Vintage Treasures: Manifest Destiny by Barry B. Longyear

Vintage Treasures: Manifest Destiny by Barry B. Longyear

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Manifest Destiny (Berkley Books, 1980). Cover by John Rush

I started buying science fiction magazines in 1977, after learning such things existed in the pages of paperback anthologies edited by my new favorite author, Isaac Asimov. I pedaled my bike off Rockcliffe air base in Ottawa in search of a corner store, and found one with a well stocked magazine rack. Hiding behind Better Homes and Gardens and the latest issue of Newsweek I found a row of compact marvels with colorful covers depicting spaceships and far planets. They included Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing, and the second issue of Asimov’s very own magazine, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

I still recall that bike ride home, clutching Asimov’s and Analog in one hand, and staying up late to read them. It was a good time to discover SF magazines. A lot of new writers were exploding on the scene. One of the biggest was Barry B. Longyear, who published his first story in Asimov’s in 1978, and in 1980 became the first person to win the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in the same year.

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Weird Tales Deep Read: February 1936

Weird Tales Deep Read: February 1936

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This installment of the Weird Tales Deep Read continues our examination of 1936 with the February issue, which would have ranked among the best ever if not for a terrible cover story that dragged the rating down to a still very respectable 2.1, making it the year’s second best issue. We see some very familiar authors, including C. L. Moore, Paul Ernst, Robert E. Howard (who managed to appear in ten of the eleven ‘36 issues, largely because of two serials), and H.P. Lovecraft (with a reprint).

The best of issue once again comes down to Howard and Moore, and Howard again gets the nod by a hair. Of the 11 stories eight (73%) are set in the United States, and one each (9%) on Mars and an unnamed Jovian moon, China and other Asian territories, and in a fictitious realm. Eight (73%) are set in contemporary times, two in the past (18%) and one (9%) in the future.

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Goth Chick News: Showtime’s New All-Girl Survival Drama Yellowjackets Promises to Be a Wild Ride

Goth Chick News: Showtime’s New All-Girl Survival Drama Yellowjackets Promises to Be a Wild Ride

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Mike Bockoven’s book Fantasticland is one of my favorites. It takes the concept of Lord of the Flies and plops is right down in an imagined Disney World competitor theme park whose employees get cut off from civilization due to a hurricane. It explores what happens when once normal college-aged kids divide into Mad Max-esque factions to fight for survival. I’ve long thought that, in the right hands, this story would make for an incredible movie. But though an ambitious theater company in California took it on as a play earlier this year, there have been no murmurs about Fantasticland making it to the big screen.

However, it seems like Showtime is going to take up the concept with their new series Yellowjackets, and it looks like this could be the savage girl thriller we all need.

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Not Streaming: The Fall

Not Streaming: The Fall

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The Fall
The Fall (2008)
Directed by Tarsem Singh
Shown: British Quad Poster

By chance, there is one actor who I’ll be returning to several times in the course of these articles.  Lee Pace appeared in a support role in Wonderfalls, which aired in 2004. He returned as the main character in Pushing Daisies from 2007 through 2009. And in between, he appeared in the movie The Fall, released in 2006.

The film is the story of Roy (Pace), a stuntman during the silent movie era.  A stunt gone wrong lands him in the hospital without the use of his legs and also results in the girl of his dreams leaving him for the film’s leading man.  While in the hospital, Roy makes the acquaintance of Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) an inquisitive young girl in the hospital with a broken arm. To pass the time, Roy begins telling Alexandria a complex story of a group of antiheroes fighting against the evil General Odious (Daniel Caltagirone). The story is depicted the way Alexandria imagines it, with the various characters bearing resemblance to the hospital staff and patients.

One of the features of Pushing Daisies was the over saturation and use of color throughout the series. The Fall also makes use of oversaturation to good effect as it helps divide the films reality from the fantasy sequences described by Pace and imagined by Alexandria. Roy’s story begins as an escapist fantasy to while away the time for himself and Alexandria, but it quickly becomes apparent that the tale is more than just a story and has dark ramifications, both within the story Roy is telling and for the life in the hospital that he and Alexandria are experiencing.

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New Treasures: Out of the Ruins, edited by Preston Grassmann

New Treasures: Out of the Ruins, edited by Preston Grassmann

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Out of the Ruins (Titan Books, September 2021). Cover by Shutterstock

I’ve spent a lot of energy over the past few years decrying the death of paperback science fiction anthology. So when they do still occasionally appear, I’m inclined to celebrate them — especially when they’re as promising as Out of the Ruins, a collection of apocalyptic tales old and new from a stellar list of contributors: Samuel R. Delany, Ramsey Campbell, Lavie Tidhar, Emily St John Mandel, Carmen Maria Machado, Charlie Jane Anders, Nina Allan, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Paul Di Filippo, and many others.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Seventies Hall of Shame

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Seventies Hall of Shame

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Swashbuckler (US, 1976)

Let’s face it, in the spate of historical swashbucklers that followed Richard Lester’s Musketeers films, not everything was a classic like Robin and Marian. There were a few toads in the flower garden, some rotten apples in the barrel, and it’s only fair to warn you about them. However, even a terrible misfire can have its amusing side, as you’ll see in the sterling examples gathered below, three attempts to capture the that old swordplay magic that go astray in entirely different ways.

