Vintage Treasures: The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction, edited by Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg

Vintage Treasures: The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction, edited by Isaac Asimov, Charles G. Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg

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The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction and The Seven Cardinal Virtues of Science Fiction
(Fawcett Crest, 1980 and 1981). Covers by Jerome Podwil

Back in the day, there was a pretty reliable formula for a successful science fiction anthology.

Went like this: Step one, find a fresh theme. Could be anything. Unicorns, space dreadnaughts, cats (cats were always a good choice). Step two, find a bunch of science fiction stories. Step three, put Isaac Asimov’s name on the cover.

In 1978, Asimov put out his first anthology with Martin H. Greenberg, who was famously gifted at the production side of things, and over the next decade or so they published over a hundred together, usually with Charles G. Waugh, a psychology professor in Maine. Charles picked the stories, Isaac wrote the intros, and Marty did everything else.

It was an inspired partnership, and it produced many celebrated volumes, including Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction (10 books), Isaac Asimov’s Magical Worlds of Fantasy (12 books), and many Mammoth Books of Science Fiction. But for me the real gems of the enterprise were some of the one-offs, including The Seven Deadly Sins of Science Fiction, and its sequel The Seven Cardinal Virtues of Science Fiction.

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Goth Chick News: Why Comments About Rob Zombie’s Munsters Are (Likely) Far More Entertaining Than the Movie Will Be…

Goth Chick News: Why Comments About Rob Zombie’s Munsters Are (Likely) Far More Entertaining Than the Movie Will Be…

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I’ll start this by saying I have nothing against Rob Zombie in general. As a musician, he has sold millions of albums, had Grammy nominations and sold-out concert venues for the past 20 years. Though I am not a fan of his movies, a little research explained why he keeps getting funding to make them. In general, a movie is considered a success if it makes a minimum of 2x its overall budget, but in reality, this is more like 3x or above. I actually researched all of Zombie’s theatrical releases and on average, his movies make 3.21x their budgets. So, though they are not considered blockbusters (for example, Top Gun: Maverick is currently at 7x its operating budget and counting), Zombie’s films definitely do well enough to keep getting made. Which brings me to Zombie’s latest film: The Munsters.

According to various interviews, Zombie like many of us, grew up watching reruns of the original Musters TV show, whose 70 episodes ran from 1964-1966. Zombie’s most famous song, “Dragula,” is named after the Munsters’ car built by Grandpa to win a drag race, and the chorus of the song quotes Grandpa directly. I get it, Zombie loves The Munsters. The question was whether or not a self-taught filmmaker whose prior films have been described as “grotesque,” “violent,” and “one giant loogie” was capable of creating a true homage to a cult classic like The Munsters?

Apparently, and unsurprisingly, the answer is no.

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Random Reviews: “JackBack” by J. Scott Crawford

Random Reviews: “JackBack” by J. Scott Crawford

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Cover by Bob Eggleton
Cover by Bob Eggleton

“JackBack,” was the “Newcomer’s Corner” featured short story in the Fall/Winter 1997 issue of Absolute Magnitude. It appears it may not only have been newcomer J. Scott Crawford’s debut short story, but also, apparently, his last short story.

Set in a future Atlanta, Tyler Underwood is a security specialist who has been called to install a system for a celebrity who had chosen to live in Cummings, Georgia, which Underwood considers to be the most dangerous suburb in Atlanta, outside the Perimeter, the area of Atlanta in which he felt safe.  The story of his drive home is juxtaposed with the description of a sales call for JackBack, a car security system that ensures people are able to recover their stolen vehicles, which Crawford portrays as a major issue in his Atlanta.

Underwood’s story is about his attempt to get home from this installation. Driving a Jaguar, he knows that his car is a target for every carjacker on the road. When his on-line communications system shut down, his concern, possibly paranoia, kicks in as he tries to make it to an area he considers safe. As he drives, he focuses his attention on a Camaro that seems to be trailing him, making his drive home a race to safety, at least in his own mind.

