Search Results for: New Edge Sword

Talking Tolkien: On The Tolkien Reader – by Rich Horton

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It’s another of my Black Gate cohorts this week for Talking Tolkien. Rich is one of the science fiction cornerstones at the Black Gate World Headquarters, but he’s been a Tolkien fan since the seventies. He’s gonna talk about a book I never added to my shelves. Before the explosion of books like The History of Middle Earth Series, and Children of  Hurin, and his Beowulf, there weren’t a lot of ‘other’ Tolkien books out there besides the main five….

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Talking Tolkien: Does Size Matter? The Rankin-Bass Hobbit by Thomas Parker

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Fellow Black Gater Thomas Parker and I share quite a few interests – but within those interests we tend to vary wildly. I enjoy chatting with him. I conned him into writing a…I mean, he graciously agreed to do a Horace McCoy piece for A (Black) Gat in the Hand, and I’ve been after him to shore up my Black Gate views by doing a guest piece for me. And man, do I LOVE this one on the Rankin-Bass classic,…

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Knowing the Rules, and Choosing to Break Them: An Interview with K.B. Wagers

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The NeoG trilogy, published by Harper Voyager: A Pale Light in the Black (March 2020), Hold Fast Through the Fire (July 2021), and The Ghosts of Trappist (June 27, 2023). Covers by Vadim Sadovski and Reginald Polynice K.B. Wagers is one of the most exciting of the new crop of space opera writers. Their first novel, Behind the Throne, appeared in 2016 from Orbit Books, and it kicked off what eventually became a popular six-volume series featuring Hail Bristol, a…

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Vintage Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois

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The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection (Bluejay Books, April 1986). Cover by Tom Kidd I saw a copy of the third volume in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology series on eBay for $11.45 last week, and decided to take a chance. Turned out to be the Book Club edition, a reprint that’s a smaller size than my other volumes, which was a disappointment. But at least I finally had a copy. On the back of the…

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Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part II

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David C. Smith and Steven H Silver find priceless treasures in the Dealers Room at Windy City Pulp & Paper A month ago I wrote a short convention report on the 2023 Windy City Pulp & Paper Show, which took place Friday April 21st to Sunday, April 23rd in Lombard, Illinois. In that article I mostly rubber-necked at the gorgeous Weird Tales pulps and other rare magazines sold during the evening auctions, and took covetous pictures of the pre-auction displays….

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A Solid Dose of Weird Adventure: Old Moon Quarterly #3

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Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of weird sword-and-sorcery fantasy. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by swordsmen and swordswomen both. Old Moon Quarterly emerged in 2022. This reviews the four stories inside the Winter 2023 issue (Vol III), which delivers solid doses of the weird adventure it promises. The Editor-in-Chief is Julian Barona, flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily…

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Lin Carter’s Forgotten Anthologies: Kingdoms of Sorcery and Realms of Wizardry

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Lin Carter’s anthologies of Adult Fantasy: Kingdoms of Sorcery and Realms of Wizardry (Doubleday, 1976). Covers by John Cayea and Robert Aulicino Lin Carter was an exceptional editor, and one of the most important figures in 20th Century American fantasy. As Managing Editor of the seminal Ballantine Adult Fantasy imprint, he was responsible for publishing virtually one new title every month — and he did exactly that, tirelessly producing 83 volumes between August 1965 and April 1974. In the late…

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Beauty and Nightmares on Aliens Worlds: Interviewing C. S. Friedman

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We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction” where we corner an author and query them about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C. Hocking (see the full list at the end of this post). Inspired by the release of Nightborn: Coldfire Rising (July 2023, see Black Gate’s review for more information), we are delighted to interview C.S. Freidman! …

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Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part I

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Some of the eye-popping pulps from the Bob Weinberg collection auctioned at Windy City This weekend was the Windy City Pulp & Paper show, an annual gathering of about 600-800 pulp and vintage paperback enthusiasts in Lombard, Illinois. Founded by Doug Ellis and run by a dedicated and talented team, Windy City has gradually become my favorite convention. Back when Black Gate was a print magazine I used to get a table and sell back issues, but these days I…

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Bob’s Books – Shelfie #5: (REH, Moorcock, Kurtz)

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It’s installment number five in Bob’s Shelfie series. This time, I’ll do a shelfie for my favorite fantasy author (Tolkien is second) – Robert E. Howard. He is of course best known for his Conan the Cimmerian (the movies made it ‘the Barbarian’). They are terrific sword and sorcery stories. If you only know the movies, you should read some of the stories. On the bottom left are the Del Rey volumes, covering most of his writing. Howard struggled to…

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