The Sword & Planet Fiction of Robert Moore Williams: Zanthar

The Sword & Planet Fiction of Robert Moore Williams: Zanthar

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Jongor Fights Back (Popular Library, 1970). Cover by Frank Frazetta

Robert Moore Williams (1907 – 1977) wrote a lot of books, over 100. I’ve read two of them and that means there’s a 100 or so more books out there I won’t need to read before I die, including the ones he wrote under pseudonyms such as John Browning, H. H. Harmon, E. K. Jarvis, and Russell Storm. He also wrote an autobiography called Love is Forever – We Are for Tonight.

As a writer myself, I hesitate to be too critical of other writers. I know how difficult it is to finish a novel. But I don’t know how else to say it other than that — in my opinion — Moore was not a good one. The first book I found by him was Jongor Fights Back, a Tarzanesque effort featuring Jongor in a lost land. It was readable, but just barely. The cover, by Frank Frazetta, was a million times better.

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The Failed Giant: Five Tributes to Barry N. Malzberg

The Failed Giant: Five Tributes to Barry N. Malzberg

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Barry N. Malzberg

Barry N. Malzberg died on December 19. In his Black Gate obituary, Rich Horton wrote:

Malzberg was in his unique way a true giant in our field. Barry himself, in his later years, seemed to regard his career as a failure, but it was no such thing. He may have stopped publishing novels out of a feeling the publishing world wasn’t receptive to his work, but the best of what he did publish is outstanding, and thoroughly representative of his own vision.

Tributes and reminiscences have poured in over the last week, and many amplify Rich’s comments, especially in regard to both the importance of Malzberg’s work, and his embittered attitude towards the field near the end of his career. Several writers, including Adam-Troy Castro and Gregory Feeley, have generously granted permission for me to reprint their lengthy comments here, including several fascinating anecdotes.

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The Best of Bob: 2024

The Best of Bob: 2024

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Happy 2025! Let’s kick butt for another year. Or at least, limp to the finish 52 weeks. from now. I take what I can get. I started a Best of Bob feature last year. And while it may seem I’m constantly finding folks to write my column for me (hey – it’s a gift!), some of you Black Gaters may be surprised that I occasionally actually write my own essays for the Monday morning slot. John O’Neill is too savvy an editor for me to completely fool him for over decade.

So here are what I thought were ten of my better efforts in 2024. Hopefully you saw them back when I first posted them. But if not, maybe you’ll check out a few now. Ranking them seemed a bit egotistical, so they’re in chronological order. Let’s go!

1) Roaming the Old West, with Holmes on the Range (February 5, 2024)

It might look like I just throw something together every week (and looks aren’t always deceptive). But when I can find the time, I love putting together something special. And after reading/re-reading the entire series, I really nailed a three-part series on Steve Hockensmith’s Sherlock Holmes influenced, Old West mysteries about cowboy brothers Old Red and Big Red.

I followed up a pretty solid series overview, with the first-ever comprehensive chronology! And then, we rounded it out with a great Q&A from Steve himself. This is a terrific series: a great read, and solid on audiobook. Late in the year, the first two novels in a spin-off series that’s more Old West adventure than Holmes-flavored, came out. I’m looking forward to more of all aspects of the Double-A Western Detective Agency.

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From Al-Qadim to The East Mark Gazetteer

From Al-Qadim to The East Mark Gazetteer

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Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures (TSR, 1992). Cover by Jeff Easley

Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures, by Jeff Grubb (with Andria Hayday), was one of the finest settings produced by TSR during the AD&D 2E (Second Edition) days.

“Magic carpets, ghoulish vixens, genies rising from the sand in a whirlwind of smoke and fire — such wonders, spin into tales by the fabled Scheherazade, enchanted a king for a thousand and one nights.”

The setting is inspired by Sinbad, Ali Baba, and other classics from Arabian Nights.

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Jumping the Shark, Part III

Jumping the Shark, Part III

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Sharknado 6: It’s About Time (The Asylum/Syfy Films, 2018), and Great White (Piccadilly Pictures, 2021)

So, here we go. A new watch-a-thon, this one based on a handful of the 500+ shark movies that I haven’t seen (or gave up on). I’m not holding out much hope for these — shark movies are, on the whole, awful, but I know for a fact that some of these are among the worst films ever made. This 20-film marathon is me just trying to understand why they get made, bought and streamed.

Sharknado 6: It’s About Time (2019) Prime

What kind of shark? Lots of CG sharks and some ropey dinosaurs.

How deep is the plot? 10 meters.

Anyone famous get eaten? Only beans. Hasbeans.

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A to Z Review: Once There Was a Way, by Bryce Zabel

A to Z Review: Once There Was a Way, by Bryce Zabel

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A to Z Reviews

The Beatles were one of the most important bands of the twentieth century, but at the same time, and despite the massive Beatlemania the accompanied them, they only really existed in the public consciousness for eight years and 12 albums. Their breakup in 1970 when they apparently had so much to offer has meant that fans have long wondered what would have happened if they had remained together, had a reunion, anything.