Against this, the details of the JackBack story line provides support for the danger that Underwood perceives, at least so far as the maker of the JackBack device want to promote the need for drivers to make use of their services. While Underwood’s story focuses on his drive home, the JackBack story includes sections dealing with a sales spiel to a new car owner, a flashback to a previously retrieved car, and, eventually, a tie in to Underwood’s drive home.

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Space Opera at its Most Grandiose: The Sun Eater Series by Christopher Ruocchio

Space Opera at its Most Grandiose: The Sun Eater Series by Christopher Ruocchio

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The Sun Eaters series (so far): Empire of Silence, Howling Dark, Demon in White, and
Kingdoms of Death. All published by DAW. Covers by Sam Weber (book 1) and Kieran Yanner (books 2-4).

Every time an author completes a fantasy trilogy, we bake a cake at Black Gate headquarters. I can’t comment on anyone else, but speaking personally, this job has kept me fat for over a decade. I have no complaints.

The corporate protocol is a little fuzzier when an author produces four books in a series (though I did see Bob Byrne attempt a souffle last month.) And when we see that rare five book milestone? I can’t remember the last time it happened, but I think it involved ice cream and a catapult.

We better figure it out soon, though. The fifth and final book in Christopher Ruocchio’s groundbreaking Sun Eater series is scheduled to arrive this year, and it will bring to a close one of the most popular and acclaimed space operas of the decade. Library Journal called the opening volume a “wow book… stretched across a vast array of planets,” and Eric Flint labeled it “epic-scale space opera in the tradition of Iain M. Banks and Frank Herbert’s Dune.” It won Ruocchio the 2019 Manly Wade Wellman Award.

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As Subversively Funny and Modern as Anything Ever Written: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville

As Subversively Funny and Modern as Anything Ever Written: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville

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The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (Dover Thrift Editions,
November 2017). Cover: New Orleans Map, Currier and Ives, 1885

Last night I finished re-reading Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. I had not read it in many years — I first read it in the mid-1970s in a graduate seminar on Hawthorne and Melville taught by the wonderful Professor Elizabeth Schultz at the University of Kansas.

It’s perhaps my favorite Melville book, and a significant influence on my writing; my first solo novel Good News From Outer Space was an attempt to cross the figure of the multiply-disguised Confidence Man from Melville’s book with the shape-changing aliens of classic science fiction.

It all takes place in a single day — April Fool’s Day — on a steamboat that leaves St. Louis for points south, carrying a carnival of American character types, among them a confidence man who assumes eight different disguises as he interacts with, and bilks, various passengers during the the course of the day. It’s been described as a series of sketches or conversations. But that description does not do justice to the ways in which this book deconstructs America — and friendship and society and capitalism and progress and nature and religion and language itself — pretty much anything that any of us put faith in.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ “The Gin Monkey”

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

There will be more pulp Robert E. Howard this summer, but this week, it’s back to the Mean Streets I’m actually (semi-) qualified to write about. And I do know my Norbert Davis; and Dime Detective! This is my seventh Davis essay. And I’ve written two book introductions, with more coming. I’m doing what I can to drum up interest in the massively under-appreciated pulpster.

Black Mask originated, and then dominated, the hardboiled pulp field. In early 1923, Carroll John Daly brought Three gun Terry Mack, and then Race Williams to the page. In October, Dashiell Hammett (writing as Peter Collinson) introduced the more-developed Continental Op. Black Mask would focus on the newly created sub-genre, Joseph ‘Cap’ Shaw would become editor, and the magazine would dominate the mystery field for the rest of the decade. The field was emulating, and looking up at, Black Mask.

Dime Detective hit newsstands in November of 1931. The pulp would become Black Mask’s most enduring competition. In fact, Black Mask would be bought by Dime Detective’s publisher and the latter would outlast the legendary magazine. Stories would be parceled out between the two magazines, and there wasn’t much of a difference, other than which characters could be found in which one.

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An Exemplary New Voice in Horror: The Word Horde John Langan

An Exemplary New Voice in Horror: The Word Horde John Langan

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Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters and Corpsemouth and
Other Autobiographies (Word Horde, July 5, 2022). Covers by Matthew Jaffe

John Langan is one of the fast-rising stars of modern horror. His first collection, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in 2008; more nominations followed for collections Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019) and Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies (2020). His second novel The Fisherman won a Stoker in 2016.

