Black Gate – Page 120 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

So I’m Writing a Novel: A Sword & Sorcery Podcast

Friday, March 11, 2022 SELindberg Comments 2 comments

There is a swell of community growing around Sword & Sorcery (S&S) fiction. At least on the amateur and semi-professional level, there are a wealth of markets to enjoy and submit to, including (a partial list in alphabetical order): DMR books, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Parallel Universe Publications, Pulp Hero Press, Rogue Blades, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Weirdbook. and Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of S&S. As the ranks of authors, readers, and platforms grow, members are gathering across platforms such as Goodreads S&S group, the Whetstone S&S Tavern on Discord… and even podcasts.

This January, Black Gate highlighted the Rogues In the House S&S podcast. This round we highlight the So I’m Writing a Novel (SIWAN), a podcast chronicling author & freelance editor Oliver Brackenbury’s journey of writing an S&S novel, discussing craft and building community with a focus on the genre.

Writing a novel? Looking for a community?

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Goth Chick News: The World (and Me) Never Tire of Agatha Christie

Thursday, March 10, 2022 Sue Granquist Comments 6 comments

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont (St. Martin’s Press, February 1, 2022)

Back in grade school, in an attempt to put some “normal” into my interests, my parents had me taking piano lessons. I believe the goal was to get my nose out of books as I spent every available moment in the most secluded spots I could find, tucked in with reading material considered wholly unsuitable for a fourth-grade girl (i.e., Logan’s Run, Childhood’s End, and a large variety of horror comics). Though the elderly teacher who came to the house every Thursday failed to instill in me very much in the way of talent on the keyboard, she couldn’t help but notice that I first had to put down my book before sitting down at the piano. In an attempt to engage me one Thursday, Mrs. Wall brought me her paperback copy of Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie.

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Random Reviews: “Children of a Greater God” by Julian Flood

Thursday, March 10, 2022 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

Interzone, October 1992, Cover by Tony Roberts

One of the issues with selecting stories to read using a completely random method is that some of the stories won’t be of particular interest, won’t completely succeed (or in some cases fail entirely), or not be particularly noteworthy. Eight weeks into this series, I have come across a story that I didn’t entirely bounce off of, but which didn’t really work for me. It has some interesting ideas behind it and I think it is clear that the author knew what he had in mind. I just don’t think he was particularly successful in translating it to the page.

Julian Flood published ten short stories, with nine of them appearing between 1992 and 1997 and three of those appearing in the first year. Half of his fictional output appeared in the pages of Interzone. The August 1992 issue of that magazine (whole number 62) contained his third story, “Children of a Greater God.”

The action is set on the planet Dub’s World, which is not conducive to human existence. The atmosphere of the planet is such that people need to have their bodies rebuilt each evening, although Flood isn’t entirely clear on the various mechanisms that cause this to happen aside from some hand waving about the atmospheric composition of the planet and people connecting to robots for the rebuilding.

Flood’s narrator is either an alternative comedian or a private eye (or some combination of both), although there is nothing humorous about his act, which includes self-mutilation and violence. Flood does have his character discuss comedy with the nightclub owner, noting that “Funny’s not what alternative comedy’s about,” although he doesn’t offer what he, or his character, thinks it is about.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Boy-Toys of Troy

Wednesday, March 9, 2022 Lawrence Ellsworth Comments 3 comments

The Trojan Horse (USA, 1956)

Our major source for stories of the legendary Trojan War is Homer’s The Iliad (8th century BCE, more or less), which includes a huge cast of characters from both the besieging Greeks and the defenders of Troy, as well as the many Olympian gods who meddle in the mortals’ affairs. For focus, a screenwriter telling a story based on this epic needs to pick a few major characters to follow and relegate the rest to supporting roles. In films made in the middle of the 20th century, that usually meant leaving the gods out entirely, because including them would have meant your film was considered a fantasy (the horror!), and the Western movie-going audience was deemed too Christian to regard Classical polytheism as anything but benighted superstition.

