Black Gate – Page 325 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Play Ball – The Mets in ‘Please Pass the Guilt’

Thursday, March 28, 2019 Bob Byrne Comments 3 comments

Archie Goodwin was a fan of America’s national pastime, and the Wolfe Corpus is full of baseball references. One story is even shades of the 1919 Black Sox scandal! In 2020, you’re going to see a lot of Nero Wolfe Wolfe here at Black Gate (assuming I don’t get canned before then). Since today is Opening Day, here’s a little Archie and baseball. Play ball!

Since the Nero Wolfe tales were all essentially set in the year that Rex Stout wrote them, we can answer the question I’m about to posit simply by looking at the publication date. Except, as I’ll show, it couldn’t have been 1973. So that approach is out.

Baseball references can be found throughout the Corpus. Archie was a Giants fan – at least he was until Horace Stoneham abandoned Coogan’s Bluff for sunny San Francisco — while Saul preferred his games at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. There’s no indication of who Saul rooted for after Dem Bums relocated to Los Angeles, though it’s reasonable to assume that he, like Archie, followed the Mets, who played at the Polo Grounds until Shea Stadium was ready.

“This Won’t Kill You” took place at game seven of the World Series, with the Giants playing the Red Sox. All players were fictitious, however. In “Please Pass the Guilt” we get the real deal. Archie goes to visit a prospective client as the Mets are hosting the Pirates. Fortunately, she has the game on television, with Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner calling the action.

Over the course of a couple innings, Archie mentions the actions of several Met players. From his comments, we’re going to reconstruct the two missing pieces of the lineup that day. Which of course first requires us to identify the year. Which poses a few questions but is no problem for a seasoned baseball investigator.

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Exploring the White Desert in Egypt

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 Sean McLachlan Comments 1 comment

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In my last post, I looked at some of the archaeological remains around Bahariya Oasis, in the Western Desert of Egypt. Those ancient buildings had been hammered by centuries of sandstorms so the article didn’t have the prettiest pictures in the world. To compensate, I’ve decided to give you something a bit more pleasing to the eye this week.

To the south of Bahariya Oasis, almost to the next major oasis at Farafra, is a large expanse of soft white limestone and chalk that has been scoured by the wind into elaborate and surreal shapes. The view is constantly changing as the white stone takes on various hues through the day, turning a deep crimson at sunset. Anyone going to either Bahariya or Farafra Oasis will find a night or two camping out in this natural wonder one of the most memorable events of their trip.

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Tillie the Toiler and Rosie the Robot

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 Steve Carper Comments 0 Comment

The history of comic strips sometimes seems like a roll call of male names. The Katzenjammer Kids, Little Nemo, Tarzan, Moon Mullins, Li’l Abner, Barnaby, Terry and the Pirates, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Joe Palooka, Barney Google, Mutt and Jeff, Dick Tracy, Harold Teen, and the name of names, Rube Goldberg’s Boob McNutt. Even Blondie heads a strip that’s 99.9% about Dagwood.

Probably the most famous female comic strip heroine is Little Orphan Annie. Digging into archives brings up a roster of mostly forgotten others: Ella Cinders, Etta Kett, Winnie Winkler, Invisible Scarlet O’Neil, Little Annie Rooney, Dixie Dugan, Betty, Nancy, and Dimples, a roster that will bring few images to mind.

Only a handful of comic strips ever ran a major series starring robots, and those were mostly in the male-oriented science fiction strips. Two rare exceptions occurred in Invisible Scarlet O’Neil and Ella Cinders, but both robots were drawn and referred to as males. (How do you sex a robot? The top set of swimmerets on a female’s tail are soft, translucent, and crossed at the tips. A male’s swimmerets are bony, opaque, and point up toward his body. Sorry. That’s how you sex a lobster. You sex robots by the length of their hair and the size of their breasts, just like humans. Check below if you don’t believe me.) Finding a strip with a female star going up against a female robot is the rarity of rarities.

Today’s unique find is Rosie the Robot in Tillie the Toiler. (Not the far more famous Jetson’s Rosie. Rosie is to girl robots what Robbie is to boy robots: hideously overused.)

