To Save Your Sanity, Take Steven Leacock’s Nonsense Novels and Call Me in the Morning (or, Why Are Canadians Funny?)

To Save Your Sanity, Take Steven Leacock’s Nonsense Novels and Call Me in the Morning (or, Why Are Canadians Funny?)

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You need a good laugh right now. How do I know this? I know this because I need a good laugh right now. Everyone I know needs a good laugh right now, so it stands to reason that you need one too, doesn’t it?

So… where to go for that much-needed laugh? Well, there are standup specials on Netflix and the other streamers, you’ve got SNL, there are the many late-night topical jokemeisters — all the usual suspects. Now if that stuff really makes you feel better, more power to you; there’s so much of it available these days, you’re in the enviable position of being a kid locked in a candy factory. For me, though, none of those folks can talk for two minutes without referring to you-know-who who lives you-know-where and is up to you-know-what, and I’m sorry, but all that usually ends up making me feel worse.

To maintain minimal sanity, sometimes what I need most is something that will take me to a place that Thomas Hardy (who briefly hosted the Tonight Show after Conan O’Brien was fired) called “far from the madding crowd.” I don’t want something that’s out to earn my approval because it’s correct; I want something that’s out to make me laugh because it’s funny.

Fortunately, several years ago, I found a fabulous device that accomplishes just that. It’s called… are you ready for this? It’s called a book. And that’s not the half of it. It was written by a fellow named Stephen Leacock, and this guy was… I can’t believe I’m saying this… he was… a Canadian.

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Hidden Gods, Cryptids, and Swamp Monsters: March-April Science Fiction Magazines

Hidden Gods, Cryptids, and Swamp Monsters: March-April Science Fiction Magazines

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March-April 2025 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact
and Asimov’s Science Fiction. Cover art by Shutterstock

The big news this month is that all three print science fiction magazines, as well as the mystery magazines owned by Penny Press, have been sold to a new buyer, a consortium of fans who have have ambitions to maintain and grow all five. Here’s an excerpt from the announcement at Locus Online.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction have been acquired by Must Read Magazines, a division of a new publishing company, Must Read Books Publishing. All editorial staff from the magazines have been retained in the acquisitions… Must Read Magazines is financially backed by a small group of genre fiction fans. A major investor and board advisor is Michael Khandelwal, the founder of a writing nonprofit and Virginia’s Mars Con toastmaster.

Read all the details, including quotes from Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams, Analog editor Trevor Quachri, and F&SF publisher Gordon Van Gelder, at Locus Online.

Tentatively, I’m willing to believe this is Good News. It makes sense to have all five magazines under one roof, and the recent collapse of F&SF‘s publishing schedule (only one magazine shipped last year) seemed to auger its imminent demise. Though change is rarely good with magazines, and Dell Magazines/Penny Press has been a stalwart home for Asimov’s and Analog for over three decades, since 1992, keeping the magazines healthy and alive through decades of turmoil in the magazine business.

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Six Things I Think I Think: March 2025

Six Things I Think I Think: March 2025

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Readers of my weekly column (both of you) know that I quite enjoying giving my opinion on a wide range of topics. I’ll cut the normal ten down to six this time, but it’s been two months since I’ve expounded thus. And that’s at least one month too long, right? So…

So, I think that:

1) DAREDEVIL IS EXCELLENT

I didn’t like the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie back in 2003. Or the associated 2005 Elektra movie with Jennifer Garner. And a blind, lawyer, vigilante, just didn’t appeal to me. I’d never read any of the comics, so no nostalgia tie, either.

I skipped the three-season streaming series which dropped back in 2015. And after trying a couple episodes of Jennifer Jones, I passed on the whole The Defenders thing.

For some reason, I decided to watch the first episode of the new reboot, Daredevil: Reborn. Don’t know why, but I did. And man, it was terrific!!! I did the three episodes which had dropped, and I was hooked. I went back and just finished watching season one of the original series. Wow! I’ve started season two.

