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Birthday Reviews: Alex Bledsoe’s “Shall We Gather”

Birthday Reviews: Alex Bledsoe’s “Shall We Gather”

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Cover by Jonathan Bartlett
Cover by Jonathan Bartlett

Alex Bledsoe was born on February 3, 1963. His story “The Big Finish” appeared in the June 1998 issue of Crossroads and his first novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde, which kicked off the Eddie LaCrosse series, was published in 2007. To date, the series includes five novels and a short story. He co-wrote the novel Sword Sisters with Tara Cardinal.

“Shall We Gather” was purchased by Paul Stevens for Tor.com, appearing on May 14, 2013. At the same time, it was released as an e-chapbook by Tor.com, and would later be included in the e-anthology The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction. It is part of his Tufa series, which began with the novel The Hum and the Shiver and continued through five additional novels, with The Fairies of Sadieville scheduled for an April release.

“Shall We Gather” is set in eastern Tennessee in Bledsoe’s mythical Cloud County, where a fantastic race, the Tufa, have lived since before the coming of the Native Americans. Akin to Celtic fairies, the Tufa do not permit any churches to be built in the county, where most inhabitants have at least some Tufa blood.

When Old Man Foyt, one of the few humans who lives in Cloud County, is dying, he requests that Methodist minister Craig Chess attend to him to help him pass to the other side. After checking with his girlfriend, a Tufa, to ensure that his presence won’t offend the Tufa, Chess travels to help ease Foyt. Before he can enter the house, however, he is approached by Mandalay Harris, a powerful Tufa, who wants him to find out from Foyt whether the Tufa will face the same God as Christians upon their death. She believes that since Foyt has lived his entire life in Cloud County, something of the Tufa has infiltrated him and he might be able to share the answer with Chess at the moment of his death.

Despite Chess’s trepidation about entering Cloud County to perform in his capacity as a minister, all of the interactions between him and the Tufa or humans are completely amicable. The way Harris phrases her question for Foyt is interesting and seems Christiancentric rather than assuming a central place of her own race in her worldview.

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Mage: The Hero Denied #5

Mage: The Hero Denied #5

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Mage The Hero Denied 5-smallYeah, Kevin, it’s me. There was a two-month break between issues 4 and 5, but it wasn’t due to any sort of publishing mishap. Rather, Matt Wagner built these month-gaps into the series schedule from the beginning in order to give himself enough time to finish everything without any unexpected delays. He takes advantage of this gap by jumping the story ahead by thirteen months. Obviously, spoilers and fan theories ahead.

It opens with a five-page flashback set some time shortly after the end of the first series (Hero Discovered). Kevin Matchstick is tromping through a sewer with a full head of hair; a magic baseball bat; and the first World Mage, Mirth. We get hints of things to come (high top shoes, four star hotels, the departure of Mirth) and a nice splash page of an Ellen Trechend.

We then flash to the present. Kevin is trying to explain to his son that his life is filled with tragedy and serious mythic underpinnings. But Hugo just wants to hear stories about his dad fighting monsters. Meanwhile, Kevin’s wife is apparently a realtor now (even though she was a teacher four issues ago), looking pretty sharp in her red business suit. They also own a purple cat named Chloe. And they’re staying in a house that they can afford because … I seriously don’t know.

We’re on issue #5 and I still have no idea what Kevin Matchstick is supposed to have been doing for the last ten years. Has he seriously just been living off a magic ATM card while he’s been avoiding fighting monsters?

Anyway, he’s walking Hugo to a school bus, asking if he likes the neighborhood, then takes a detour to an ATM to grab some money and bitch at the absent mage. And it looks like he’s been lying low since his battle with the hell-queen last issue. Which means, I guess, that he left his family to protect them, fought a monster, figured out that abandoning his family in times of trouble was dumb, then returned home.

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Birthday Review: Selina Rosen’s “Food Quart”

Birthday Review: Selina Rosen’s “Food Quart”

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Cover by Clyde Caldwell
Cover by Clyde Caldwell

Selina Rosen was born on Groundhog’s Day in 1960. Her first story, “Closet Enlightenment” was published in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine in the Summer 1989 issue. She founded Yard Dog Press in 1995. Through Yard Dog, she published the Bubba series of anthologies as well as novels written by a variety of beginning and mid-list authors. Rosen published her first novels in 1999 through Meisha Merlin. In 2011 Rosen received the Phoenix Award for Lifetime Achievement for the work she did at Yard Dog Press and for supporting and encouraging up and coming authors.

“Food Quart” was purchased by Esther Friesner for Fangs for the Mammaries, a 2010 anthology of humorous vampire stories set in suburbia. It has not been reprinted.

Mark has been working as a nighttime security guard at a suburban mall for three years when he’s called into his boss’s office over an incident the security cameras caught. A body had been found at the mall and while reviewing the evidence, Mark’s boss, Walt, and a local police officer began wondering why Mark didn’t appear in any of the security footage.

