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Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy is Space Opera at its Best

Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy is Space Opera at its Best

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guardians of the galaxyI somehow missed the Guardians of the Galaxy comics when I was growing up, but I was steeped in that whole “milieu” — ragtag crews of strange and quirky characters of mixed planets of origin on interstellar quests and cosmic adventures, from Star Wars to Atari Force. On the fantasy side, you had ragtag crews of strange and quirky characters of mixed realms of origin on mystical quests and quasi-medieval adventures. Collectively, that pretty much sums up my pop-cultural background during those formative years in the late ‘70s and ‘80s.

That stuff was put down as escapism, then and now.

And, yep, it was.

When life got crappy, disappointing, or just boring, there was always the promise of derring-do on Barsoom, which we could pine for along with John Carter staring wistfully at the red beacon of Mars. The next wardrobe could be a gateway to Narnia, but in the meantime we could roll up characters and get down to an all-night session of Dungeons and Dragons with friends who had imaginations similarly primed for a little bit of escape. Safer than drugs, anyway.

Guardians of the Galaxy, the new Marvel/Disney film from director and co-writer James Gunn, is a love letter to us — to anyone who grew up with that wild-eyed longing to escape into other worlds, to spend some time with characters who were larger than life and carried the fate of worlds on their shoulders (and yet could still crack a good joke about it all), to boldly go where no man had gone before and discover that, once there, you had to fight a dragon-headed man to win the affections of the green lady. Or whatever. This movie was made for us by people who obviously are “one of us.” Gooble gobble we accept you…

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Self Published Book Review: The Severed Earth by Chris Presta-Valachovic

Self Published Book Review: The Severed Earth by Chris Presta-Valachovic

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Severed Earth coverIf you have a book you’d like me to review, please see the submission guidelines here.

After a weekend spent trying to fix my computer (status: still crashing at least once an hour), it was an open question whether I was going to get this done. Well, here it is, hopefully not too much the worse for the wear.

This month’s self-published novel is The Severed Earth by Chris Presta-Valachovic. The Severed Earth is what is sometimes referred to as a portal fantasy, where characters from our world are transported to another one and are forced to deal with some great event. Sometimes the characters are quite willing, crossing over freely — in this book, they are definitely not.

The rock band Karma is in trouble. Despite the success they’ve had, their ex-manager Izzy embezzled most of the money before dying, leaving the members deep in debt. They have one chance to produce an album and turn their fortunes around, but their lead singer, Vao, is having a crisis of faith, and thinking of quitting after the death of his mother. The guitarist, Rafe, is fed up with Vao’s moping and unreliability and would just as soon be rid of him, while Jonathan just wants to hold the band together. Ian and Dylan just want to make music, but they, too, are stuck in this emotional train-wreck of a band. But when the record rep turns out to be a wizard, the band members soon find themselves with other things to worry about.

King Faolan of Kern is missing, and whether by coincidence or magic — it’s not entirely clear — Vao bears a remarkable resemblance to the missing king. He and his bandmates are brought to the land of Kern, Vao to take his place as king, and the others to take the fall for kidnapping him. The others manage to escape with the help of the bard Sion, but Vao is brought to the Crown City of Kern, where he is expected to assume the role of king, and in the course of a month, bond with a woman he’s never met and seal an alliance with the nation of Chulain. The others have the task not only of avoiding being captured and charged with kidnapping and murder, but rescuing Vao and finding the way home. Except that Rafe isn’t so certain that Vao is worth rescuing, and as time passes, it’s less and less clear that Vao wants to go home.

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Time Travel, Reincarnation, and the Evil Lurking Behind the Curtain: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

Time Travel, Reincarnation, and the Evil Lurking Behind the Curtain: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

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The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare M. G. Buehrlen-smallHigh-school junior Alex Wayfare has had visions of the past — usually triggered by a moment of déjà-vu — ever since she was a little girl. These visions feel real to Alex and they cover real historical events (such as Jamestown or the World’s Fair). When she gets hurt during these visions, the wounds (for example, a cat scratch) appear on her body. She wonders if she might be schizophrenic.

