Black Gate – Page 345 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Birthday Reviews: Brad Strickland’s “Hero’s Coin”

Saturday, October 27, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 0 Comment

Brad Strickland was born on October 27, 1947.

Strickland received a Phoenix Award at DeepSouthCon. In 200, he won the Georgia Author of the Year Award for his novel When Mack Came Back. He has collaborated John Michlig, Thomas E. Fuller, and his wife, Barbara. Strickland has also completed several novels which were originally outlined by John Bellairs prior to his death.

“Hero’s Coin” was written for the 1993 anthology Quest to Riverworld, edited by Philip José Farmer. This was the second volume in which Farmer opened up his Riverworld series to other authors. The story has never been reprinted.

Because all of the stories in Quest to Riverworld took place in Farmer’s established universe, the was no need for Strickland to explain the rather strange setting. Read without the context of the other stories or Farmer’s original work, however, the story suffers from vagueness brought on by its expectation that the reader knows how the world works. Had Strickland included that background, however, it would have seemed repetitive in the story’s original (and only) publication.

Farmer’s world contains a seemingly-infinite river along the banks of which everyone who has ever lived has been reincarnated, their needs provided for by a grail which fills with food. Strickland’s story focuses on Brother Aelfstan, an anonymous Anglo-Saxon monk who worked on a chronicle of his times in both our world and the Riverworld. Aelfstan makes friends with a stranger who was reincarnated near his part of the river and the two eventually set off together.

As the stranger, who Aelfstan calls “Nemo” helps people during their journey, with technological innovations, military decisions, and in other areas, the people they meet assume he must be Robert E. Lee, Archimedes, and other famous people in history. Nemo denies being any of them and questions Aelfstan about what makes a hero, emphatically denying he was any such.

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Secret Magical Orders and an Occult Underworld: The Nightwise Novels by R.S. Belcher

Friday, October 26, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

R.S. Belcher’s Golgotha series is one of the more popular Weird Westerns on the market. Booklist called the opening volume “nothing short of fantastic… a setting so sharp you can feel the dust in your mouth,” and San Francisco Book Review summed it up as “a whirlwind of shootouts, assassins, cults, zombies, magic, attractive ladies, dubious morals, and demonic possession.”

Belcher kicked off a new series set in a seedy occult underworld with Nightwise in 2015. RT Book Reviews called it “brilliant… [a] sensational noir urban fantasy.” Sequel The Night Dahlia arrived earlier this year, making it a real series, and Tor re-issued the first volume with a matching cover.

I picked up both books earlier this month, and they look very attractive on my bookshelves — not to mention intriguing. They’ll make terrific Halloween reading to close out the month.

Here’s the description for both volumes, starting with Nightwise.

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Pie and a Slice of Sky: An Interview with Brooklyn Writer Rob Cameron

Friday, October 26, 2018 C.S.E. Cooney Comments 0 Comment

Writer Cameron Roberson (Cam Rob)
of Brooklyn SF Writers group & Kaleidocast

Greetings, Black Gaters! I’m here today with an interview for you with Rob Cameron, or “Cam” as I like to call him, a New York speculative fiction writer, among — as you will see — other things.

Cam was one of the first friends I made in New York City. Wait, let me take that back a few steps. It all started with Readercon, as so many things (including my marriage) do! It was probably Readercon, circa 2015. I was attending a panel to hear Ellen Kushner talk about something very interesting that I cannot now recall. I do recall that she opened the panel up to questions very early — which is one of her neat tricks: she’s there to serve the audience, and wants to talk about what interests them most. One of the first questions from the audience — and I remember thinking it was very keen and interesting — came from a bright-eyed young man who was sitting on the edge of his seat, leaning forward, as if he wanted to be the first to hear everything. He obviously knew Ellen, and she him, but I didn’t know him, and I thought, “Well! He must be a friend I haven’t met yet!” and determined at that moment to fulfill my own prophecy and get to know him better.

It turns out that this gentleman was none other than Rob Cameron, writer, gamer, teacher, as well as one of the main movers and shakers of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers and Kaleiodocast, the podcast they produce, which features fiction by and interviews with speculative fiction writers, and also stories that occur in a shared world.

The more I got to know him, the more I realized Cam was at the heart of New York’s electric, eclectic, thunderous spec fic scene, deeply involved in a community of writers all rising together, reading and critiquing each other’s work, attending events and conventions, and learning the business of being a writer. I thought he’d be a fantastic person to interview for Black Gate, so that we could all share in some of his knowledge, wisdom, and love of pie. After all — ’tis the season for pie. But then, when isn’t it?

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“What A Wonderful Smell You’ve Discovered”

Friday, October 26, 2018 Violette Malan Comments 3 comments

We all do it. We all have favourite lines that we quote at appropriate – and inappropriate – times. It happens even when you’re out of the house, and sometimes leads to the person you’re with asking “That’s from a movie, isn’t it?” To which the answer is pretty much always, “yup.”