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Fantasia 2021, Part LXXII: Final Thoughts

Fantasia 2021, Part LXXII: Final Thoughts

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I saw more movies at Fantasia 2021 than at any previous iteration of the festival. By my count, I watched 96 short films from 25 countries and 69 features from 19 countries, with a total of 32 different countries represented in my viewing this year. The quality was there, too. I don’t have any metric to track these things, but it felt like both the number of exceptional films and the overall quality of the movies in 2021 was higher than in the past.

Before going on with a look back at this year’s Fantasia experience, I want to thank, as every year, Fantasia’s organisers and programmers and volunteers, and generally everyone involved with the festival. It is always in many ways the highlight of my year. I also want to thank John O’Neill for hosting these reviews here, and for keeping Black Gate up and running. And I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read and comment. Fatigue issues have tended to keep me from replying here as much as I’d like, but every comment is noted and valued.

The Fantasia experience this year was similar to last year’s; there was just more of it. There was a notable improvement in the way scheduled movies played — last year you had to start watching within five or ten minutes of the scheduled start time, while this year the films were available for a three-hour window beginning at a given time. That made things a lot easier, and the fact that almost all of them were also available for 24 hours two days after their first showing helped a lot as well.

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Discovering Robert E. Howard – The Series

Discovering Robert E. Howard – The Series

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Back in 2015, because I didn’t know any better, I thought I could reach out to Robert E. Howard experts and fans from around the world, and convince them to contribute essays about Robert E Howard, for a Black Gate series. Yeah, I know: “Who are you, Byrne? Why do you think you can pull this off?” Because I don’t have the common sense that God gave a rock. Also – I can’t even sing as well as a rock (Bible reference there). So, without a clue (GREAT movie!), I reached out to a few folks, got pointed to a few more, and with the Black Gate name behind me, rounded up a VERY knowledgeable and talented group.

Howard was much more than just the creator of Conan (who I LOVE). He, of course, wrote many other characters, and for many other markets and genres. He lived an interesting life as well. And some generous folks contributed some tremendous essays!

It was a fantastic series, nominated for a Robert E. Howard Foundation award. The Howard community loved it, to no one’s surprise. The wide-ranging look at REH, covering his life and his works, was a superb addition to REH scholarship. It also planted the seeds for a follow-up series at Black Gate, Hither Came Conan, which was an even bigger hit! And you fans of either series, it will be a trilogy, as we’ll be emulating Hither Came Conan with another Howard character. But I’ve got another non-Howard series to put together first.

Here below is the entire series (which included a blog series being done separately by Howard Andrew Jones & Bill Ward). I intentionally minimized the Conan content, as the goal was to paint a broad REH picture. And we covered Conan in depth with Hither Came Conan. Click on a few links and explore the amazing world of Robert E. Howard. Some tremendous stuff, which Black Gate was proud to bring together.

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Back to Where It All Began: Twilight: 2000‘s Return to Europe Campaign

Back to Where It All Began: Twilight: 2000‘s Return to Europe Campaign

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Twilight 2000: Return to Warsaw (GDW, 1989)

Twilight: 2000, GDW’s mid 1980s post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, started out in Europe. The players, part of the US Army’s 5th Division, hear their commander’s last, chilling words: “You’re on your own. Good luck.” Trapped in Poland and far away from friendly lines, the players are presumed to want to return to the United States, where they believe conditions may be better.

The major powers in the conflict portrayed in Twilight: 2000 inched across nuclear apocalypse, and amongst the ruins of devastated cities, blasted landscapes, and radioactive craters, the players encounter groups of armed thugs, petty warlords, families struggling to survive, disease, and a host of other ills. But always a drip of hope.

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KNIGHT AT THE MOVIES: RED DUST (1932)

KNIGHT AT THE MOVIES: RED DUST (1932)

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I took a break from my depressing Noirvember playlist last weekend and watched Red Dust (1932) one of the scandalous movies that led to the Hayes Code. I remember it being mentioned in “A Confederacy of Dunces” in that Ignatius Jacques Reilly claims that his parents went to the pictures one night, saw Red Dust, then went home and conceived him.

Clark Gable, in peak SILF* form, runs a rubber plantation in SE Asia. Two women come up the river in a boat and into his life: Jean Harlow, a prostitute looking for a place to hide out from police trouble in Saigon, and Mary Astor, a good young bride with a good young husband Gable has employed to survey for an expansion. Everyone involved gets hot and bothered. And drenched. Clark Gable gets a wet shirt scene that rivals the classic Pride and Prejudice Colin Firth plunge.

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