After yet another vision — this one of 1920’s Chicago — Alex finds a note from a man named Porter. When Alex meets with him, Porter tells her the visions are real and that Alex is a Descender — a person who can travel back in time through a portal to the afterlife called Limbo.

Not only that, she’s a special sort of Descender called a Transcender. This means that when she travels back in time, she doesn’t become a different person, she drops into one of her own past lives. Porter also tells her that the man who created this technology is after her, and so she is in mortal danger.

This book blends time-travel and reincarnation to give readers a unique twist on each trope. Based on the premise alone, I had high hopes for this book. I wanted to like it. But… well, the novel has good points and bad, and unfortunately the bad outweighed the good for me.

It’s clear MG Buehrlen can write well. The prose flows, and I didn’t stumble over a single sentence or wonder what the author meant to say. The premise is inventive and unique, and the plot is intricate. Wayfare is not-quite-science-fiction, not-quite-fantasy, and not-quite-thriller, and the author does a good job of blending these genres into a coherent narrative.

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Traveling Gunslingers, Exorcists, and Zeppelins: A Review of Dead Man’s Hand

Traveling Gunslingers, Exorcists, and Zeppelins: A Review of Dead Man’s Hand

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Dead Man's Hand John Jospeh Adams-smallAs a kid, I remember my grandfather’s shelves lined with multiple copies of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour westerns with titles like Wild Horse Mesa, Crossfire Trail, and Fair Blows the Wind.

I never actually read any (even today). Which is no knock against my grandfather’s tastes… my grandmother’s shelves were equally burdened with mysteries, primarily Agatha Christie, which I also never read (to date, I’ve only read one Agatha Christie novel).

But I actually adore a lot of movie westerns, especially classics with actors like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. Though I admit that I mostly like the spaghetti (i.e. Italian or Italian influenced) side of the genre.

I also love SF&F, and it  has seen its share of experimental westerns crossovers. For example, we had the not-so-great 2011 Cowboys and Aliens, the perhaps even worse 1999 Wild Wild West, the fairly flat 1973 sci-fi Westworld, and the OK 1969 The Valley of Gwangi.

Fortunately there are have been some excellent exceptions as well, especially in the horror sub-genre, such as 1987’s Near Dark, the 1990 camp classic Tremors (though with less-successful sequels), 2008’s The Burrowers, and the outstanding 2011 zombie flick Exit Humanity.

But can the western genre mix well with SF&F in written word?

You bet it can! Though I’m sure there are forerunners to it, my first foray into such western cross-pollination is the latest anthology from John Joseph Adams called Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West.

Besides being the editor of Lightspeed, Fantasy, and Nightmare magazines and co-hosting his own geeky podcast, Adams is also the editor of several acclaimed SF&F anthologies. The ones that I have read and enjoyed are his 2012 Epic: Legends of Fantasy and his very successful 2008 The Living Dead, but I’ve heard great things about his others as well.

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Playing in Laird Barron’s Sandbox: The Children of Old Leech

Playing in Laird Barron’s Sandbox: The Children of Old Leech

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The Children of Old Leech-smallA lot of writers have written stories in H. P. Lovecraft’s “sandbox” or have borrowed heavily from it. In fact, during his lifetime, Lovecraft encouraged this shared-world approach to his “Yog-Sothery.” Given his open attitude and the power of Lovecraft’s works, it now almost seems inevitable that a group of Lovecraftian disciples would emerge, helping to spread the fame of  his stories.

It is with great excitement that one begins to see something similar emerge with contemporary weird author Laird Barron and the publication of The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron. This anthology contains a panoplied collection of weird tales and horror stories that borrow sometimes heavily and sometimes lightly from the sandbox of Barron’s continued literary output.

Ross E. Lockhart — long time Barron editor and owner of the new startup small press Word Horde that is bringing us Children of the Leech — co-edits this brand new volume along with newcomer book editor Justin Steele, who also edits the online Arkham Digest. Lockhart and Steele have assembled not only an amazing cast of contributing authors for this anthology, but they’ve put together some very excellent stories. With great personal bias for Barron, I take this to be one of the best horror anthologies I’ve ever read. I predict this book to be on some major award ballots next year.