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New Treasures: Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

Tuesday, March 8, 2022 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Far from the Light of Heaven (Orbit, October 26, 2021). Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

Tade Thompson is a fast-rising star. Rosewater, the opening novel in his Wormwood trilogy, was “a groundbreaking future noir” (B&N Sci-fi & Fantasy blog) that won the 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The Rosewater Insurrection was nominated for the BSFA and Locus Awards, and closing novel The Rosewater Redemption was nominated for both the Locus and Philip K. Dick Award.

That’s a lot of attention so early in his career– and a whole lot of eyes on his newest project. Writers have been known to curl up under the bed for a lot less. But his follow up Far from the Light of Earth, the story of a series of mysterious deaths on an interstellar colony ship, has already been called “probably the best science fiction novel of the year… like the Tardis, larger inside than out, with a range of ideas, characters, and fascinating future settings” (The Guardian). Kirkus Reviews sums it up as “a thriller/horror-aboard-a-spaceship in the vein of Greg Bear’s Hull Zero Three [and] the classic film Alien… Gripping and bloody as a beating heart.” And Tor.com says it “marries shades of gothic horror with a sleuthing mystery and hard sci-fi.”

Sounds like a must-read in my book. Looks like Thompson’s ascent to the pinnacle of SF stardom continues on schedule.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Day 39

Monday, March 7, 2022 Bob Byrne Comments 0 Comment

So, in 2020, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Horstmann. I have already re-posted days one through thirty-eight. Here is day thirty nine (April 29). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries.

Day Thirty Nine– 2020 Stay at Home

Fritz doesn’t like to freeze meat, which is understandable for a master chef – certainly one who is cooking for Nero Wolfe. But with pork-processing plants shutting down all over the country, he took delivery this morning of enough pork to last us awhile.

I offered to help him organize and store it all, but he declined. Fritz keeps complete control of his well-ordered kitchen. I sat down at my breakfast table with a small pitcher of milk and amused myself by watching him. Fritz sometimes does a one-man running commentary on his kitchen operations, in a mix of Swiss and English. It’s better than television. …

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A Master With a Keen Eye: Robert Silverberg’s Original Anthologies of the 1970s

Sunday, March 6, 2022 John ONeill Comments 11 comments

Paperback editions of Silverberg 70s original anthologies. Published by (left to right, from top left):
Dell, Manor Books, Dell, Manor Books, Dell, Dell, Fontana, Warner Books, Pinnacle

In 1966 Robert Silverberg published his first anthology, an unassuming volume titled Earthmen and Strangers from staid New York press Duell, Sloan and Pearce, known mostly for the infamous U.S. Camera 1941 annual that was banned in Boston for daring to include nudes. Earthmen and Strangers was hugely successful, remaining in print for an astonishing two decades, with paperback reprints from Dell, Manor Books, and Bart Books, and Silverberg was off to the races as an editor. Over the next five decades he published dozens of science fiction anthologies, including a handful of bestsellers like the seminal Legends (1998) and its science-fictional sequel Far Horizons (1999).

Beginning in the late 60s and all through the 70s Silverberg produced a steady stream of original anthologies, most of which had a signature format: each contained three novellas from the biggest names in the industry, including major award nominees by James Blish, Gordon R. Dickson, Jack Vance, Clifford D. Simak, Norman Spinrad, Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin, and James Tiptree, Jr. — plus novellas by Roger Zelazny, R. A. Lafferty, Harry Harrison, Alexei Panshin, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, John Brunner, George Alec Effinger, Gardner Dozois, Gregory Benford, Joan D. Vinge, Vonda N. McIntyre, Keith Roberts, James Gunn, Phyllis Gotlieb, and many others.

Like Terry Carr’s Universe, Damon Knight’s Orbit, and Silverberg’s own New Dimensions, these anthologies were prestige fiction markets, appearing in hardcover and distributed to libraries, and getting a lot of attention when awards season rolled around. As a result they attracted a lot of talent. Silverberg was a master with a keen eye for emerging talent, and an uncanny ability to coax top-notch work of out his contributors. The books still make entertaining reading today.

