Black Gate – Page 1051 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Weird of Oz on the Art of Rating 3 (of 3)

Monday, May 27, 2013 Nick Ozment Comments 5 comments

“Excellent, Dude! This movie was totally triumphant!… Not since the McKenzie Brothers or the Frog Brothers has a group come along as wild as these Wyld Stallyns…”

So I wrote 24 years ago in my review of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Dude, I totally didn’t talk like that — for those who never saw the movie, I was riffing on the way the characters speak.

Looking back over the review now, I notice that I list the then-unknown actor who played Ted as “Keavy Reeves.” We didn’t have the Internet Movie Database — or the Internet — back then; my guess is I misread the notes I jotted down in the theater.

I also notice it was a decent review that gave readers of the high school newspaper a good grasp of what the film was all about, albeit a bit adverb-heavy: “As one can probably tell this movie had great potential to be utterly stupid. It is on that fine line between being fantastically dumb and riotously hilarious, but it succeeds in being the latter. . . . It is an incredibly funny movie and I declare it excellent.”

So the review holds up okay. Question is, does the movie? I confess I haven’t watched it in years, but I have seen it several times, and my memories of it are fond ones (it was filmed in the places where I hung out in high school, so it is a trip down memory lane in more ways than one).

When I declared Bill and Ted’s to be “excellent,” was I (aside from playing on the characters’ vernacular) putting it in the same category as 2001: A Space Odyssey? Bill and Ted’s is nominally a science-fiction (time travel) film. Of course, it is primarily a comedy, so was I elevating it to the ranks of Some Like It Hot, Duck Soup, and Dr. Strangelove? (If you haven’t guessed, the answer is Hell no.) This leaves one big question, which brings us to the final topic I wish to consider in this series on the art of rating: When we rate a film (or a book or a television show etc.), what are we rating it against?

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Turtle in the Sea of Sand” by Mary Catelli

Sunday, May 26, 2013 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

It was just a turtle made of stone. But why were so many people willing to kill for it?

“Leave.” The man’s voice was low but intense. “You should not have come. These wizards are beyond you.”

What did this man know of the docks? Thinking that hiring Kyre meant that Kyre could let him be robbed and do nothing?

“No one robs me,” said Kyre, drawing his knife. The man looked taken aback. “Don’t you know how much my name means to me? Did you think I’d let these knaves drop it in the dust? I took your coin.”

The man’s tongue touched his lips. After a moment, he said, “You’ll not stop them with only that knife.”

Kyre shrugged. He could not let this man know that he had never killed before. “I’ll help you.”

Mary Catelli started writing in her teens, when deprived of books to read. After a while, she started finishing the stories. Since then, her short stories have appeared in various Sword and Sorceress anthologies and Weird Tales. She is working on a novel. She lives in Connecticut, where she works as a computer programmer.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Michael Penkas, Vera Nazarian, Robert Rhodes, Ryan Harvey, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, E.E. Knight, C.S.E. Cooney, Howard Andrew Jones, Harry Connolly, and many others, is here.

“The Turtle in the Sea of Sand” is a complete 4,800-word tale of adventure fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

Paul Di Filippo on “A” is for Android and Other Tales: Masters of Science Fiction Vol. #8

Sunday, May 26, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Over at Locus Online, Paul Di Filippo has a look at the latest Masters of Science Fiction reprint from Armchair Fiction, this one focused on Milton Lesser, author of Slaves to the Metal Horde and The Thing from Underneath.

If you do not know the enchantingly retro line of SF/F/H books published by Armchair Fiction… then I offer you now an eye-popping introduction. Visit his site and marvel at the vast range of vintage fiction, long out of print, lovingly repackaged with period artwork. Names as seminal as those of Fritz Leiber, Clifford Simak and Edmond Hamilton consort with the bylines of lesser craftsmen… The Armchair Fiction catalogue opens an essential window onto a vital and overlooked and still enjoyable portion of our history.

The latest entry in their “Masters of Science Fiction” series is awarded to Milton Lesser, who bears a name the majority of modern fans will probably be unfamiliar with. Lesser was one of those working-stiff writers back in the day who turned out intelligent, yet perhaps sometimes over facile, goods to suit whatever market was looking for material and paying a decent word rate… Truly the work of a Master? Did it exhibit a genuine affinity for the mode, a sense of wonder, some unique ideation? Does it seem hokey and clunky today, or do its narrative virtues still engage and reward?

We last looked at Armchair Fiction — via Paul W. Fairman’s The Girl Who Loved Death and Murray Leinster’s Planet of Dread — last January.

Curiously, this book is listed under the variant title “A” as in Android at Amazon.com and other places. I haven’t seen a copy myself, so I can’t confirm which title is correct.