If you’re not familiar with Laird Barron, you really should be. He’s a multiple Shirley Jackson Award winner and currently on the 2014 World Fantasy Award ballot. I’ve raved about him several times on Black Gate, including here and here and here. Barron’s writing is often called Lovecraftian; but not in a pastiche sort of way.  Rather, Barron is really good at capturing a cosmic-horror-feel in his stories that many believe Lovecraft perfected.

In addition, Barron is also like Lovecraft in that in his stories have recurring regions, locations, characters, and even a recurring evil book. (Fans of Barron will immediately recognize the cover of The Children of Old Leech as looking oddly similar to said book — great cover design by Matthew Revert!)

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New Pulp Delivers its own Occult Anti-Hero in Magee

New Pulp Delivers its own Occult Anti-Hero in Magee

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22ca6069f22a20114e9bdbb1f223deb7f3ce43c715119I’ll come right out and admit I have mixed feelings about ebooks. I travel considerably for my day job and don’t mind having portable versions of books I own for quick reference, but the idea of owning books that cannot be found in print editions on my shelves at home irks me. That said, I recognize the market for digital-only titles is steadily growing, particularly among small press publishers. This, of course, is having its impact on the “New Pulp” community. Witness Pro Se Press’s decision earlier this year to discontinue their pulp magazine, Pro Se Presents and replace it with their Single Shot Signatures line of short stories available exclusively as ebooks.

My first sampling of the above is the newly published Magee, Volume One – “Knight from Hell” by David White. At first glance, I was struck by the apparent illustration of publisher Tommy Hancock on the cover, but on second glance I determined it was actually author David White wearing one of Tommy’s trademark hats. Of course, I was wrong on both counts since the illustration actually depicts the anti-hero of the piece, Magee.

Magee, it transpires, is actually the fallen angel Malachi who was exiled from Heaven after a fight over a woman with the archangel Michael. We’ll pause right here and note that David White is not a theologian and plays fast and loose with Christian tradition on such celestial matters. Following that disclaimer, we’ll make mention of the fact that Michael likewise banished the archangel Lucifer from Heaven following a similar fight. It seems that God is an absentee deity in these proceedings as He has abandoned Heaven to putter around in the Garden of Eden for several thousand years now.

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Gonji: Fortress of Lost Worlds by T. C. Rypel

Gonji: Fortress of Lost Worlds by T. C. Rypel

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oie_2924853GW8NECCJBack in January, I reviewed the first three books of T. C. Rypel’s Gonji series. Though thirty-odd years old, the books are exemplars of what heroic fantasy should be: exciting, wildly inventive, well-written, and — above all — starring a heroic protagonist. Exiled half-caste samurai Gonji Sabatake, try as he might, is unable to avoid fighting evil or behaving courageously. This stuff is why I still read S&S.

While the first three books (actually, one big book chopped into three parts by the original publisher, Zebra) are a complete story, they are also the introduction to a much wider and wilder tale. Gonji’s adventures start anew in Fortress of Lost Worlds (1985), republished this past May by Wildside Press. The fifth book, A Hungering of Wolves, should be rereleased pretty soon by Wildside as well.

At the end of the previous book, Deathwind of Vedun, Gonji left his surviving companions in order to pursue the werewolf, Simon Sardonis. He had been told years before by a Shinto priest that his destiny lay with something or someone called the Deathwind, which he discovered to be Simon. But driven by his own fears and burdens, Simon wants little to do with the Easterner and cares even less for their supposed entwined fate, so he keeps moving to prevent Gonji from finding him.

Fortress of Lost Worlds’ main story picks up two years into Gonji’s trek to find Simon. He and his party of soldiers have been savaged and chased to the feet of the Pyrenees by an unknown band he calls the Dark Company. As his last companion is lost in the frigid night, the samurai makes his escape into caverns in the mountainside. While the caves possess magical properties that both warm the nearly frozen warrior and his horse and fill their bellies, they turn out also to have occupants: ogres.

That sets the stage for Gonji’s monster-filled journey from the mountains to the town of Barbaso. He’d been warned that evil was loose in the valley, but having decided to travel to Toledo to settle an old debt, the straightest route lay through the valley, and Barbaso.

