A Nightmarish Vision of Dracula: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

A Nightmarish Vision of Dracula: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

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The Last Voyage of the Demeter (DreamWorks/Universal Pictures)

A doomed ship and a doomed crew: The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Rated R – Bloody Violence.

Bloody great film! I watched this film while recuperating from another back procedure in December. The movie stars Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworthy from Game of Thrones), and Corey Hawkins (Heath, from The Walking Dead.) This film is well acted by a superb cast, masterfully directed by André Øvredal, with an excellent script written by Bragi F. Schut Jr and Zak Olkewicz, and a nice soundtrack by Bear McCreary, who’s worked on a lot of theatrical films and television shows, including The Walking Dead.

The combination of CGI and practical special FX works quite well, too. And an incredibly skinny actor named Javier Botet is perfectly cast as Count Dracula, who is depicted here as an ancient, malnourished, emaciated inhuman creature; the more he feeds, the more he “evolves” and grows stronger.

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A to Z Reviews: “Fire in the Dark,” by Alex Azar

A to Z Reviews: “Fire in the Dark,” by Alex Azar

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A to Z ReviewsOver the past several years, I’ve embarked on a series of year-long review cycles at Black Gate. In 2018, I reviewed a story-a-day to coincide with an author whose birthday it was. In 2022, I selected stories completely at random from my collection to review. In both of those cases, the projects served to find forgotten and minor works of science fiction that spanned a range of years. They also served to make me read stories and authors who I haven’t read before, even if they were in my collection.

For this year’s project, I’ve compiled a list of all the stories and novels in my collection. I then identified the first and last works for each letter of the alphabet and over the next twelve months, I’ll be looking at those works of fiction, starting with Vance Aandahl’s “Bad Luck” and ending with David Lee Zweifler’s “Wasted Potential.” Looking at the 52 works (two for each letter), I find that I’ve only reviewed one of the works previously. Interestingly, given the random nature of the works, only three novels made the list, while four anthologies have multiple stories on the list. The works range in publication date from 1911’s “The Hump,” by Fernan Caballero to Zweifler’s story from last year.

The final story in my collection by an author whose name begins with an A is Alex Azar’s “Fire in the Dark,” which appeared in the anthology Wyrms, edited by Eric Fomley in 2022. Wyrms is a collection of drabbles, a literary format in which a story is told in exactly 100 words. In the interest of transparency, I should note that my story “Best Policy” also appears in Wyrms. I’ll also note the last word of this sentence (including the introduction) is the 300th word of this article.

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Goth Chick News: As I’m in No Danger of Being Replaced by AI, Let’s Talk About Abigail…

Goth Chick News: As I’m in No Danger of Being Replaced by AI, Let’s Talk About Abigail…

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You likely don’t know I have a day job in the tech industry where I have funded all my macabre obsessions for more years than I care to count. Like nearly everyone these days, my company is in a frenzy over artificial intelligence (AI) and all the cool ways we can/will use it. Through said day job, I also have access to the most current generative AI engine which got me to thinking whether or not this technology would eventually do me out of my Black Gate side hustle? Could AI create my GCN content in a seamless undetectable way, thereby effectively Cyberdyne’ing the whole BG staff out of existence? I decided to give it a go.

I had planned on the topic of this week’s article being a new big-screen offering scheduled to land in theaters on April 19 entitled Abigail. Entering all the appropriate links and prompts into the AI engine, I held my breath for the few seconds it took to return a response.

My initial reaction was dismay. AI’s article looked to be about the right length and was interspersed with visually interesting graphics. Remembering that I had pointed the AI engine toward my content, asking it to mimic the style and “voice” of my previous work, I had a moment of panic wondering, “Is this technology actually me, only better?”

The answer, at least for now, is thankfully no.