“A” is for Android (or maybe “A” as in Android) was published January 30 by Armchair Fiction. It is 320 pages in trade paperback, priced at $16.95. There is no digital edition. See more details at the Armchair Fiction site here, and you can read Paul’s complete review here.

New Treasures: The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock

Sunday, May 26, 2013 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

We covered several high quality reprints from Titan Books last year, including Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron; Sax Rohmer’s The Hand of Fu Manchu; and books by James P. Blaylock, Guy Adams, and others.

But their accomplishments don’t end there. Starting in January of this year, Titan began reprinting Michael Moorcock’s early steampunk trilogy Nomad of the Time Streams, beginning with The Warlord of the Air, originally published way back in 1971:

It is 1973, and the stately airships of the Great Powers hold benign sway over a peaceful world. The balance of power is maintained by the British Empire – a most equitable and just Empire, ruled by the beloved King Edward VIII. A new world order, with peace and prosperity for all under the law. Yet, moved by the politics of envy and perverse utopianism, not all of the Empire’s citizens support the marvelous equilibrium.

Flung from the North East Frontier of 1902 into this world of the future, Captain Oswald Bastable is forced to question his most cherished ideals, discovering to his horror that he has become a nomad of the time streams, eternally doomed to travel the wayward currents of a chaotic multiverse.

The first in the Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy, The Warlord of the Air sees Bastable fall in with the anarchists of this imperial society and set in train a course of events more devastating than he could ever have imagined.

These classic novels have been out of print for some fifteen years. Titan has already released the second, The Land Leviathan, on April 16; that volume finds Bastable in an alternate 1904 devastated by a terrible war waged with futuristic weapons and deadly biological attacks. The third and final volume, The Steel Tsar, follows Bastable’s adventures in an alternate 1941 where both World Wars were averted and Russia is still ruled by Tsars, and Bastable finds himself imprisoned by the rebel ‘Steel Tsar,’ Joseph Stalin. It will be released on August 13.

The Warlord of the Air was published by Titan Books on January 15. It is 215 pages in trade paperback, priced at $9.95 ($9.95 for the digital edition).

Forrest J. Ackerman and the Days of the Do-It-Yourself Anthology

Sunday, May 26, 2013 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

When I was 14 years old, I stumbled on an article in Starlog magazine titled “The World’s Greatest Science Fiction Fan.”

It was about Forrest J. Ackerman, of course: writer, literary agent, and editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland. But Forry’s greatest claim to fame was his legendary science fiction collection, housed in the Ackermansion in Los Angeles.

The article was accompanied by some mind-blowing photos. Forry standing before one of his greatest prides: his complete collection of Weird Tales. Forry posing with the original model used in George Pal’s War of the Worlds. Forry shaking hands with the Maschinenmensch from Metropolis. [Click on the image at left or below for bigger versions.]

The article appeared in the 1978 issue of Starlog, and it had a pretty profound effect on me. After I read it, I knew what my life’s work would be: to build a science fiction collection that could stand with pride alongside Forrest J. Ackerman’s.

These are the things that only a 14-year-old can dream.

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Fun with the Original Star Trek Crew

Saturday, May 25, 2013 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

I saw Star Trek Into Darkness last week, and quite enjoyed it… although overall, I tend to agree with those critics, like Gary Westfahl at Locus Online and Keith Decandido at Tor.com, who’ve pointed out that it’s kinda a mindless action flick with more in common with contemporary summer blockbusters than Star Trek. Still, my kids loved it — and so did the packed house — and I firmly believe that any filmmaker who can successfully re-imagine Star Trek, and ignite fresh interest in a whole new generation, deserves praise. Even if it’s not exactly the same Star Trek I enjoyed 40 years ago.

Besides, no one’s done anything to tarnish that Star Trek. So I’ve been quietly enjoying it at home. I watched “Space Seed” on DVD, and Star Trek The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on Blu-Ray. And I’ve recently discovered a host of Trek-themed advertisements from the 80s, including this delightful ad for a British power company starring William Shatner and James Doohan:

If that’s not enough for you, there’s also this AT&T ad from the late 80s, featuring virtually the entire cast… and a nice surprise at the end.

Enjoy!

Tor.com Reviews First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Friday, May 24, 2013 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

Over at Tor.com, Mordicai Knode has captured a lot of my own thoughts on First Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Here he is on Gary Gygax’s original Monster Manual:

Even if you don’t play the game, you can still flip through it and think chimeras and hook horrors and mindflayers are awesome. Which follows through; even if you aren’t going to use any given monster, you can still find them interesting, and who knows, maybe flipping through you’ll find something that inspires you. I’ve built entire adventures, campaign tent poles, around a monster that tickled my fancy… I was very impressed with how closely the 1e Monster Manual adhered to my monster design philosophy: make every monster a mini-game.