This show is darker than what I like to watch. And the lighting and visual tone reflects the emotional vibe. Which is in tune with a blind vigilante, I guess. But this is one of my favorite Marvel streaming series (no timeline nonsense probably helps).

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Sword & Sorcery on a Post-Apocalyptic Earth: Blackmark by Gil Kane

Sword & Sorcery on a Post-Apocalyptic Earth: Blackmark by Gil Kane

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Blackmark by Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane (Bantam Books, January 1971). Cover by Gil Kane

As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t grow up with comics. They weren’t available in my small, rural town of Charleston, Arkansas in the 1960s and 70s. The first store to carry them appeared around ’74 and had a small spinner rack with a dozen or so titles. By then I was already reading regular books and the comics, while they had interesting art, had much less story than books. I bought a few but never got hooked and knew virtually nothing about any comics creator.

As an adult in my fifties, I watched a movie called The Watchmen, which was very good, and I bought the original graphic novel by Alan Moore. I was blown away by the complex storytelling and started buying other graphic novels. I finally started to learn about some of the great comic book creators over the years. I still don’t consider myself a comic book reader but I keep an eye out for items that might interest me. That’s how, in 2019, I found a cool little book called Blackmark, “by Gil Kane.”

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What Possessed You? — Part II

What Possessed You? — Part II

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The Vatican Tapes (Lionsgate, July 24, 2015)

The Vatican Tapes (2015) – Prime

Imagine my excitement when I read that Mark Nelvedine (The Crank movies, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Gamer) had made an exorcism flick. This was bound to be bonkers!

Oh, foolish lamb that I am.

This limp rag of a horror film had all the bite of a blob fish, and half the appeal. In order to hit that sweet PG-13 demographic, the film has been neutered to such an extent that it was virtually blood-free. Any onscreen nastiness takes place with the victim’s back to the camera, and none of it is helped by illogical editing choices.

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Tor Doubles: An Overview

Tor Doubles: An Overview

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Tor Doubles

In October of 1988, Tor Books released the first Tor Double, a volume that reprinted Arthur C. Clarke’s 1971 novella Meeting with Medusa with Kim Stanley Robinson’s novella Green Mars. Over the next thirty-five months, they would publish a total of thirty-six books in the series.

In general, there was little to link the two short stories that were published in each volume, although in 1990, Tor experimented with the publication of four Tor Doubles that included a classic story, by authors including C.L. Moore, L. Sprague de Camp, Leigh Brackett, and Roger Zelazny, with original stories that were set in the same world. The following year would see addition original stories published in the series.

Similarly, most of the volumes contained stories by two different authors, however four of the books published in 1991 were single author collections, with two stories each by Gordon R. Dickson, Mike Resnick, Damon Knight, and Fritz Leiber.

Modeled after the Ace Doubles series, the books were initially published in a dos-a-dos format, with each story getting its own cover and bound upside down in relation to the other book, so neither story was first (although the presence of an ISBN code on one side had a tendency to make it feel like the “back” of the book). The four volumes that included sequels were published with a single cover and beginning with volume 27, which included Orson Scott Card’s Eye for Eye and Lloyd Biggle, Jr.’s The Tunesmith, all the volumes were published in the more traditional format.

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Goth Chick News: The Night We Podded Out

Goth Chick News: The Night We Podded Out

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They Mostly Pod Out at Night, Mostly, hosted by Graveyard and Salem

One of the best parts of my Black Gate side hustle is the cool people we get to meet, and there’s nothing more exciting than connecting with those who are most definitely “our people.” I am embarrassed to admit that the Fall Days of the Dead show in Chicago last November was my first encounter with the geniuses behind the podcast They Mostly Pod Out at Night, Mostly, who go by the monikers Graveyard and Salem. And after all, who doesn’t love an Aliens reference?