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Bad Things Come in Threes: Terry Bisson (February 12, 1942 – January 10, 2024), Howard Waldrop (September 15, 1946 – January 14, 2024), Tom Purdom (April 19, 1936 – January 14, 2024): A Tripartite Obituary

Bad Things Come in Threes: Terry Bisson (February 12, 1942 – January 10, 2024), Howard Waldrop (September 15, 1946 – January 14, 2024), Tom Purdom (April 19, 1936 – January 14, 2024): A Tripartite Obituary

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Terry Bisson, Howard Waldrop, and Tom Purdom

On the heels of Terry Bisson’s death I heard news that Howard Waldrop had died. And this morning I woke up to learn that Tom Purdom had also died. A profound 1-2 punch to the SF community, followed by a knockout. Bisson and Waldrop were two of the most original, indeed weirdest, SF writers; and if Purdom wasn’t as downright weird as those two he was as intriguing in his slightly more traditional fashion. All three writers wrote novels, but it’s fair to say they are all best known for their short fiction.

I never met Terry Bisson (we exchanged emails once, when I asked for permission to reprint one of his stories) and I only met Howard Waldrop briefly at a couple of conventions (a ConQuesT and a World Fantasy.) I also never met Tom Purdom in person, though we did correspond for a while back when he was writing his online autobiographical posts. So I can’t say I knew any of these men well, but all seemed, from a distance if you will, people eminently worth knowing. And if I couldn’t know them personally, I had to settle for knowing them via their fiction.

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It’s Magic

It’s Magic

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Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Good day, Readers!

Well, that sounded more passive-aggressive than I intended. Let’s ignore that. One of the beautiful things about social media is the discourse that can be had about all manner of things. Some of it is awful — alright, a lot of it is awful — but it isn’t always. What crossed my feed this week was not one of the awful things, but rather brought up a really interesting discussion about magic in fiction; and how people prefer to consume it.

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Bob’s Books – Shelfie #8 (McKiernan, Watt-Evans, Leiber, Bischoff, Rosenberg)

Bob’s Books – Shelfie #8 (McKiernan, Watt-Evans, Leiber, Bischoff, Rosenberg)

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It’s installment number seven in Bob’s Books Shelfie series. Links to the prior shelfie posts can be found at the end of this one; including some prior fantasy shelves. If you’re new to this column, I posted shelfies of over a thousand of my books, in the r/bookshelf subreddit. The mods got too annoying for me, and I quit the group.

But with each shelfie I posted info on the books/authors show, so I’m bringing them over to Black Gate. Hopefully you’ll see some interesting stuff.

DENNIS L. MCKIERNAN

I have been a fantasy fan since junior high. This is my Dennis L. McKiernan shelf – double-layered.

McKiernan used to live here, and he let me come out and visit him at his house. Signed my books, talked about other authors, and talked RPGs (he was an ICE guy – I played D&D). He’s a really cool guy.

Back in the seventies, he had a terrible accident while riding a bike (or maybe a motorcycles. I forget). He was bedridden for many months. So, he decided to write a sequel to the Moria part of The Lord of the Rings. The Tolkien people, after he finished it, said “Nope. You can’t do that.” So he made it into his own world of Mithgar.

Doubleday told him to write a trilogy ala The Lord of the Rings. So, he wrote The Iron Tower Trilogy. It did well, and that ‘Moria sequel’ was released as The Silver Call Duology. McKiernan went on to a long career, with many more Mithgar books, and a couple other short series’.

If you like Tolkien, McKiernan’s Mithgar is as close in style and setting, as anyone has yet written. And he’s clearly a huge Tolkien fan. I like The Silver Call Duology, and the novel, Dragondoom, the most.

The Iron Tower Trilogy is the heart of the series. That’s good, too. McKiernan is definitely a good read for fans of The Lord of the Rings. Back in college, I found his number in the phone book, called him up, and he invited me out (he lived in Columbus, OH, back then. We talked fantasy and RPGs. He’s a really nice guy (lives out in the warmer West, now).

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New Treasures: The Soulfire Saga by Matthew Ward

New Treasures: The Soulfire Saga by Matthew Ward

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The first two books in The Soulfire Saga: The Darkness Before Them and The Fire
Within Them (Orbit, November 7, 2023 and June 11, 2024). Covers by Joe Wilson

I spent the Christmas break working on a number of projects, and not doing any of the catch-up reading I promised myself. I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I did grit my teeth on January 1st and resolve to read more this year. Especially books from new writers.