Yes — exactly that. Even today, virtually every new adventure I design begins with flipping through MM (or MM II) until I see something that inspires me. These are books I’ve used more or less continuously for three decades. That’s my definition of a classic. The reprints, compliments of Wizards of the Coast, are geared towards the curious, and the exploding population of Old School Renaissance gamers.

Here’s Mordicai on the Dungeon Masters Guide:

The items, frankly, are neat as all get out. There is a good reason that all of the items here have been re-imagined in every subsequent edition — they are fantastic… The section on artifacts is…a mixed bag. First off, the Hand of Vecna! We all agree that the Hand and Eye of Vecna are the best artifacts, right?… While the backstories are wonderful, and I appreciate the impulse to leave artifacts open for DMs to tweak…a blank list of powers is just not helpful. Which is what you get, literal blank lines printed in the book. Come on, at least give a default suggestion!

What he said. Read the complete review here.

We last covered Tor.com with C.S.E. Cooney’s review of Paul Park’s poem Ragnarok.

Two Sought Adventure

Friday, May 24, 2013 Violette Malan Comments 3 comments

Two weeks ago I talked about the city vs. country tension that’s often found in literature, and how it might have contributed to the rise of the barbarian hero in our own genre. Now I’m wondering whether we haven’t seen a fine-tuning of that same tension in a more familiar guise: the buddy movie, or, more to the point for us genre types, the buddy adventure.

Like some of the other stuff I’ve been talking about, I don’t think this concept is something that’s just shown up recently. In Don Quijote – widely considered to be the first novel, though you won’t get many who’ll agree on what genre it is – we have the titular Don himself, but we also have his travelling companion and side-kick, Sancho Panza.

But, you might argue, Sancho is a side-kick, and not an adventurer in and of himself – though again, you’ll find those who’ll dispute that, and maybe even convince you that, title aside, the book really belongs to Sancho. But let’s think about the implications here for genre heroes. When is a character a side-kick (pray note that I don’t qualify that by saying “just”) and when is the character a co-hero?

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Blogging Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon, Part Two – “Yeti”

Friday, May 24, 2013 William Patrick Maynard Comments 0 Comment

Mac Raboy succeeded Austin Briggs in illustrating the Flash Gordon Sunday strip from 1948 until his death in 1967. As an artist, Raboy was heavily influenced by the strip’s creator, Alex Raymond, and did a fine job of continuing the series. Dark Horse reprinted the entire Mac Raboy run in four oversized monochrome trade paperbacks a few years ago. Titan Books will reprint the series in full color as part of their ongoing hardcover reprints of the entire run of the series. At present, I have only two Mac Raboy stories (one early and one late-period) as a sample of his two decade run on the strip.

“Yeti” was serialized by King Features Syndicate from July 21 to November 17, 1963. Raboy’s artwork was not as strong by this point as it had been earlier, but having succeeded Don Moore in writing his own scripts, it is clear that Raboy was taking a cue from Dan Barry’s concurrent daily strip in moving the series away from Alex Raymond’s original template.

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Goth Chick News: Blade Slays Again…

Thursday, May 23, 2013 Sue Granquist Comments 2 comments

I might be one of the few fans of the Marvel comic Blade to actually admit to liking the screen adaptations staring Wesley Snipes.

New Line Cinema released the trilogy of Blade movies between 1998 and 2004. They were based on the half-breed vampire slayer character created for Marvel Comics by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan debuting in 1973’s The Tomb of Dracula #10.

Granted, not all three movies were created equal, but I thought the first one was solid and though by the third installment, Blade Trinity, fans of the comic might not have recognized much, the snappy dialog written for Ryan Reynolds and the overall eye-candy made it at least entertaining, if not wildly successful.

In fact, at this year’s C2E2 I overheard an interesting bit of Blade Trinity trivia which maybe helps explain why.

Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt — who played weapons expert Hedges in the third Blade movie — was signing autographs. He told a fan that all those Ryan Reynolds’ sophomoric one-liners followed by Wesley Snipes’ dead pan stares were largely the result of Snipes not speaking to screenwriter / director David Goyer.

Apparently Snipes would only communicate to Goyer via post-it notes and generally refused to cooperate during the production, causing the rest of the cast to take up the uncomfortable slack in an attempt to save the film. Oswalt explained:

We would all just think of things for him (Reynolds) to say and then cut to Wesley’s face not doing anything because that’s all we could get from him (Snipes). That was an example of a very troubled shoot that we made fun. You have to find a way to make it fun.

Interesting.

Even more so when you consider that the entire franchise might be getting a chance at a Snipes-free redemption.

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