Moderan, by David R. Bunch (Avon, May 1971). Cover by Norman Adams The week between Christmas and New Year’s may be my favorite time of the year. Nobody’s working. Life slows down. Everybody’s eating cheese. And I can finally kick back and tackle the reading projects I’ve wanted to get to all year. At the top of my list is a Moderan, a classic science fiction collection that reviewers at Black Gate have referenced countless times in the past few…
JRF has deep roots in the weird fiction community and especially Black Gate, and you can learn about those in this post. We recently reviewed his collections Darker than Weird and Worlds Beyond Worlds which were published after I interviewed the author in 2017 for my Weird Beauty interviews series (right before Black Gate began hosting them; see the listing of those interviews below). This reposts that interview and teases an updated one specific to Fultz’s Zang Cycle (to be…
The Mask of Zorro (USA, 1998) Swashbucklers come in many forms and from many cultures, settling differences with their wicked nemeses with long blades of many shapes. Some leap aboard slashing with cutlasses; some coolly assume their stances with katanas at the ready, in one hand or two; some gallop to the charge, sabers waving; some wait for their attackers with claymores held high. But I put it to you that there is no more iconic weapon for a swashbuckler…
Clash by Night (Hamlyn Paperbacks, 1980). Cover by Chris Moore I’m a big fan of the short fiction of Henry Kuttner, one of the great genre pulp writers, and earlier this year I stumbled on a curiosity: a Hamlyn (UK) paperback collection of Kuttner’s pulp tales which has never been reprinted in the US: Clash by Night. Clash by Night collects five Kuttner tales from the heyday of the science fiction pulps, 1943-1952. The stories collected here were originally published in…
Fantasmagoriana Deluxe (Dark Moon Books, November 28, 2023). Cover art by Hellduriel The history of Fantasmagoriana is rather complicated. Originally the book was published in German as a ghost story collection, then translated into French in 1812. The first English translation under the title Tales of the Dead by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson appeared in 1813, but Utterson omitted three stories and added one written by herself, “The Storm,” which frankly is an unremarkable, weak imitation of some of the original…
It seems nearly impossible for even me to believe, but in going through twenty-three years of Black Gate archives, I realized I have never interviewed a medium. Guys who made lamps out of old doll heads? Check. The kid who played “Newt” in Aliens? You betcha. A goth boy band? More times than I can count. But someone who communicates with the dead – for real? Never until now. I wasn’t aware of what now seems like a glaring oversight…
I was posting Shelfies over in a the r/bookshelf subreddit. The Mods seemed to be growing more persnickity, and spam selling posts were getting more common, so I quit the group. I’ve already done a couple posts here at Black Gate with my shelfies from over there. Here’s the third and final one from my Sherlock Holmes shelfies. Links to the prior posts at the end. Holmes Shelfie #15 I am aware of four sets of annotated Sherlock Holmes. We’ll…
Bloodstone (Warner, March 1975). Cover by Frank Frazetta “Kane’s power is that of science, not sorcery — although with elder-world science, the distinction becomes blurred. But then, to the untutored minds the distinction is difficult to grasp, for this lies in understanding the forces at work, and in the laws they obey. For example, to produce a deadly sword to wield in battle, a master smith will use secrets of his craft to smelt choice iron into steel, forge steel…
Fantasy Annual III (Timescape/Pocket Books, May 1981). Cover by Lisa Falkenstern Today we’re jumping back four decades to Fantasy Annual III, the third volume of Terry Carr’s companion series to his legendary and long-running Best Science Fiction of the Year, which ran from 1972 to the year he died, 1987. Fantasy Annual, which underwent a name change (and a change in publisher) lasted only five volumes, 1978-1982. But it was lauded in its day, and I still miss it. Fantasy…
October 2022, Michael Harrington hosted an interview with Oliver Brackenbury on Black Gate; Brackenbury is the editor and champion of New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine. That post coincided with the release of the teaser Issue #0 including short fiction & non-fiction (free in digital format, or priced at cost on Amazon Print-on-Demand, through the New Edge Website). In Feb. 2023 Black Gate announced the magazine’s Kickstarter which succeeded and spurred the creation of the illustrated Issues 1 & 2 that are being…