Twilight: 2000 Reflections

Twilight: 2000 Reflections

For Black Gate, I spent much of 2021 re-visiting Twilight: 2000‘s first edition adventures and sourcebooks. Twilight: 2000, published by GDW in the mid 1980s, absorbed into its setting much of the worries and fears of the late Cold War — but turned it into a game. The Soviet Union and China begin a war that eventually brings in the rest of the world. While the war is starts out as conventional, the temptation to use tactical nuclear weapons cannot be held back. The world inches across into nuclear Armageddon.

While Twilight: 2000 was not unique in suggesting a nuclear apocalypse, it did have a compelling twist that differentiated it from things like Mad Max or By Dawn’s Early Light: it happens in the immediate aftermath. Armageddon is happening — society is breaking down. National governments like the US or USSR exercise very little control. Environmental devastation is in the early stages. Yet people continue to live. Some even continue to fight the war. Most try to simply survive.

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What I’ve Been Watching: (A BritBox) December 2021

What I’ve Been Watching: (A BritBox) December 2021

One of these five doesn’t make it out of the pilot. Cast changes began early!

During my hiatus from Black Gate, I watched a lot of shows, and some movies. And I grabbed a BritBox subscription, so today, we’re going across the pond. I might drop a minor item here and there, but these reviews are mostly spoiler-free.

DEATH IN PARADISE

I had just finished season four of this enjoyable British police show on Netflix, back when the newly-created BritBox snatched this – and many other shows – away. I recently got a ‘two months for $2’ deal through Prime, and lo and behold, I had access to this show again. Season 10 wrapped up in February of 2021, and it just started season eleven last week, over on the BBC. I was pleased when a Christmas episode dropped just a few weeks ago. With a BIG surprise!

The basic premise is that Scotland Yard assigns a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) to duty on the island of Saint Marie (pronounced ‘San Marie’), located in the Lesser Antilles. Saint Marie was turned over to the British by the French roughly forty years before the show starts. So, it still has a French-Caribbean culture.

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An Anthology for Anthologists: Continuum by Roger Elwood

An Anthology for Anthologists: Continuum by Roger Elwood


Continuum 1-4 (Berkley Medallion paperback editions, 1975-76). Covers by Vincent Di Fate

The accolade “anthologist” is not easily obtained. One can only imagine the effort spent splicing different elements into a cohesive anthology that sits well, and with a theme that attracts buyers.

Roger Elwood (1943-2007) most definitely earned that title, having put together 64 mostly science fiction anthologies between 1964 and 1980. Like many of his peers, he was also an author who published a small number of fiction novels and short stories, not to mention editing the short-lived Odyssey magazine (1976).

This article is not a celebration of Mr. Elwood’s career, though. I want to look at an intriguing oddity from the the past century, a 4-volume anthology series he edited titled Continuum.

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Vintage Treasures: Tales of Robin Hood by Clayton Emery

Vintage Treasures: Tales of Robin Hood by Clayton Emery


Tales of Robin Hood (Baen, 1988). Cover by Larry Elmore

I’m a sucker for Robin Hood stories, and that’s probably why I bought Clayton Emery’s Tales of Robin Hood in 1988. Well, that and the fact that I thought it was an anthology. It’s actually a novel, a magical take on the legend of Sherwood Forest, with witches, demon boars, black-robed monks, and a Robin “attacked on all sides by sorcery and sword.”

Clayton Emery had a steady career as a TSR author in the late 90s, producing a series of Forgotten Realms books including the Netheril Trilogy (1996-98) and the third novel in the Lost Empires series, Star of Cursrah (1999), plus six Magic: The Gathering titles, including the Legends Cycle (2001-2). Tales of Robin Hood was originally published as a paperback by Baen and pretty much vanished without a trace, until iUniverse reprinted it in 2002 under the title Robin Hood and the Beasts of Sherwood. It caught on with modern readers in the new incarnation, and was warmly reviewed by a new generation of readers.

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A Philosophical Policeman: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton

A Philosophical Policeman: The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton

Gabriel Syme was not merely a detective who pretended to be a poet; he was really a poet who had become a detective. Nor was his hatred of anarchy hypocritical. He was one of those who are driven early in life into too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of most revolutionists. He had not attained it by any tame tradition. His respectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion against rebellion. He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and self-realisation; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinth and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike. The more his mother preached a more than Puritan abstinence the more did his father expand into a more than pagan latitude; and by the time the former had come to enforcing vegetarianism, the latter had pretty well reached the point of defending cannibalism.

Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left—sanity.

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908), by G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton, is a wondrous amalgam of thriller, mystery, boys’ adventure, and Christian allegory wrapped in a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of a cabal of anarchists plotting to blow things up. Gabriel Syme is a poet who fears the world is destined for destruction under a wave of moral relativism and nihilism. He is recruited to a special anti-anarchist unit of the British police by a mysterious figure who remains hidden in the shadows.

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Goth Chick News: Keanu as The Devil in the White City?

