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June 1, James P. Killus: “Flower of the Void”
June 2, Lester del Rey: “Fade Out”
June 3, Tony Richards: “Discards”
June 4, Nictzin Dyalhis: “Heart of Atlantan”
June 5, Margo Lanagan: “The Proving of Smollett Standforth”
June 6, Jay Lake: “The Water Castle”
Okay, another Maciste film! Let’s do this!
When writing about Maciste’s history in silent movies, I promised that the next Peplum Populist article would hurtle ahead to Maciste’s first appearance in the sword-and-sandal boom of the 1960s, Son of Samson (Maciste nella valle dei Re). But I have a DVD of Goliath and the Vampires (Maciste contro il vampiro) lying here on the shelf, and it’s about time I completed the “dark fantasy” trio of peplum classics after writing about Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) and Maciste in Hell/The Witch’s Curse (1962). Although Goliath and the Vampires doesn’t have the same visual imagination, it’s in the 90th percentile as far as sword-and-sandal fun goes.
Goliath and the Vampires features more stock genre situations than those two other films. The fantastic elements don’t dictate the story as much as they’re pasted onto the pre-fabricated framework of what sword-and-sandal films were quickly solidifying into.
Adam Roberts was born on June 30, 1965.
Roberts won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the British SF Association Award for his novel Jack Glass in 2013. In 2016, he won a second BSFA Award for his non-fiction book Rave and Let Die: The SF and Fantasy of 2014. He has also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, the Sidewise Award, and the Kitschies. In addition to writing series science fiction, he also has published several fantasy parodies, usually identifiable based on a series of Rs as his middle initial.
“Pest Control” was purchased by Mike Ashley for inclusion in the 2005 anthology The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy. Although it appeared in a Science Fiction Book Club reprint of the volume, it has not appeared elsewhere.
A familiarity with the poem Beowulf is a benefit for those reading Adam Roberts’s “Pest Control,” although at the same it can be something of an hindrance. The story relates the events of the poem, but rather than Beowulf coming to Hrothgar’s aide to rid Heorot of Grendel, in Roberts’s version of the story, Beowulf, or Mr. Wulf, calls a modern day pest control company to get rid of the creature.
The humor of the story comes from the juxtaposition of the ancient story of Beowulf and Des Hannigan, the representative of King and Kegan Pest Control, treating the situation as normal, although he thought he was being called to take care of a rat infestation rather than a Grendel. The story follows the tripartite nature of the original poem, so anyone who knows the poem has a good idea about the results of each of the attempts at pest eradication.
Roberts manages to make his jokes land, although it seems like having Mr. Wulf as the pest control specialist and the person with the Grendel problem being a Mr. Hrothgar would have fit the pattern of the original poem a bit better. As it is, Des provides solutions for the clearly not very bright Mr. Wulf and while the reader is allowed to see the progression of the story, the ultimate pest control issue is left to the imagination.
Armed in Her Fashion
By Kate Heartfield
ChiZine Publications (350 pages, $17.99 paperback, $10.99 eBook, April 2018)
Fantasy is a tough industry. You can a) stick to tried-and-true tropes and structures and hope to stand out in subtler ways or b) come up with something truly outside-the-box and hope that it still appeals to the traditional fantasy audience. Neither of these options is a sure thing (is anything?). But it seems like every month, reviewers point out authors who are doing one or the other and doing it well.
That’s basically what I’m doing here. Not simply because I’ve been a fan of Kate Heartfield’s short fiction since well before I got to know her here in Ottawa (she’s awesome, by the way). It’s because her first novel, Armed in Her Fashion, is basically Option B on some performance-enhancing drug.
We’ve all seen the basic quest narrative, right? Protagonist and company need to travel somewhere and do a thing, they go through a bunch of challenges en route, and the path to their goal isn’t at all what they expect when they set out from home. Fashion is essentially a Campbellian hero’s journey, but it’s also way more. It’s set in 14th century Flanders, for one thing. It’s also alternate history, taking place at the outset of the Hundred Years War, but with a Hellmouth and revenants in play. And the cast is mostly women, centered on widow Margriet de Vos and her daughter Beatrix, looking to reclaim the latter’s inheritance from Margriet’s sorta-dead husband. The concept of women’s rights and authority is a huge piece of this story, but in a medieval context, and with an additional angle in the form of Claude, a transgender man-at-arms. Claude is a particularly compelling character, allowing Heartfield to explore a topic I’ve never seen in fantasy before: how a transgendered individual would be treated by a medieval, patriarchal society. As well, the disconnect between how Claude views himself and how even Fashion’s other protagonists view him as “that woman who dresses like a man” isn’t all that alien when compared to contemporary society.