​They Mostly Pod Out at Night, Mostly is a weekly podcast dedicated to all things horror. Each episode features in-depth discussions, covering a range of topics from classic and contemporary horror films to broader themes within the genre. The hosts provide insightful analysis, engaging reviews, and lively conversations that appeal to both casual viewers and die-hard horror enthusiasts. Their passion for horror is on full display as they explore the intricacies of various movies, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the genre’s evolution and impact.

Since meeting them in November I’ve become a regular listener, discovering yet another dark and intriguing corner of the horror subculture, and last night I had the honor of being a guest.

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You Are Cordially Invited to a Dinner Party in Hell: The Exterminating Angel

You Are Cordially Invited to a Dinner Party in Hell: The Exterminating Angel

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Social interaction is a minefield, isn’t it? Whether it’s gathering with the family for the holidays, relating to people at the workplace, or making small talk with the checker at the supermarket, any encounter with other people, no matter how casual or seemingly benign, is fraught with uncertainty and even, sometimes, menace. That may be why such interactions have so often been depicted as a form of combat. (It may also be why the trend towards “contactless” social transactions that reached warp speed with the advent of COVID isn’t going anywhere, but just continues to gain ground even as the Coronavirus era recedes.)

Of all the opportunities for social victory and defeat, triumph and humiliation, the party may be the most hazardous, but no party has ever been such an ordeal as the one endured by the hapless dinner guests in Luis Buñuel’s merciless 1962 nightmare, The Exterminating Angel (in its original Spanish, El ángel exterminador).

Filmed in Mexico and set in a “wealthy district” in an unnamed country (Roger Ebert declares that it’s Spain and that the movie is an attack on the regime of Francisco Franco, but I know of no statement by Buñuel that places the film so specifically or that defines its meaning so narrowly), The Exterminating Angel is the blackest of black comedies; I have no doubt that it would have made the chap who invented the rack and thumbscrews giggle uncontrollably.

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Books.by – A Viable Amazon Alternative?

Books.by – A Viable Amazon Alternative?

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Image by Gaertringen from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

Let’s talk self-publishing. Particularly, print on demand options.

In this particular climate, I know a number of book buyers and independent and self publishers looking to make an impact by being more mindful of where they spend their money and with whom they do business. It is, however, incredibly difficult to do any kind of individual action, given the absolute chokehold Amazon has in the book space. Those of us who are self-published know it well. Amazon is where most book buyers go when shopping online. And it’s where a large number of independent publishers go to have their books printed and shipped. Print on demand is a great technology, especially for those of us who do not have the funds to do an entire print run, and no space to store the books in any case.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: ‘Black Orchids’

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: ‘Black Orchids’

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What flummery is this? I have not written about Nero Wolfe since last Summer? There has not been a 3 Good Reasons in four years? What kind of mystery blogger is this Bryne fellow? Most unsatisfactory. So…

Welcome to another installment of 3 Good Reasons. With a goal of eventually tackling every tale of the Corpus, I’ll give three reasons why the particular story at hand is the best Nero Wolfe of them all. Since I’m writing over seventy ‘Best Story’ essays, the point isn’t actually to pick one – just to point out some of what is good in every adventure featuring Wolfe and Archie. And I’ll toss in one reason it’s not the best story. Now – These essays will contain SPOILERS. You have been warned!

The Story

Today’s story is “Black Orchids,” it’s the first of two in a collection of the same name. Lewis Hewitt has three unique black orchids on display at the annual NYC Flower Show. Wolfe’s envy rivals his desire for Millard Bynoe’s flamingo-colored Vanda in “Easter Parade.”

Wolfe orders Archie to scout the enclosed-in-a-case black orchids, over multiple days. It’s not surprising that Archie is smitten by Anne Tracy; a young woman working in a display at the show. Naturally, he finds a murdered body, which is right out in plain sight. Wolfe spends part of this story ‘in the wild,’ as his covetousness leads him to the show.

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