Goth Chick News: Keanu as The Devil in the White City?

As a lifelong Chicagoan I have always enjoyed stories of my city’s colorful history. From its Blues connection to New Orleans, to the Gilded Age of Marshall Field and Parker Palmer, to the seedier stories like that of the Everleigh Sisters, the building of Chicago reads like a naughty version of Downton Abbey. Of course, as entertaining as its early history can be, Chicago was a tough, crime-ridden place. It was dirty, both literally and figuratively, and violent in every sense of the word. The city was and still is, associated with a lot of unsavory activity that we unsuccessfully try to distance ourselves from. For instance, we’d love for the world to stop thinking of Al Capone every time someone brings up Chicago. Ironically, the one name most people don’t associate with our city is H. H. Holmes, at least up to now.

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Now Streaming: The One I Love

Now Streaming: The One I Love

The One I Love
The One I Love

The One I Love is the feature film debut of director Charlie McDowell and stars Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss. It was released in 2014. Although the film begins as a reasonably straightforward getaway for Ethan (Duplass) and Sophie (Moss) at the advice of their therapist (Ted Danson), the story quickly takes a quirky turn, giving it the feel of an episode of The Twilight Zone produced for the big screen.

The first scene makes it clear that at some point prior to the movie, Ethan cheated on his wife, Sophie. Flashbacks show the start of their relationship when everything was fresh and exciting as well as their failed attempts to rekindle those feeling. After listening to them, their therapist offers them access to a country house where they can rediscover each other in a secluded environment, noting that several of his patients have successfully made use of the house.

Upon arriving at the country estate, Sophie and Ethan discover there is a main house and a guest house, both of which they have full access to. After a first night getting used to their surroundings, they begin to explore separately. They also notice some oddities, for instance, Sophie prepares a breakfast of bacon and eggs for Ethan, who comments that she hates it when he eats bacon. Things get even weirder when Sophie mentioned how great the sex was the night before and Ethan has no recollection of having sex with her.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 2

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 2

The Sword and the Sorcerer (USA, 1982)

The pre-release hype for Conan the Barbarian in 1981, and then its delayed release until the following year, meant that by the time it appeared, there were already plenty of imitations in the pipeline ready to take advantage of its success. As a result, 1982 abounded in barbarian adventures, and if none of these was better than merely good and you couldn’t get quality, you sure as Hyborea got quantity. If you were young and just getting your eyes opened to the sword and sorcery genre, that was good enough. A new fantasy genre was emerging, for both filmmakers and their mass audience.

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Go Rogue!: Rogues in the House, the Ultimate Sword & Sorcery Podcast

Go Rogue!: Rogues in the House, the Ultimate Sword & Sorcery Podcast

Rogues in the House

In 1934, Weird Tales magazine published Robert E. Howard’s Conan story “Rogues in the House.” Bob Byrne covered the story on Black Gate as part of his “Hither Came Conan” series.

Just a few years ago, in late 2018, Sword & Sorcery enthusiasts and content creators forged Rogues in the House – the Ultimate S&S Podcast (the link is a portal page to multiple listening Apps). This post spotlights it because it is more than just a source of perspectives. The crew genuinely wants to support a growing community. Their roundtable discussions always start with the “Bazaar of the Bizarre” round table, in which the cast shares recent events or learning opportunities (the session a call out to Fritz Leiber’s 1963 Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story of the same name).

Beyond luring in S&S authors like Howard Andrew Jones, Scott Oden, John R. Fultz, and  Jason Ray Carney, they’ve got guests covering Movies, Video/Board Games, and Art. We embed three selections here:

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Future Treasures: Gunfight on Europa Station edited by David Boop

Future Treasures: Gunfight on Europa Station edited by David Boop

Gunfight on Europa Station (Baen Books, January 25, 2022). Cover Art by Dominic Harman

I’ve been enjoying David Boop’s weird western anthologies for Baen (Straight Outta Tombstone, Straight Outta Deadwood, and Straight Outta Dodge City). His newest takes the series in a different direction — deep space! — but keeps the six shooters and saddle spurs. That’s different. But what the hell — I’m on board.

Gunfight on Europa Station arrives on January 25, and comes packed with new fiction by an impressive list of contributors: Alan Dean Foster, Jane Lindskold, Wil McCarthy, Gini Koch, Martin Shoemaker, Cat Rambo with J.R. Martin, Alastair Mayer, Alex Shvartsman, Patrick Swenson, Elizabeth Moon, and Michael L. Haspil. These books are a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the newest with anticipation.

I’m especially excited to see Alex Shvartsman’s contribution. I was at his reading at Worldcon last month (from his upcoming novel The Middling Affliction), and it was easily the most entertaining of the dozen or so I attended, a raucous and funny tale of an exorcist/con man who winds up over his head in a tangled supernatural mystery. It’s always a pleasure to discover a new writer, and it’s doubly so when you have the chance to hear a skilled entertainer perform their own work.

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