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Omni

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

The Balrog Award, often referred to as the coveted Balrog Award, was created by Jonathan Bacon and first conceived in issue 10/11 of his Fantasy Crossroads fanzine in 1977 and actually announced in the final issue, where he also proposed the Smitty Awards for fantasy poetry. The awards were presented for the first time at Fool-Con II at the Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas on April 1, 1979. The awards were never taken particularly seriously, even by those who won the award. The final awards were presented in 1985. The Best Professional Publication Balrog was presented each year from 1979 to 1985. Won by either Omni or F&SF from its second year to its sixth year, it was won by the book Age of Dreams, and art book by Alicia Austin in its first and J.N. Williamson’s anthology Masques in its last year.

1979 was Omni magazine’s first full year of publication. The magazine had been founded in 1978 by Bob Guccione, best known as the publisher of Penthouse, and Kathy Keeton. Omni, with a focus on science, science fiction, and the paranormal was a glossy magazine that acquired some level of prestige, in part because Guccione was able to hire Analog editor Ben Bova to co-edit the magazine, along with Frank Kendig. Keeton described the magazine as exploring “all realms of science and the paranormal, that delved into all corners of the unknown and projected some of those discoveries into fiction.””

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Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger

Tuesday, March 26, 2019 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

I know it’s nowhere near Halloween — what Goth Chick joyously calls “The Season” — but that doesn’t mean I don’t delight in a brand new ghost story anthology.

Master anthologists Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger deliver a terrific new volume of neglected spooky tales from Pegasus Books: Ghost Stories: Classic Tales of Horror and Suspense. It arrives in a handsome hardcover edition next week. Here’s the description.

A masterful collection of ghost stories that have been overlooked by contemporary readers ― including tales by celebrated authors such as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton ― presented with insightful annotations by acclaimed horror anthologists Leslie S. Klinger and Lisa Morton.

The ghost story has long been a staple of world literature, but many of the genre’s greatest tales have been forgotten, overshadowed in many cases by their authors’ bestselling work in other genres. In this spine-tingling anthology, little known stories from literary titans like Charles Dickens and Edith Wharton are collected alongside overlooked works from masters of horror fiction like Edgar Allan Poe and M. R. James.

Acclaimed anthologists Leslie S. Klinger (The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes) and Lisa Morton (Ghosts: A Haunted History) set these stories in historical context and trace the literary significance of ghosts in fiction over almost two hundred years ― from a traditional English ballad first printed in 1724 through the Christmas-themed ghost stories of the Victorian era and up to the science fiction–tinged tales of the early twentieth century.

In bringing these masterful tales back from the dead, Ghost Stories will enlighten and frighten both longtime fans and new readers of the genre.

Including stories by: Ambrose Bierce, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Olivia Howard Dunbar, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Georgia Wood Pangborn, Mrs. J. H. Riddell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Frank Stockton, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton.

Ghost Stories has an impressive list of contents. I tried to find a copy of the Table of Contents, but all I found was this weird Google widget that allows you to browse the first 40 pages of the book (including the TOC). Here it is.

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J. Barton Mitchell Reads from The Razor with Audience Q&A

Tuesday, March 26, 2019 Emily Mah Comments 1 comment

jbm21 J. Barton Mitchell (the J. stands for “Jack”) is the author of the science fiction YA novel series Conquered Earth (published by St. Martin’s Press), and The Razor (published by Tor Books). He has also sold screenplays to Warner Bros. and 21st Century Fox, and created the comic book series POE for ‘Boom! Studios’.

I had the privilege of interviewing him (see the video below), and in preparation for that interview, read The Razor, and let me just say: Wow. It is excellent.

Here’s the back cover copy:

J. Barton Mitchell’s The Razor is a riveting science fiction thriller about a man struggling to survive the chaos on a prison planet.

Brilliant engineer Marcus Flynn has been sentenced to 11-H37 alongside the galaxy’s most dangerous criminals. A hard labor prison planet better known as the Razor, where life expectancy is short and all roads are dead ends.

At least until the Lost Prophet goes active…

In a few hours, prison guards and staff are evacuated, the prisoners are left to die, and dark mysteries begin to surface.