Jeff Duntemann was born on June 29, 1952.
Duntemann began publishing in 1974 with “Our Lady of the Endless Sky,” and has mostly published short fiction. In 1981 Duntemann appeared on the Hugo Award for Short Story ballot twice, for “Cold Hands” and “Guardian,” losing to Clifford Simak’s “Grotto of the Dancing Deer.” In 2005 ISFiC Press published his first novel, The Cunning Blood. He collaborated with Nancy Kress on the story “Borovsky’s Hollow Woman” in 1983.
“Guardian” appeared in the September 1980 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, edited by George H. Scithers. It was translated for its appearance in the German edition of the magazine, Isaac Asimovs Science Fiction Magazin 13 Folge and was included by Herbert W. Franke in the anthology Kontinuum 4 in 1987.
Duntemann’s “Guardian” is an interesting mix of futuristic and historic. The Guardian in question has been tasked with protecting Princess Divin Rea Hol Wervig, even beyond death. When the princess’s skull is taken from the swamp where she was interred, the Guardian seeks its return and vengeance. He makes his way into the nearby village where he finds himself confronting Abbot Gorman Izak.
In the millennia since the princess died and the Guardian, which is clearly robotic in nature, has come into contact with human civilization, society has changed, as has the technology level. Abbott Izak is clearly a religious in the Christian tradition who is able to have an intelligent conversation with the Guardian and manages to delay its vengeance by a week, during which time the Abbot promises to find the culprit who stole the skull.
So there’s a weird thing that happens in superhero comics after they’ve been running for a while. No matter what sort of superhero we’re dealing with, how weak or powerful, eventually we start to see stories that begin with someone attacking them out of the blue, followed by the hero trying to figure out what’s happening. This happens even more often with superhero teams, since they tend to have publicly known headquarters. While these are sometimes set up as stories of revenge for some past defeat, more often it’s something along the lines of, “The hero is going to stop my evil plan, so before I even start the evil plan, I’m going to take out the hero.” Strangely, after the villain fails to take out the hero, they’ll just go ahead with the plan anyway. But in almost all of those stories, the hero wouldn’t even have KNOWN there was an evil plan if they hadn’t been attacked.
Kevin Matchstick is semi-retired at the start of Hero Denied. He has no idea that the Umbra Sprite has set up a new operation. He’s raising his kids and doing nothing that will cross his path with the Umbra Sprite. He’s not even looking for the Fisher King. Really, he doesn’t start moving until he’s attacked. And even then, he’s basically flailing about with no real focus until his wife and son are kidnapped.
So if the Umbra Sprite had just left Kevin Matchstick alone, he wouldn’t be coming after her. He wouldn’t even have known that anything was going on. Which I suppose is a lesson in how we often make bigger problems for ourselves by overthinking situations.
The issue opens with Kevin and Miranda driving through Fairy Land. Kevin’s got a dozen baseball bats in the backseat, ready to get charged up. I’m not sure how we’re meant to take that fact. On the one hand, it could mean that Kevin’s just getting ready for a lot of fighting. But since he can basically charge any object with magic energy, there is the question of why he’s chosen only to pack baseball bats instead of an assortment of weapons. Or why he doesn’t continue the habit he’s developed in the first half of this series of using improvisation to charge up whatever’s around. It might just be that he’s grasping for something familiar and comfortable as his world is torn apart.
Robert Lynn Asprin was born on June 28, 1946. He died on May 22, 2008.
Asprin won the coveted Balrog Award for the Thieves’ World anthologies Shadows of Sanctuary and Storm Season. The first anthology in the series, Thieves’ World, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. In addition to his work on the shared world series, Asprin is also known for his long-running Myth series, featuring Skeeve and Aahz. Other series, often written with co-authors, include Phule’s Company, Time Scout, and The Cold Cash War. For a time, Asprin was married to Lynn Abbey, who co-edited several of the Thieves’ World anthologies and eventually resurrected the series in the 2000s.
“No Glad in Gladiator” was published in the ninth volume of the Thieves’ World series, Blood Ties, edited by Asprin and Lynn Abbey in 1986. Its only reprinting was in the third Thieves’ World omnibus edition which included volumes 7-9, The Shattered Sphere.