Among those fans are several authors who have written alternative histories in which the Beatles’ story had played out differently. Stephen Baxter tackled the topic in the short story “The Twelfth Album,” Ian R. MacLeod explored a John Lennon who quit the Beatles before they made it in “Snodgrass,” the Beatles went their separate ways during the “Please, Please Me” sessions in Larry Kirwan’s Liverpool Fantasy, and Michael A. Ventrella and Randee Dawn edited an entire anthology of alternate Beatles stories in Across the Universe.  Films, such as Yesterday have also tackled the idea of the Beatles not existing.

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Chess in Sword & Planet Fiction, Part IV: Lin Carter’s Callisto

Chess in Sword & Planet Fiction, Part IV: Lin Carter’s Callisto

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The 8-volume Callisto series by Lin Carter (Dell, 1972-1978). Covers by Vincent DiFate and Ken Kelly

After Burroughs worked chess — in its Martian version of Jetan — into his John Carter series with Chessmen of Mars, it practically became a rule that all later writers of Sword & Planet fiction had to do the same. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, John Norman did it in the Gor series and Ken Bulmer (writing as Alan Burt Akers) did it in the long running Dray Prescot series. I did it too in my 5 book Talera series.

It would be surprising then if Lin Carter didn’t do it. Carter made almost his entire fiction career off following the leads of ERB and REH (Robert E. Howard). And indeed, Carter did invent his own version of chess.

In the last of his 8-book Callisto series, called Renegade of Callisto, Carter pens his own version of ERB’s Chessman of Mars. Although Carter’s main hero in this series is an earthman named Jonathan Dark (Jandar), Dark has — like John Carter before him — recruited and befriended various allies on the moon of Callisto (called Thanator by its natives).

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Merry Christmas from Black Gate

Merry Christmas from Black Gate

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This has been a milestone year for our little website. In 1999 my friend Wayne MacLaurin helped me register the blackgate.com domain, and we launched the site to support our ambitious fantasy magazine. This year we quietly celebrated a quarter-century of continuous operation and quality fantasy coverage, and in the process added several talented newcomers to our small staff of regular bloggers, including Neil Baker, Jeffrey Talanian, Charles Gramlich, William H. Stoddard, and Ian McDowell. We also welcomed back David Soyka, one of our founding bloggers, after a long sabbatical.

Over the past 25 years the site has evolved significantly, and when the print magazine died in 2011 it became our sole focus. Five years later George R.R. Martin presented us with an Alfie Award, and that same year we won a World Fantasy Award, a pair of singular honors I still find a little hard to believe.

Over the long years our focus has changed dramatically. In the early years it was all about growing the site and increasing traffic, and we achieved success I never dreamed of, peaking at over 2 million page views/month. But in the last fifteen years I’ve come to understand that the true rewards of a site like this aren’t in ever-increasing site metrics. They’re in the people I’ve met along the way, and the countless way my own love of the genre has deepened and expanded.

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Of “Dick Merryman” and “a Bad Stink”

Of “Dick Merryman” and “a Bad Stink”

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British Film Institute Box Set of BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas

One of the earliest Christmas ghost stories concludes with dismemberment and a fart joke.

Those familiar with the tradition of telling horror stories at Yuletide rather than Halloween may associate it with the late 19th and early 20th century, as those decades are considered the golden age of the traditional English ghost story, which despite its cozy label, includes tales as gruesome as anything by Lovecraft.

But it is referenced in Britain as early as 1623, with Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, in which Act 2 opens with Mamillius, the young son of Queen Hermione of Sicily, starting to tell his mother and her ladies-in-waiting a Yuletide story of “sprites and goblins” and “a man who dwelt by a churchyard.” Before he can get past that sentence, soldiers burst in accusing his mother of infidelity, and the boy, who seems to be around six or seven, is dragged offstage, to die there of shock and heartbreak. Shakespeare being Shakespeare, his play then becomes a romantic comedy.

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A Holmes Christmas Carol

A Holmes Christmas Carol

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Just about everyone is familiar with A Christmas Carol. The first short movie was made in 1901, based on a play adapted from Charles Dickens’ novel. And there were new adaptations this year. THAT is enduring.

I’ve seen different word counts, but Dickens’ work is about 29,000 words long. That’s a very short novel. But, as with any adaptation, some things are left out.

I took Dickens’ original novel – not one of the movie versions – and rewrote it as a Sherlock Holmes tale. I include some text from Dickens, and some stuff I’m not familiar with from just watching the movies.

I have about a half-dozen published Holmes short stories, and I think that I voice Watson, and emulate Doyle, fairly well. Well enough to give my stuff a try, I feel. And in this one, I feel like I presented some depth to Holmes, but I also remained faithful to Doyle’s actual character.

So, give it a read.

I

It is with a certain sense of misgiving that I relate the following tale, which took place during the Christmas season in 1902. I had moved out of our Baker Street lodgings earlier that year, having married only a few months before. I had rooms in Queen Anne Street and was quite busy with my flourishing medical practice. A newly married man, I once again found myself as head of a household, with all of the duties thereof. I saw Holmes infrequently, but had found the time to stop by the day before Christmas. Knowing he would have no plans of any kind, I extended to him an invitation to join my wife and I for Christmas day.

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