Westside Stories: The Gilda Carr Tiny Mystery Fantasies by W.M. Akers

Westside Stories: The Gilda Carr Tiny Mystery Fantasies by W.M. Akers

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Westside, Westside Saints, and Westside Lights (Harper Voyager, 2019, 2020, and 2022). Cover designs by Owen Corrigan.

First I heard of W.M. Akers’ Westside books was when Jeff Somers blurbed the first volume for the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of May 2019 at The Barnes & Noble Sci-fi & Fantasy Blog. Here’s what he said.

In an alternate 1920s Manhattan in which a heavily fortified wall running along Broadway divides the island into Eastside, where the normal laws of reality still apply, and Westside, where things have gone down the magical drain, the latter has become a magical wasteland where only the dregs of society — criminals, artists, and drunks — remain. Gilda Carr calls Westide home, and works as a private investigator specializing in bite-sized mysteries like recovering lost gloves. Somehow, though, her latest case pushes her into a gangland war that connects to her own long-missing father and the reason for the Westside’s descent into unreal chaos. As much as she might like to, Carr can’t sidestep the responsibility she suddenly feels to get to the bottom of both mysteries, for her own sake and that of everyone living in the magic-ravaged city. Akers’ hugely enjoyable debut marries inventive alt-history with truly strange magic and a protagonist you won’t soon forget.

An alternate 1920s Manhattan, a magical wasteland, and a PI who only takes tiny cases? You know I need to check out this one. Westside was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; sequel Westside Saints arrived a year later. Westside Lights, published in March, closes out the trilogy.

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When Venice Ruled the… Galaxy? Miles Cameron’s Artifact Space

When Venice Ruled the… Galaxy? Miles Cameron’s Artifact Space

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Artifact Space by Miles Cameron (Gollancz, June 14, 2022)

Although I love to watch Sci-Fi shows & movies, I don’t tend to read a lot of Sci-fi, and never have; even though Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos remains one of my favorite set of novels in any genre, and I have an incredible soft-spot for sword & planet pulp.

OTOH, good space opera often blurs the line between fantasy and Sci-Fi, or takes themes we see in historical fiction and contemporary society and plays with them, free from the constraints of, well, history. So, when one of your favorite his-fic/fantasy writers sets out to write a space opera, you need to take the plunge.

It’s a great plunge, indeed. I keep trying to come up with an analog and failing but here is the best I can come up with:

Patrick O’Brien’s Captain Aubrey novels + Horatio Hornblower + Top Gun in Star Trek’s Federation if the Federation had been founded by the Renaissance Venetians.

That’s a lot to unpack, right?

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Sci-Fi Meets Police Procedural – Asimov’s Baley & Olivaw

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Sci-Fi Meets Police Procedural – Asimov’s Baley & Olivaw

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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)

So… it’s a sneak preview, as A (Black) Gat in the Hand returns for the fifth straight summer. How about that? We’ll get going full bore after I get back from Howard Days, but here’s a little sci-fi meets mystery to get the 2023 season under way.

From October to December of 1953, a three-part serial from Isaac Asimov ran in Galaxy. In February, The Caves of Steel was published in hardback. Asimov combined the science fiction and mystery genres in the story. The Caves of Steel paints a bleak future for humanity that served as more than just the background of a murder investigation.

Earth became overpopulated and civilization had to adapt to the massive resource needs. Cities became densely populated collectives. Efficiency drove everything. Section units (one, two and three room apartments) rather than houses. Group eating areas, rather than individual kitchens. Common shower and bath units instead of one (or more) per family. Hundreds of miles of high-speed conveyor belts, rather than roads and cars. The ancient, underground roadways were used by official forces to fight fires, or to move about to quell riots.

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Space Traders, Backwater Planets, and Rocket Girls: May/June 2022 Print SF Magazines

Space Traders, Backwater Planets, and Rocket Girls: May/June 2022 Print SF Magazines

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May/June 2022 issues of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and
Analog Science Fiction & Fact. Cover art by Alan M. Clark, 123RF, and NASA

There’s a fine batch of print magazines piled on my nightstand this week. But the clear highlight is the return of James Enge’s delightful traveling wizard Morlock Ambrosius, who made his debut in Black Gate 8. “The Hunger” appears in in the pages of F&SF; Sam Tomaino at SF Revu calls it “Richly done fantasy with a lot of detail in so few pages.”