I have a break coming up as I complete a big writing project, and as a reward I have my eye on the new fantasy series from Matthew Ward. He’s the author of the Legacy Trilogy, and this new project — featuring a thief caught up in a failed heist, on her way to the capital to be turned into an animated skeleton — sounds like just what I need. Adrian Collins at GrimDark Magazine says it’s “full of action, heart, betrayal, and set in a dark, engaging world,” and that’s all the recommendation I need.

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A to Z Reviews: “Bad Luck,” by Vance Aandahl

A to Z Reviews: “Bad Luck,” by Vance Aandahl

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A to Z ReviewsOver the past several years, I’ve embarked on a series of year-long review cycles at Black Gate. In 2018, I reviewed a story-a-day to coincide with an author whose birthday it was. In 2022, I selected stories completely at random from my collection to review. In both of those cases, the projects served to find forgotten and minor works of science fiction that spanned a range of years. They also served to make me read stories and authors who I haven’t read before, even if they were in my collection.

For this year’s project, I’ve compiled a list of all the stories and novels in my collection. I then identified the first and last works for each letter of the alphabet and over the next twelve months, I’ll be looking at those works of fiction, starting with Vance Aandahl’s “Bad Luck” and ending with David Lee Zweifler’s “Wasted Potential.” Looking at the 52 works (two for each letter), I find that I’ve only reviewed one of the works previously. Interestingly, given the random nature of the works, only three novels made the list, while four anthologies have multiple stories on the list. The works range in publication date from 1911’s “The Hump,” by Fernan Caballero to Zweifler’s story from last year.

To kick off the series, we start with Aa, specifically, Vance Aandahl’s story “Bad Luck,” which appeared in the November 1989 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Throughout his thirty year career, the majority of Aandahl’s short fiction initially appeared in that magazine.

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Goth Chick News: del Toro Is Making Frankenstein for Realz (We Think)

Goth Chick News: del Toro Is Making Frankenstein for Realz (We Think)

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Back in July of last year, I wrote a cautiously optimistic piece about Guillermo del Toro working on his own adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I say “cautiously” because as part of that article I also provided a Wikipedia page dedicated to del Toro’s “unrealized projects,” (30 by the way) which was a nice way of listing out all the times he ghosted us. Ironically, this list included Frankenstein. Since that time there has been a lot of back and forth, specifically regarding the strike by writers and actors, and whether or not those would kill del Toro’s film, or at the very least delay it right back into an “unrealized project.”

However, on January 7th, Deadline reported that Jacob Elordi whose movie career took off last year with starring roles in Priscilla and Saltburn, will take over the role of Frankenstein’s iconic monster in the del Toro treatment; a role that had been long rumored as going to actor Andrew Garfield. Deadline also reported that filming was getting underway in February (confirmed by a tweet from del Toro), possibly in Scotland where del Toro had been spotted off and on since 2022, at various sites in and around Edinburgh.

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Brutal, Evocative, & Sad: Michael Moorcock’s Elric the Dreaming City by Julien Blondel, Jean-Luc Cano, and Julien Telo

Brutal, Evocative, & Sad: Michael Moorcock’s Elric the Dreaming City by Julien Blondel, Jean-Luc Cano, and Julien Telo

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Michael Moorcock’s Elric Vol. 4: The Dreaming City
(Titan Comics, April 5, 2022). Art by Julien Telo

Elric of Melniboné, the White Wolf, is exiled from his home and cursed to walk the land under the influence of Arioch, the Lord of Chaos. With his soul-eating sword, Stormbringer, Elric must find his way to the Dreaming City – the mysterious ancient birthplace of his ancestors. Hoping to unlock the secrets of his destiny, Elric is unaware he is being hunted by his long-lost love, Cymoril, who has only one sinister agenda: vengeance.

I must admit, when I first saw Titan Comics advertising this hardcover graphic novel, Elric: The Dreaming City, I was skeptical.

How could this be worth my shelf space when I already have the same Michael Moorcock story adapted in 1982 by the great Roy Thomas, with art by the legendary P. Craig Russell? That is what I asked myself. The bar was set rather high.

But after picking this up and more recently perusing it, I’ve concluded that this adaptation by Blondel and Cano, with art by Telo, is indeed a worthy addition to any Elric fan’s collection. It is brutal, evocative, sad, and violent – all the hallmarks of a tragically epic Elric story.

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