The movie that gets quoted most around our house is the one I was talking about last time: The Princess Bride. Back when I was working as a temp, I used to say “Murdered by pirates is good” every time I left a particular doctor’s office. (When I passed a certain other person in the corridor, I would whistle the witch’s theme from The Wizard of Oz)

When we’re watching Jeopardy, and the contestant misses something we consider an easy one, we shout “Morons!” at the screen. It’s both an accurate representation of our feelings at that moment, and a reference to our favourite movie. It relieves our feelings of outrage, and it’s fun.

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Birthday Reviews: Jennifer Roberson’s “Mad Jack”

Friday, October 26, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 1 comment

Jennifer Roberson was born on October 26, 1953.

She collaborated on The Golden Key with Melanie Rawn and Kate Elliott, which was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1997.

Roberson wrote “Mad Jack” for inclusion in the memorial anthology Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny, edited by Martin H. Greenberg in 1989. She has also republished the story in her own collection, Guinevere’s Truth and Other Tales, released in 2008.

“Mad Jack” tells the story of a man who lost his infant son to random gun violence. Unable to cope with his loss, his life falls apart and he comes to the decision that he needs to go on some sort of epic quest to make things right and find a simpler time. His decision causes strife with his wife and his boss, but he eventually makes the journey to Scotland via bus and train to find something that has been missing from his life for a long time.

Roberson’s description of Jack and his attempts to come to terms with his son’s death is a focused look at one individual’s grieving process. Although there is reference to the way others view his needs, Jack never interacts with any of them within the confines of the story; his thoughts turn almost entirely internal. While he notes that his wife and boss both think he is mad, there are no overt signs of madness.

Roberson plays the story close to her chest. It is clear that Mad Jack is supposed to be recognizable, although who he is, or even the time period in which the story takes place, is not entirely clear until the end. Once they story reaches its conclusion, the question of whether Jack is mad, has reverted to childhood, or is having an actual experience is ambiguous, which is one of the strengths of fantasy as a genre.

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Goth Chick News Visits HellsGate

Thursday, October 25, 2018 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

HellsGate — the house

Most of us grew up with a local Jaycees or some other community organization putting together their annual ‘haunted house’ every October. With tickets in the neighborhood of $5 each, my friends and I would make the rounds, hitting several in a weekend as more of a social event than the adrenaline rush of real scares, which were hard to come by when your best friend’s parent or older sibling was behind the semi-cheesy mask and resale-shop costumes.

These days however, haunted attractions are decidedly more elaborate and sometimes permanent establishments. Instead of ‘haunted walks’ through the local forest preserve, or forays through mazes of black Glad bags and PVC, Halloween season thrill-seekers can expect to treat themselves to multi-thousand-dollar special effects and real actors in Hollywood-worthy costumes. Of course, tickets are closer to $50 than $5, but you get what you pay for.

And did we ever when over the weekend Black Gate photog Chris Z and I road tripped nearly two hours to visit HellsGate Haunted House, ranked #11 in the industry magazine HauntWorld’s annual list of the Scariest Haunted Houses in the Nation – and that is out of 5000 entries. Obviously, you don’t rank that high on the list without some impressive moves, and we were particularly interested to see an effect in use which we first saw on the show floor at the Haunted Association and Attractions Show last March. The owner of HellsGate, John LaFlamboy, purchased one of the biggest show effects, a $16K, ‘life size’ animatronic dragon, right off the show floor and we couldn’t wait to see how it turned out.

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Perfect Halloween Fare: The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken

Thursday, October 25, 2018 Elizabeth Galewski Comments 0 Comment

The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding-small

The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding-back-small

Prosper Redding lives in small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. But when a stranger – dressed up like a Pilgrim and everything – shows up to the local Founders Day celebrations, nobody else even seems to see him. What’s worse, he steals some chestnuts from a vendor right before Prosper’s eyes, and then has the audacity to grin at him and wink.

When the clock strives five, though, Prosper has to find his sister Prue, leave the festival, and go home. Waiting for them is a surprise family reunion convened by his evil grandmother, comprised of relatives who dislike him. Prosper’s instincts tell him to run, but Prue takes his elbow and propels him into the house. Which is really more like a castle.

Things get worse when his absent father calls in a panic and tells him to grab his sister and run for their lives. Prosper tries to obey, but his uncles catch him. They pack him and Prue off to the dungeon, which is set up for an occult ritual.