Only Flynn has the skills and knowledge to unravel them, but he will have to rely on the most unlikely of allies — killers, assassins, pirates and smugglers. If they can survive each other they just might survive the Razor… and claim it for their own.

Black Gate covered the release of The Razor last October.

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New Treasures: Splintered Suns by Michael Cobley

Monday, March 25, 2019 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

I’ve spent much of 2019 in a lengthy tour of modern space opera, and it’s been very eye-opening. I’m getting ready to wrap up and turn my attention to another subgenre (YA thriller? Weird Western? SF noir? So many to choose from!), but I can squeeze in one more, I think. And that’s likely to be Michael Cobley’s Splintered Suns, since the reviews I’ve read certainly make it sound like it’s got the goods. Namely lost artifacts, narrow escapes, ancient mysteries, and — especially! — giant space monsters. Here’s a sample from the January review at The Tattooed Book Geek.

Captain Brannan Pyke of the Ship, Scarabus and his riff-raff and ragtag crew… are contracted by their employer Van Graes to steal a tracking device, the Angular Eye from the City of Cawl-Vesh on the desert planet Ong. Van Graes is a collector of ancient alien artefacts and he hopes that The Angular Eye can be used to locate the wreck of an ancient ship and the wealth of knowledge and treasure that it holds. Millennia ago, the ship, the Mighty Defender of the Arraveyne Empire was the only ship to escape the collapse of the Arraveyne Imperium. However, during the escape, the ship caught the attention of the Damaugra (a mythical sentient metal monster made of coils and tentacles). The Damaugra relentlessly chased the ship through space, damaging it beyond repair and causing it to crash on the planet Ong. Where its wreckage has remained buried and hidden in the vast desert ever since.

I’m pretending that I’m interested because of the rich backstory and powerful mythic overtones, but really I was sold the moment I read mythical sentient metal monster and tentacles. Read into that what you will.

If you’re looking for a more balanced (i.e. tentacle-free) review, here’s Eric Brown in his December wrap-up of the best new SF at The Guardian.

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Hither Came Conan: James McGlothlin on “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”

Monday, March 25, 2019 Bob Byrne Comments 13 comments

Welcome back to the latest installment of Hither Came Conan, where a leading Robert E. Howard expert examines one of the original Conan stories each week, highlighting what’s best. James McGlothlin drew “The Servants of Bit Yakin” in our Hyborian lottery.

“The Servants of Bit-Yakin” is the best Conan story ever written by Robert E. Howard!

Or at least that’s my assignment (given to me by Bob Byrne) to convince you of such.

Here we go!

If you are familiar with the Conan canon, you will probably think my task quite a challenge. Case in point: The late Fritz Leiber, one of the greatest sword and sorcery writers of all time, and someone who clearly admired Howard’s Conan tales, rated “The Servants of Bit-Yakin” among the worst of the Conan stories ever written calling it “repetitious and childish, a self-vitiating brew of pseudo-science, stage illusions, and the ‘genuine’ supernatural” (“Fantasy Books”, Fantastic, May 1968, p. 143). Oh boy! With such an authoritative voice weighing in on the supposed poor quality of “Bit Yakin”, I have quite the task set before me. But before getting on to my attempt to convince you that this story is the best Conan story ever written by Howard, let’s get a little background on the tale first.

Though originally titled by Robert E. Howard as “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”, it first appeared in Weird Tales, March 1935 as “Jewels of Gwahlur”. The story was later reprinted in King Conan (Gnome Press, 1953), Conan the Warrior (Lancer Books, 1967), as well as various other later collections. Also, Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano famously adapted it for Marvel Comic’s Savage Sword of Conan #25 in 1977 and the story also later appeared in Dark Horse comics in 2005. This story has some legs; so perhaps it’s better than Leiber thought!

It’s hard to quickly summarize “The Servants of Bit-Yakin”. But I will try to be as brief as I can with the following.