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Amazing Stories Turns 88 and Celebrates with a Special Issue

Amazing Stories Turns 88 and Celebrates with a Special Issue

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amazing-2014Amazing Stories is one of those legendary magazines of the first fandom age. Launched in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback (ie: the guy the Hugo Awards are named after), it was the first magazine devoted to science fiction stories.

This forerunner status didn’t assure it success and the magazine suffered bankruptcy, changes in ownership, editorial style, legal troubles, and so it has had many incarnations.

In recent years, Steve Davidson and a small army have been making efforts to resurrect Amazing Stories as an e-magazine, at first as a magazine focusing on fandom, and now, more consciously approaching the role of a magazine that will be offering new fiction and a new editorial voice. But, as Davidson notes, baby steps is the key.

The 88th Anniversary issue features articles of science fact, articles about fandom, reprinted short fiction, and some new stories as well. It is a visually-powerful magazine, with some great interior and cover art, so it was beautiful to toggle through on my Kindle.

On the content side, I have strong feelings about the sf field and this magazine pulled those feelings in a couple of directions.

I’ll admit I floundered a bit trying to discern the editorial taste, until I looked at the first fandom context of Amazing Stories and the aura of nostalgia around the age and history of science fiction as a genre.

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Blogging Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond, Part Five – “The Final Count”

Blogging Sapper’s Bulldog Drummond, Part Five – “The Final Count”

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1189621421509Sapper’s The Final Count (1926) saw the Bulldog Drummond formula being shaken and stirred yet again. The first four books in the series are the most popular because they chronicle Drummond’s ongoing battle with criminal mastermind Carl Peterson. The interesting factor is how different the four books are from one another. Sapper seemed determined to cast aside the idea of the series following a template and the result kept the long-running series fresh, as well as atypical.

The most striking feature this time is the decision to opt for a first person narrator in the form of John Stockton, the newest member of Drummond’s gang. While Drummond’s wife, Phyllis, played a crucial role in the first book, she barely registers in the early sequels. One would have expected Sapper to have continued the damsel in distress formula with Phyllis in peril, but he really only exploits this angle in the second book in the series, The Black Gang (1922).

The Black Gang reappear here, if only briefly, and are quickly dispatched by the more competent and deadly foe they face. This befits the more serious tone of this book, which has very few humorous passages. The reason for the somber tone is the focus is on a scientific discovery of devastating consequence that threatens to either revolutionize war or end its threat forever. Robin Gaunt is the tragic genius whose invention of a deadly poison that could wipe out a city the size of London by being released into the air proves eerily prescient.

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Sorcerer’s Ship by Hannes Bok

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Sorcerer’s Ship by Hannes Bok

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The Sorcerer's Ship 001The Sorcerer’s Ship
Hannes Bok
Ballantine, 205 p., December 1969, $0.95
Cover Art by Ray Cruz

First, I’d like to apologize to John and everyone else who reads these posts for taking so long to get this one done. I was on the road quite a bit from the end of May up through the Fourth, but I thought I would be able to get this particular post done quickly. Then things started happening. Car repairs, then house repairs, and then more car repairs. (This has necessitated bank account repairs.) Then last night, one of the wires in my son’s braces snapped loose. If anything else happens, I’m going to snap.

I don’t mean to kvetch. As you can see, I’ve been a bit distracted and apologize for the delay. I’ve already started the next book I’ll read for this series.

Anyway, on to something a little different than what we’ve seen in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series up to this point. Rather than something deep and complex, with complicated writing (The Wood Beyond the World) or bizarre imagery (Lilith) or even not-so-subtle innuendo (The Silver Stallion), The Sorcerer’s Ship is almost a children’s story.

It’s not intended to be, but this is one that might hold a younger person’s interest. There’s certainly nothing in it that most parents would find objectionable for a child capable of reading a book of this length.

Hannes Bok is best remembered for his art, but as Lin Carter discusses in his introduction, Bok was also a more than capable writer. Carter chose this volume and The Golden Stair for inclusion in the BAF line. The Sorcerer’s Ship was originally published by John Campbell (not the world’s easiest sell by any means) in Unknown in December 1942. After Weird Tales, Unknown is arguably the greatest fantasy pulp in the history of the field.

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