Having lived a long time, Rosen’s vampire is unconcerned being discovered. Rather than wait for his interrogators to come to their own conclusions about his nature, Mark admits it. Rosen’s story explores the response the three have to the revelation, from complete disbelief to acceptance to Mark’s plan to quickly leave the area and set up someone else, even as he comes to realize that he had been working at the mall longer than he had stayed in one place since becoming a vampire.

Rosen’s take on vampires is also quite mundane and she looks at what might be important to an immortal being and how they would view the world and protect their own existence. Mark is a long way from the vampires of Bram Stoker or F.W. Murnau or even Stephanie Meyer, offering instead the worldview of a working class version of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Saint-Germain. A final encounter between Mark and Walt provides an unexpected ending for Mark as he prepares to leave for newer pastures.

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Birthday Review: Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “The Cave”

Birthday Review: Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “The Cave”

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Fantasy and Science Fiction February 1969-small Fantasy and Science Fiction February 1969 TOC-small

Cover by Russell Fitzgerald

Yevgeny Zamyatin (originally Евгений Замятин) was born in Levedyan, Russia on February 1, 1884. He was an early supporter of the Bolshevik Party, joining them before the Russian Revolution of 1917, but he grew disillusioned with their policies following the October Revolution. In 1921 he wrote the essay “I Am Afraid” and also published his major science fiction novel, We (Мы), which became the first work of fiction banned by the Goskomizdat, the Soviet censorship bureau.

The novel was first published in English in 1924 and received a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1994. In 1931, Zamyatin appealed to Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party and was granted permission to emigrate to Paris, where he died in poverty from an heart attack on March 10, 1937.

Zamyatin’s story “The Cave” (“Пещера”) was originally published in Russian in 1922, and reprinted in English in the February 1969 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In Russian the work was seen as focusing attention on the everyday man when they were still trying to establish the Communist State. The story was also seen as a direct challenge to the ideals of the Revolution which Zamyatin has supported only five years before.

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Birthday Reviews: January Index

Birthday Reviews: January Index

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Cover by Ho Che Anderson Cover by Howard V. Brown

One twelfth of the way through the year, here’s a listing of the birthday reviews that appeared at Black Gate in January.

January 1, E.M. Forster: “The Machine Stops”
January 2, Isaac Asimov: “Buy Jupiter”
January 3, Patricia Anthony: “Lunch with Daddy”
January 4, Ramsey Campbell: “No End of Fun”
January 5, Tananarive Due: “Suffer the Little Children”
January 6, Eric Frank Russell: “A Great Deal of Power”
January 7, Hayford Peirce: “Mail Supremacy”
January 8, Jack Womack: “Audience”

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Birthday Reviews: Gene DeWeese’s “The Man in Cell 91”

Birthday Reviews: Gene DeWeese’s “The Man in Cell 91”

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Time Twisters
Time Twisters, cover artist unknown

Gene DeWeese was born on January 31, 1934 and died on March 19, 2012. DeWeese wrote several television and gaming tie-in novels, including work in the Lost in Space, Ravenloft, Star Trek, and Man from U.N.C.L.E. universes as well as original YA novels.

DeWeese has collaborated with Robert Coulson and has used pseudonyms including Jean DeWeese, Thomas Stratton, and Victoria Thomas. His novel The Adventures of the Two-Minute Werewolf was adapted into a television film. He served as a technical writer on the Apollo program.

“The Man in Cell 91” was published in Time Twisters, edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg and released in January 2007.

The title of the story, “The Man in Cell 91” provides a certain expectation for the reader as an unnamed man, alone in a cell, is suddenly visited by dreams or visions, each one showing people in despair at the moments of their deaths. Without any agency or understanding why, the man sees people starving to death, being killed in battle, and eventually a priest committing suicide because his sexual transgressions have been discovered, and one of the priest’s victims committing suicide.

As the man comes to an understanding, DeWeese begins to reveal his identity, providing the reader with their own sense of understanding. The story isn’t quite an alternate history, nor a secret history, but does offer a look at a potential alternative to our own timeline.

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Why I’m Here – Part Two: Some Thoughts on Old Books and Appendix N

Why I’m Here – Part Two: Some Thoughts on Old Books and Appendix N

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add-dmguideFour years ago, I posted an explanation of what I’m trying to do with my reviews for Black Gate. My stated goal was, and remains, to be someone who says to readers, “Here’s a book I think you’ll get a kick out of.” There were several people who did that for me, turning me on to books and authors I still hold dear, and I want to do that for others. Like most fans of something, I want to convince people the things I like are worth their time and are still relevant.

It can be hard to pierce the barrier built of cultural noise, the vast wealth of new fantasy being written every year, and the simple passage of time, and convince someone a book that’s fifty years old or more is worth his time. Pop culture reflects the larger society that produces it, and people want to see their concerns and interests in it. That people still read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert E. Howard more than eighty years after both their deaths, though, tells me it’s not a hopeless battle.