We begin the story with Conan heroically climbing a rock face. In typical Howard fashion, it is clearly communicated how impossible this would be for any normal human being to do the same. But for Conan, with his panther-like strength, it seems not much harder than a jog in the park. While climbing though, Conan comes across a small cave with a mummy holding an inscribed parchment. Conan grabs this ancient document and then completes his climb (the parchment comes into play later). At the top Conan finds on the other side of the cliffs the ancient ruins of the city of Alkmeenon.

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Movie of the Week Madness: The Night Stalker

Sunday, March 24, 2019 Thomas Parker Comments 6 comments

The ABC Movie of the Week (a beloved American institution on a par with Turtle Wax, disputed Florida elections, and SPAM, and whose history I detailed here) was, during its six season run from 1969 to 1975, a veritable goldmine of cheesy science fiction, mystery, and horror stories… only there were some MOW’s (for you members of the Netflix generation, that’s the acronym for movie of the week) that were a bit better than cheesy, and a rare handful were even better than that — that were, in fact, damned good. At the pinnacle of this admittedly rather small mountain stands The Night Stalker, which chomped its way into millions of unsuspecting living rooms on the evening of January 11th, 1972.

The Night Stalker was produced by Dan Dark Shadows Curtis and scripted by Richard Matheson from an unpublished novel by Jeff Rice. After the show became the highest rated made-for-television movie yet broadcast at that point, the novel found its way into print and it became apparent why it had been unpublished — it’s not very good. (It also bears an uncanny — shall we say, almost supernatural — resemblance to a much better book, Leslie Whitten’s little-known and underappreciated 1965 novel, Progeny of the Adder. Just a coincidence, I’m sure…)

The Night Stalker is the story of a serial killer on the rampage in Las Vegas, except that at the time, the term “serial killer” had yet to be coined by FBI agent and profiler Robert Ressler; he came up with it a full two years later. That’s how long ago 1972 was.

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Locus Award for Best Publisher: Ballantine Books

Sunday, March 24, 2019 Rich Horton Comments 5 comments

Larry Niven Ballantine Books (and Inconstant Moon from Sphere)

Steven Silver has been doing a series covering the award winners from his age 12 year, and Steven has credited me for (indirectly) suggesting this, when I quoted Peter Graham’s statement “The Golden Age of Science Fiction” is 12, in the “comment section” to the entry on 1973 in Jo Walton’s wonderful book An Informal History of the Hugos. You see, I was 12 in 1972, so the awards for 1973 were the awards for my personal Golden Age. And Steven suggested that much as he is covering awards for 1980, I might cover awards for 1973 here in Black Gate.

The Locus Awards, given by a poll of the readers of Locus Magazine (full disclosure: for which I write a regular column), and lately including an online component open to anyone (with non-subscriber votes counting half), have been given since 1971. One of the inspired categories is for Best Publisher (this category began in 1972.) In 1973, the award for Best Publisher went to Ballantine Books. In fact, Ballantine won every year but two between 1972 and 1987. Every year since then, the award has gone to Tor. (Note: the Ballantine awards were often to Ballantine/Del Rey, and the Tor awards were often to Tor/St. Martin’s.) In fact, only four entities have ever won the Locus Best Publisher award: Ballantine/Del Rey, Tor/St. Martin’s, the Science Fiction Book Club, and Pocket/Timescape. So – I still think the award is a good idea, but perhaps the winner doesn’t tell us much beyond the obvious.

Certainly when I was first buying books – beginning in 1974, I think – it was obvious that Ballantine (and, soon Del Rey) was the leading paperback imprint. (And, of course, at that age I bought only paperback and SFBC editions.) Sure, Ace published some good stuff. And so did DAW, and Signet, and Berkley, etc. But Ballantine was king – they published the most good stuff, and had the better packaging – they were the clear leaders. My main association, at that time, was with Larry Niven’s books – Niven was a favorite of mine, and in the mid-70s Ballantine issued a near-uniform edition of Niven’s works to that date. Ballantine also published, under Lin Carter’s editorship, the groundbreaking Ballantine Adult Fantasy series – paperback reprints of really wonderful early fantasy books. This was made possible from a marketing point of view by the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings – and, of course, Ballantine published the first authorized U. S. paperback editions of those books.

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