Ross E. Lockhart’s Word Horde press, which has been publishing Langan since 2016, just released his fourth collection and simultaneously reprinted his first. Here’s what Ross tells me about them:

John Langan’s first collection, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters (2008), marked him as an exemplary new voice in horror, and an author to watch. I’m pleased to publish a new edition of this classic collection (now with an additional story), alongside John’s latest collection, Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies. Between these two books, a reader can chart the course of John’s evolution as a writer, as well as explore the themes and threads binding his work together. Most of all, one can see that John Langan remains an author worth exploring.

This sounds like an entirely excellent way to spend the next few evenings. Here’s a closer look at both volumes.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12, edited by Terry Carr

Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12, edited by Terry Carr

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12 (Timescape/Pocket Books, July 1983)

I recently found a copy of Terry Carr’s 1983 anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12 in a paperback collection I bought on eBay, and I was astonished at just how many great tales it contained.

There’s Connie Willis’s Hugo & Nebula Award winner “Firewatch,” the story of a time-traveling history student doing research during the London Blitz who discovers much more than he bargained for; Joanna Russ’s famous novella “Souls,” a Hugo award-winner in which a resourceful Abbess faces off against invading Vikings; Bruce Sterling’s first short story sale, the Shaper/Mechanist novelette “Swarm;” William Gibson’s early cyberpunk classic (and Nebula nominee) “Burning Chrome;” and Robert Silverberg’s Nebula Award nominee “The Pope of the Chimps,” in which a group of chimpanzees taught sign language develop a religion centered around humans.

There’s even a fine tale by my friend Bill Johnson, whom I worked with for years at Motorola in the 90s, “Meet Me at Apogee.”

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New Treasures: The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

New Treasures: The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

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The Ballad of Perilous Graves (Redhook, June 21, 2022)

What’s the best thing about knowing writers on Facebook? They’re always talking about books, that’s what. Yesterday P. Djèlí Clark (A Master of Djinn, The Haunting of Tram Car 015) tipped me off to a great new debut fantasy by Alex Jennings.

The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings — featuring a New Orleans of sky trolleys, living graffiti, trans dimensional portals, and terrifying haints — gotta be one of the most amazing books I’ve read in a minute. Magical, lyrical, gritty, otherworldly… sh*t is hype like Bayou Classic in the 90s, set to song. Put this on your list for the summer.

Okay, that doesn’t tell you much about the plot. Social media ain’t perfect. Besides, we’re Black Gate, we have a staff of investigative reporters for that.

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Goth Chick News: Taking a Trip Back to Jerusalem’s Lot

Goth Chick News: Taking a Trip Back to Jerusalem’s Lot

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Though Lapvona, a historical fiction tale by Ottessa Moshfegh, tops thirteen separate summer reading lists, it was not one of the books I took with me on a recent two-weeker through South America. Tropical blue waters and umbrella drinks in no way dissuaded me from delving into my favorite genre, and though I’ll be getting to Lapvona eventually, I opted for some classics on this trip: namely Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and dare I say it, Stephen King.

If you haven’t heard, part of King’s current monopoly on movies, limited series and episodic juggernauts, is a remake of ‘Salem’s Lot. The original screen adaptation of King’s 1975 vampire story was a made-for-TV, two-episode mini-series released in 1979, directed by Tobe Hooper and starring David Soul and James Mason. Reviews were largely positive, with critics praising the film’s atmosphere, cinematography, Hooper’s direction, and scares. As of today, ‘Salem’s Lot the mini-series still holds an approval rating of 89% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. I tell you this, because in my humble opinion, like many of King’s books, the translation to screen missed the mark back in 1979.

Now, forty plus years later, we’re getting a theater remake, and given what was done to the remakes of Pet Semetary and IT, my personal expectations are pretty low. Which brings me to why I chose to reread ‘Salem’s Lot after revisiting Dracula for the hundredth time.

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