On the thirteenth of Bayring on her world with three moons, Tilsyni escapes her servitude in a house and dares to walk out into Skeleton Park, a very risky venture. She winds up joining a man who looks like an old peddler but is really a warrior named Morlock Ambrosius with a great sword. When animated skeletons attack, Morlock chops them up. But they just come back together. What can they do about them? Morlock finds a way.

The May/June print magazines contain stories by Norman Spinrad, Octavia Cade, Albert Cowdrey, Paul Di Filippo, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Rich Larson, Sheila Finch, R. Garcia y Robertson, James Van Pelt, Bruce McAllister, Robert Reed, Adam-Troy Castro, C.H. Hung, Alice Towey, Jerry Oltion, Sean McMullen, Brendan DuBois, and many others.

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Vintage Treasures: The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural compiled by Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg, and Martin H. Greenberg

Vintage Treasures: The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural compiled by Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg, and Martin H. Greenberg

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The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural (Arbor House, May 1981)

Back in February I surveyed all ten Arbor House Treasuries, calling them a “Hearty Library of Genre Fiction.” I wanted to take a closer look at a few (and I did crack open The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Silverberg), and this long Memorial Day weekend I’m settling down with The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural, a massive volume compiled by Bill Pronzini, Barry N. Malzberg, and Martin H. Greenberg.

This is a feast of a book, nearly 600 pages in hardcover, packed with 41 stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Winston Churchill, H. G. Wells, Ambrose Bierce, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Cornell Woolrich, William Faulkner, Theodore Sturgeon, Fritz Leiber, Fredric Brown, Karl Edward Wagner, Thomas M. Disch, Robert Silverberg, Ramsey Campbell, Jack Dann, C. M. Kornbluth, Robert Sheckley, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, and dozens of others. It’s a the kind of thing you build a month-long book club project around.

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Goth Chick News: Midnight Syndicate is Celebrating 25 Years of Creating the Soundtrack for Your Dark Side

Goth Chick News: Midnight Syndicate is Celebrating 25 Years of Creating the Soundtrack for Your Dark Side

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Anyone who has perused Goth Chick News regularly, knows that if Ed or Gavin (aka Midnight Syndicate) ever come knocking on my chamber door – I’m home. In fact, they were the very first professional interview I conducted for Black Gate following the release of their fourth album, Gates of Delirium, in 2001. From that point forward, they were and are the one and only goth boy-band that can still make me fangirl squee.

If you have managed to miss their many appearances in Goth Chick News, then allow me to catch you up. Midnight Syndicate has been working primarily in the genre of gothic music since 1997 and is based in Ohio. The band refers to their CDs as “soundtracks for the imagination” and their songs are characterized by a blend of instrumental music and sound effects. Midnight Syndicate music is commonly used to provide atmosphere during the Halloween season in haunted attractions, retail stores and theme parks. However, they have also done movie sound tracks, and rumor has it, were the preferred background music at the notoriously famous Halloween parties held at a certain LA mansion, which may or may not have been associated with bunnies.

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Random Reviews: “Lt. Privet’s Love Song” by Scott Thomas

Random Reviews: “Lt. Privet’s Love Song” by Scott Thomas

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The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, Cover by Jon Sullivan
The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, Cover by Jon Sullivan

“Lt. Privet’s Love Story” is set in a complex fantasy kingdom which is ruled by sibling monarchs who command a massive and powerful navy. Scott Thomas focuses his attention on a remote seaport, the activities that brought two of the royal navy ships to the seaport, and the actions of a lieutenant that threatens to cause further harm to the fleet.

The title character serves on the frigate North Swan in a fantasy world. After his ship was mysteriously damaged by a ghostly red ship, it put into the harbor at New Crown for repairs. While in port, he becomes smitten with Hazel, the daughter of the local innkeeper. Although one would think that level-headedness and logic were good traits for a lieutenant in a royal navy, Privet fails to demonstrate either of those traits.  Rather than court the barmaid, he goes to Old Crown, located on top of the mountain at which New Crown is at the base, and purchases a love philtre from the twin Deerfield Sisters.

