Time Travellers

Three Classic Books for Medieval Worldbuilders and Armchair Time Travellers

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historyofeveryda00quenuoft_0007
…this beautifully illustrated book covers everything

This time next week you’ll be contemplating a pile of Amazon gift vouchers and book tokens.

How do know?

Everyday Life
…a cosy oak-panelled read for fireside days while the rain batters at your window

You’re a Black Gate reader. Your muggle relatives can’t even guess your tastes. Your geeky friends know that your wishlist is too specific to second guess.

So book tokens.

I won’t try to guess your tastes either! However, if you are interested in the medieval world, or medieval-style worlds, some of the following old books from my research shelf might tempt you…

A History of Everyday Things in England (Archive.Org link) by Marjorie and CHB Quennell is a pre-WWI classic and part of a series that goes through to 1914 (Wikipedia).

Aimed at the older children of yesteryear — meaning it’s a fine read for a modern adult — this beautifully illustrated book covers everything from pottery to architecture, arrow loops to siege engines, and armour to aumbries, it drops in lots of quotes from original sources, and — written in a time of servants and country weekends — feels authentic when it explores the manor houses and castles of the time.

It also approaches the culture and economics from the inside, with sections on ships and merchants, and ground plans of typical buildings.

Though it pulls no punches — describing the English as acting like the Hun in 14th-century France — it’s a cosy oak-panelled read for fireside days while the rain batters at your window, but also a jumping off point for recreating medieval domesticity.

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Fantastic Reference and Non-fiction Books

Fantastic Reference and Non-fiction Books

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At the centre of all the fuzzy sets is a rough definition of what we mean by fantasy: a fantasy text is a self-coherent narrative which, when set in our REALITY, tells a story which is impossible in the world as we perceive it (see PERCEPTION); when set in an OTHERWORLD or SECONDARY WORLD, that otherworld will be impossible, but stories set there will be possible in the otherworld’s terms. An associated point, hinted at here, is that at the core of fantasy is STORY. Even the most surrealist of fantasies tells a tale.

                                      — from the foreword of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant

oie_21313286sNQbIjqI like to think I have a fairly extensive knowledge of swords & sorcery and other fantasy sub-genres. While I never took courses on the hermeneutics of Conan, or Fafhrd and post-modernism, I do have about forty years of time on job reading the stuff. When I write I try to bring that knowledge to bear in a close reading of the story. But I know better than to rely just on my brain all the time, so sometimes I turn to my small but valuable collection of fantasy non-fiction titles.

I have always loved reference books. When I was little I pestered my mother to buy me several sets of books, starting with the Golden Book Illustrated Dictionary and followed by the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. The latter was bought, one volume every few weeks, at A&P. Sadly, she didn’t get two of them:  Vol.14, ISRAE to LACCA, and Vol.21, RUSSI to SUMAL. Which meant I didn’t learn much about Kipling or rutabagas until I was older. I spent hours upon hours poring over those books, just reading about whatever was in front of me.

That initial love for reference books only grew as I got older, eventually extending into the various genres of fiction I read. I’ve got several good books on crime fiction and science fiction that have steered me toward books I might never have otherwise known about or been willing to give a chance. Writing about swords & sorcery for the past four and half years, though, it’s the fantasy references that I’ve drawn on the most for ideas and information.

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