I’m not the only person doing this, not by any stretch of the imagination. Of particular interest has been the wealth of discussion about Appendix N that has taken place over the past five or six years on message boards, blogs, and podcasts. For the two of you who don’t know what Appendix N is, it’s a quirky list of fantasy and sci-fi books that inspired Gary Gygax, the primary creator of D&D. There are few works on it I haven’t got to, though I was recently taken to task for my negligence of A. Merritt.

The list was in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Back in the day, it didn’t mean too much to me, only because I’d already read most of the authors on the list, and so had most of my gaming friends. Still, it was cool to see Gygax liked the same books we did. Because so much of the present Appendix N conversation has tended to focus on gaming, something I don’t do anymore, I’ve mostly just listened. Other than a couple of conversations about individual books, I’ve sat off to the side.

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Birthday Reviews: Gregory Benford’s “Down the River Road”

Birthday Reviews: Gregory Benford’s “Down the River Road”

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After the King-Keith-Parkinson-small After the King-Keith-Parkinson-back-small

Cover by Keith Parkinson

Gregory Benford was born on January 30, 1941. He helped start the first science fiction convention in Germany, WetzCon, in 1956 and the first convention in Texas, Southwestern Con, in 1958. He received the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1975 for his collaboration with Gordon Eklund, “If the Stars Are Gods.” His novel Timescape received the Nebula Award for Best Novel, the John W. Campbell Memorial, Jr. Award, the Ditmar Award, and the British SF Association Award. It also loaned its name to a publishing imprint. Benford received a Phoenix Award from the Southern Fandom Confederation in 2004 and a Forry Award from LASFS in 2016. Benford was the Guest of Honor at Aussiecon Three, the 1999 Worldcon in Melbourne, Australia.

“Down the River Road” was included in After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Martin H. Greenberg. Originally published in January 1992, the book and all the stories in it were translated into Dutch, Italian, and French. The story has not appeared outside of the original anthology.

Gregory Benford is best known as an author of hard science fiction, so while it might be surprising to come across his “Down the River Road” in a collection of stories honoring J.R.R. Tolkien, it isn’t surprising that underneath the fantasy veneer his world seems to have scientific underpinings. John is traveling on the dangerous river, trying to find his missing father. Along the way, he takes on a variety of odd jobs, during one of which he finds himself unloading a ship with the aid of Zoms, the reanimated dead. One of the Zoms could be his father, but he can’t be sure.

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Short Sharp Adventures: World of the Masterminds / To the End of Time and Other Short Stories by Robert Moore Williams

Short Sharp Adventures: World of the Masterminds / To the End of Time and Other Short Stories by Robert Moore Williams

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World of the Masterminds-small To the End of Time and Other Stories-small

At the very top of my Books to Read shelf I have a slowly growing collection of Ace Doubles. I usually work my way forward numerically, starting with the D series, but will occasionally jump back a few if a new addition arrives. Thanks to this habit (and some other haphazard literary tastes) I am still, pleasantly, stuck within the Ace Double D range.

The next one in the schedule is a well preserved book with both sides by the same author, Robert Moore Williams. Ace Double D-427 comprises a “complete” novel, World of the Masterminds, and a collection of short stories, To the End of Time and Other Stories.

Robert Moore Williams wasn’t an author I was familiar with, although Black Gate readers will have encountered the odd mention of him, including a 2015 review by Rich Horton of the Ace Double The Star Wasps by Robert Moore Williams, paired with Warlord of Kor by Terry Carr.

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Birthday Reviews: Monte Cook’s “Born in Secrets”

Birthday Reviews: Monte Cook’s “Born in Secrets”

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Cover by Cliff Nielsen
Cover by Cliff Nielsen

Monte Cook was born on January 29, 1968. Cook has mostly focused his attention on the gaming sector, working for Iron Crown Enterprises on Rolemaster and Champions before moving to TSR, where he designed the game Dark•Matter.

After TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, he was put in charge of the 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons. He left Wizards of the Coast and eventually started Malhavoc Press and published game supplements. Cook eventually founded another gaming company, Monte Cook Games.

“Born in Secrets” was published in the January 2000 issue of Amazing Stories, edited by Kim Mohan. The story is set in the world of Dark•Matter and the magazine had an essay about the game published alongside the story. Cook would publish a novel, Of Aged Angels, set in the same world the next year.

“Born in Secrets” tells the story of Jessie Campbell and Lewis McAndrews, two hydrogeologists working on a lengthy assignment in South Dakota when they stumble across an old sod house in the desert. Taking a break from their more pedestrian duties, and at Jessie’s urging, they explore the building and find some rusted tools and an old engraving metal platter.

Intrigued by their discovery, Lewis uses the internet to try to figure out what the German engraving means. Although he isn’t able to translate the entire thing, he does come across a reference to “Ministers of the Mind” and tries to learn what he can, sending e-mails to various websites. The few responses he receives are anything but enlightening and he shares them with Jessie before they abandon the mystery to return to their work.

Eventually, they are contacted by people who are tied to the Minsters of the Mind and learn that most of their wild speculations were true. They are now hosts to a second consciousness, which the Ministers believe is the next step in evolution.

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