As may be expected, Privet’s used of the magic potion causes difficulties. Having been befriended by Captain Moorsparrow of the Swift Cannon, and his wife, Privet learns that the fleet’s flagship has also been fired upon by the mysterious red ship. To make matters worse, the Swift Cannon was carrying one of the heirs to the throne and was now also in port for repairs, which would delay the repairs to the North Swan.

Naturally, Moorsparrow’s wife winds up unintentionally drinking the love potion, which leads Moorsparrow to challenge Privet to a duel, a situation which will either deprive the royal navy of a ship’s captain or the reader of a character who is presented as the hero, and certainly the protagonist, of the short story. A deadly outcome for the duel is only averted by the sudden reappearance of the red ship.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Musashi and Kojiro

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Musashi and Kojiro

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I recently finished reading Eiji Yoshikawa’s long, 1,500-page novel, Musashi, originally serialized in Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun between 1935 and 1939. It tells a fictionalized story of the early life of Musashi Miyamoto, the celebrated author of The Book of Five Rings who is considered by many the finest exemplar of Bushido, the warrior code of the samurai.

It was a good read, which was no surprise — the book has sold far more than 100 million copies, and its depiction of Musashi has inspired a number of screen incarnations, none more famous than Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai trilogy (1954-1956), starring Toshiro Mifune as Musashi. After finishing the novel I decided to give the films a rewatch and they stood up well, so I thought I’d present them here. Of course, we covered Samurai I in a Cinema of Swords article in October 2020, but here are Samurai II and III and a sort of spin-off from the following year, Sasaki Kojiro.

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High Fantasy Noir: Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

High Fantasy Noir: Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Black Sun (paperback reprint) and Fevered Star (Saga Press, June 2021 and April 2022). Covers by John Picacio

My first novel The Robots of Gotham was released in June 2018, and it was gratifying to see a summer debut could quickly climb bestseller lists, receive wide attention and praise from numerous venues, snag a Nebula and Hugo nomination, and win a Locus Award.

Not mine, of course. No, all that breathless acclaim went to Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning, released a week after Robots. It was consistently annoying to hear the excited chatter about that book from friends, coworkers, parents, children, and people standing next to me at the damn post office.

I decided to read Roanhorse’s book so I could see what I was up against. That was a huge mistake. Pretty soon I was talking it up to anyone who would listen — or even make eye contact. You haven’t read Trail of Lightning?? I heard myself say. Check it out first — it’s fantastic. I guess I suck as a self-promoter, but I’m still your guy for honest book recs.

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KISS’ Hard Luck Woman – It was for Rod Stewart?

KISS’ Hard Luck Woman – It was for Rod Stewart?

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And now, for something completely different. My older sister was a huge KISS fan. She and some friends went out for Halloween dressed as the band one year. So, I heard their music as a little kid, but it wasn’t until later I really got into them. I saw them on the Crazy Nights tour. That remains my favorite album by the band, followed by Alive II.

While I like a lot of their songs, I acknowledge, lyrically, their tunes are the equivalent of a horny 14-year old boy. Titles like Love Gun, Bang Bang You, and Ladies Room, are about as deep as they sound. And there are a lot more ‘clear’ examples; without even getting into lyrics. Rocket Ride isn’t exactly an existential examination of interstellar travel…

But it is what it is. They’re a great rock and roll band. Paul Stanley grew up on the Motown and Philly soul sounds, and his Soul Station project is a reflection of that. IF you don’t much use for him, google him singing the classic, Get Ready, as he emulates Eddie Kendricks’ falsetto. This is the music Stanley loves. And it’s got those great Motown horns. And listen to an original song he wrote for the album, I, Oh I. It’s simply terrific and would have been a smash in 1966.

He was also a big fan of Rod Stewart, and liked songs such as Maggie May, and You Wear it Well. He wanted to write a song for Stewart, and came up with Hard Luck Woman. This explains why it doesn’t sound like a typical KISS song. The lyrics bring to mind the nautical classic Brandy, from Looking Glass.

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