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A Poisoned Bouquet: Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier

Saturday, March 5, 2022 Thomas Parker Comments 4 comments

Fancies and Goodnights (Bantam Giant, 1953). Cover by Charles Binger

Fantasy, this genre that we love so much, is in reality not one genre but many; that’s one reason we love it. Any form that can accommodate the cynicism of Glen Cook and the lyricism of Patricia McKillip, that can hold the clarity of Robert E. Howard and the ambiguity of John Crowley, that can contain the brutality of George R.R. Martin and the hilarity of Terry Pratchett… well, there’s nothing it can’t do. Fantasy contains multitudes.

There’s a problem with being a member of a multitude, however — it’s easy to get lost, easy to be pushed to the back of the line by the ever-swelling mob of new books, new writers, new modes, easy to be misplaced or forgotten. It’s happened to many worthwhile writers. It’s happened to John Collier.

John Henry Noyes Collier, who died in 1980 at the age of seventy-eight, specialized in “slick” fantasy stories, “slick” because they generally appeared in “slick-paper magazines” as opposed to the cheap-paper pulps, upscale publications like The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, or Esquire. Characterized by modern, urban settings, a sophisticated, often satirical tone, and the irony-laced employment of traditional figures such as witches, genies, angels, devils, magicians, and ghosts, slick fantasy flourished during the twenties, thirties, and forties, and manifested itself in many different media. The humorous supernatural novels of Thorne Smith such as Topper (1926) and The Night Life of the Gods (1931), plays like Noel Coward’s breezy mix of marriage farce and spiritualism, Blithe Spirit (1941), and films like René Clair’s screwball comedy, I Married a Witch (1942, and itself the progenitor of one of the most popular television series of the 60’s, Bewitched), are all examples of this effervescent mode. John Collier may have been its greatest prose practitioner. …

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Beautiful and Repulsive Butterflies: An Interview with M. Stern

Friday, March 4, 2022 SELindberg Comments 2 comments

We have an ongoing series on Black Gate discussing “Beauty in Weird Fiction.” We corner authors to tap their minds about their muses and ways to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Recent guests on Black Gate have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, & Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C. Hocking. See the full list of interviews at the end of this post. This one covers emerging author M. Stern who writes weird/horror fiction and sci-fi. He has had stories appear in Weird Book #44, Startling Stories#34, and Doug Draa’s clown anthology Funny As a Heart Attack. There’s some strange and complicated beauty to be found in all of those. He also has published in several other markets including Lovecraftiana: The Magazine of Eldritch Horror and flash fiction that deals with aesthetics and transgression in Cosmic Horror Monthly #19.

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Take Me Home! A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Friday, March 4, 2022 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 10 comments

I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars; not once did I question either my sanity or my wakefulness. I was not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner consciousness told me as plainly that I was upon Mars as your conscious mind tells you that you are upon Earth. You do not question the fact; neither did I.

So reacts John Carter, ex-cavalryman of the Army of Northern Virginia, when he transmigrates to the red planet in A Princess of Mars (1917). Chased by torture-minded Apaches, Carter secrets himself in a cave. By unknown means, he finds his spirit severed from his body and transported to Mars.

On Mars, a dying, barren world littered with the ruins of millennia-gone civilizations, he finds his great love and becomes the greatest hero that Barsoom, as its inhabitants call Mars, has ever known. Along that path to glory, thousands of miles are traveled and thousands of foes slain. A Princess of Mars is pure escapist fantasy, where the protagonist, standing in for the increasingly civilized American man Burroughs was writing for, fights and defeats all foes, outwits every enemy, and wins the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world. To some, that might sound juvenile, but they are wrong. A Princess of Mars is absolutely deserving of the mind-blowingly pulpy cover illustrations of Frank Frazetta.

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