All the relatives are there, and they’re all staring at Prosper. A small table draped with velvet – an altar, really – has been placed in the front of the room, and hundreds of flickering candles provide the only illumination. Prosper’s grandmother yanks the cloth off the table, revealing an ancient book. She asks Prue to start reading from it, but Prue just looks at her blankly. “But… It doesn’t say anything…”

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New Treasures: An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris

Thursday, October 25, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Charlaine Harris was the first really big interview we ever scored at Black Gate. This was thirteen years ago, before the breakout success of the True Blood HBO series based on her Sookie Stackhouse novels, but she was already hugely popular. Goth Chick met with her at a restaurant, before a big signing event here in the suburbs of Chicago, and came back totally charmed. We included the interview in Black Gate 8, the Summer 2005 issue, and it was a big hit with readers.

Harris has reached a point in her career where she can do whatever she wants. Fortunately for us, what she wants to do appears to be tell Weird Western tales. Her latest, An Easy Death, is set in a southwestern country known as Texoma, where magic is common and a young gunslinger named Lizbeth Rose takes a job to be a local guide for a pair of Russian wizards. But all is not what it appears to be, and dark forces are aligning against Lizbeth and her clients. It was published in hardcover earlier this month by Saga Press.

The beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series, the inspiration for HBO’s True Blood, and the Midnight Crossroad trilogy adapted for NBC’s Midnight, Texas, has written a taut new thriller — the first in the Gunnie Rose series — centered on a young gunslinging mercenary, Lizbeth Rose.

Set in a fractured United States, in the southwestern country now known as Texoma. A world where magic is acknowledged but mistrusted, especially by a young gunslinger named Lizbeth Rose. Battered by a run across the border to Mexico Lizbeth Rose takes a job offer from a pair of Russian wizards to be their local guide and gunnie. For the wizards, Gunnie Rose has already acquired a fearsome reputation and they’re at a desperate crossroad, even if they won’t admit it. They’re searching through the small border towns near Mexico, trying to locate a low-level magic practitioner, Oleg Karkarov. The wizards believe Oleg is a direct descendant of Grigori Rasputin, and that Oleg’s blood can save the young tsar’s life.

As the trio journey through an altered America, shattered into several countries by the assassination of Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression, they’re set on by enemies. It’s clear that a powerful force does not want them to succeed in their mission. Lizbeth Rose is a gunnie who has never failed a client, but her oath will test all of her skills and resolve to get them all out alive.

An Easy Death was published by Saga Press on October 2, 2018. It is 306 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Colin Anderson. Read the complete first chapter here.

Birthday Reviews: John Gregory Betancourt’s “The Weird of Massal Dey”

Thursday, October 25, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 1 comment

John Gregory Betancourt was born on October 25, 1963.

Betancourt has been nominated for three World Fantasy Awards, in 1993, 1995, and 2000, for his work at Wildside Press. The first two nominations were in the non-professional category and shared with Kim Betancourt, the final one was in the professional category. Betancourt has also worked as an assistant editor at Amazing Stories, and editor at Horror: The Newsmagazine of the Horror Field, Weird Tales, H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, and Adventure Tales.

“The Weird of Mazel Dey” was originally written for Susan Shwartz’s anthology Arabesques, but Betancourt missed the deadline and sold the story to Dennis Mallonee and Nick Smith at Fantasy Book, where the story ran in the September 1985 issue. When Betancourt elected to reprint the story in his collection of Zelloquan stories, Slab’s Tavern and Other Uncanny Places, he changed the names to match his series’ setting and published the story as “The Weird of Massal Dey.” The revision also removed the references to Islam that appeared in the original form.

Massal Dey is a thief who uses the occurrence of a great festival to steal a mirror which captures his attention. The mirror is of such beauty that Dey decides to keep it rather than try to fence it. Unfortunately, once he gets the mirror home and set up, he sees his own reflection and realizes that he is so ugly that he shouldn’t defile the mirror by viewing his image.

However, as the story progresses, Dey finds that he looks into the mirror in his dreams and finds himself in other worlds where he is not as ugly as he believes himself to be. Each time he looks in the mirror in his dreams the situation is different, from a world in which he is the object of infatuation by young beauties, to a world in which he and his long-time wife of that world live a comfortable, if unremarkable existence.

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The Gorgeous and the Grotesque: The Ceilings of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Wednesday, October 24, 2018 Sean McLachlan Comments 0 Comment

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As I mentioned in my last post, I got to explore Florence for a few days, absorbing as much of the Italian Renaissance (and modern pizza) as I could.

So of course I went to the Uffizi Gallery, one of Italy’s most renowned museums. While I knew I would be seeing a treasure trove of Da Vincis and Caravaggios, I didn’t realize that portions of the building itself are a work of art.

Specifically, the ceilings of the upper Eastern Corridor. These are decorated with bright, lively frescoes painted by Alessandro Allori in 1580 and 1581. Each section is a different theme or subject such as military affairs or exploration, and taken together they act as a window into the thoughts and imagination of Florence in the late Renaissance.

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