The gladiator slave Jubal was one of the first characters introduced in the Thieves’ World shared world series, conceived by the series creator, Robert Lynn Asprin. By the time the ninth volume rolled around, Jubal had enjoyed his triumphs and suffered his set backs. In “No Glad in Gladiator,” Asprin has cast him in the role of eminent grise, showing a meeting between Jubal and Chenaya, a Rankene noblewoman and gladiator who is trying to make her way in Sanctuary.
Despite both characters’ background as gladiators, “No Glad in Gladiators” is a relatively static story. Asprin has the two characters sitting in a room talking, Chenaya’s looking for an alliance with Jubal and Jubal, after explaining why he isn’t interested in an alliance, explains to Chenaya all of her shortcomings. The story doesn’t fully work without its larger context. Jubal provides enough information about himself for the reader to understand who he was, and is, but Chenaya’s history is only painted in broad strokes, making her something of an enigma.
Welcome back to the Black Gate Book Club! We are rapidly closing in on C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station (DbS). You can get to speed with the first, second, and third rounds.
Fourth round!
Okay, page 285 and Fletcher, you are right that things are (finally) happening quick. The Union Fleet has dropped into the system, and the Company Fleet and the militia go out to meet them. I like the idea that all the ships look the same on scan, whether they are jump-capable merchanters or in-system merchanters, or Fleet Carriers or whatever—they all look the same until they maneuver or start to fire.
Jon Lukas has become the bad guy that he was hinted at with a full murderous take-over of Downbelow Station. Of course, he’s made a choice on which side he’s on, gambling that the Union is going to win, and from there getting roped into helping Union win. This puts him with a lot of targets on his back.
Kressich is in the exact same boat, but with more targets on his back, he’s terrified of his people in Q, and terrified of his own security, but once the shooting starts, he is one of the few people who has security and has people.
The relationship of the “leaders” to their armies/militias is interesting.
Mary Rosenblum was born on June 27, 1952. She was killed when the small plane she was flying crashed on March 11, 2018. She wrote mystery novels under her maiden name, Mary Freeman.
Rosenblum’s 1994 novel The Drylands won the Compton Brook Stephen Tall Memorial Award for best first novel. In 2009 her short story “Sacrifice” received the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Her novella “Gas Fish” was a Hugo Award nominee and “One Good Juror” made the shortlist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Two of her stories, “Rat” and “The Eye of God” were considered for the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award.
Rosenblum sold “Night Wind” to Deborah J. Ross for inclusion in the anthology Lace and Blade. The story has never been reprinted, although Rosenblum’s “Dragon Wind” appeared in the second Lace and Blade anthology. “Night Wind” was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 2009.
“Night Wind” is set in a Renaissance period Spain where magic can be passed down from father to son. Alvaro is the scion of a noble line, but his father’s magical power has been taken from him and Alvaro does not have any magic of his own, a situation the family is trying to hide. Having studied at university with the great scholar Delarentario, Alvaro has returned to his ancestral estates where his mother is trying to forge a marriage alliance with the merchant Salvaria. Along the way, Alvaro is accosted by the brigand Night Wind.
James Van Pelt was born on June 26, 1954.
In 1999 Van Pelt was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Van Pelt received a Nebula Award nomination for his Short Story “The Last of the O-Forms.”
“The Inn at Mount Either” originally appeared in the May 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, edited by Stanley Schmidt. Rich Horton included it in Science Fiction The Best of the Year 2006 Edition. Van Pelt selected the story for his own collection The Radio Magician and Other Stories, published by Fairwood Press in 2009. The story finished second in the Analog Readers’ Poll and was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
“The Inn at Mount Either” is a sprawling resort with doorways that provide access to alternative worlds, a complex arrangement which means that the resort employees dissuade their guests from exploring on their own. Despite that, the security at the facility seems farcical and the guests are not actually warned of the resort’s true nature.
Dorian Wallace approaches the concierge because his wife, Stephanie, has been missing for a full day. Despite the oddities and dangers of the lodge, the concierge is neither concerned nor helpful, indicating that they don’t consider someone missing until they’ve been gone for 48 hours, although later developments should indicate that concern should happen immediately, or after two hours at the outside.
Unable to get help, Dorian goes off in search of his wife, remembering how taken she was by the doorway to Polynesia they had seen earlier. Naturally enough, he gets lost in the convoluted structure and passes through some of the doorways, experiencing a variety of alternatives the lodge looks out upon.
