Last Sunday I ran my first session of Torg Eternity, meaning I can now finish my review of the game by discussing how the rules worked in practice (the first part is here, with a description of the basic idea of the mechanics and of the game setting — an Earth invaded by seven different dimensions). Worth noting to start with that I’d been spending time on the message boards for the game, discussing the different realms and how I…
And so we come to the end of the Empire of the East, Fred Saberhagen’s sword & science trilogy. Originally titled Changeling Earth (1973), Ardneh’s World (1988), provides the answers to mysteries raised in the previous two books, The Broken Lands and The Black Mountains, as well as an explosive conclusion. When it’s done, great powers have been broken and the world has been changed again. The last book ended with the destruction of one of the Empire’s great commanders, Som…
1977 Pocket Books paperback. Foil cover by Harry Bennett On Episode 328 of The Coode Street Podcast, my recent audio addiction, Jonathan Strahan asked his co-host Gary K. Wolfe if there was some book of value, “or simply that you loved when you were a younger reader,” that he wished he could bring modern attention to. If you know Jonathan and Gary, you appreciate that’s precisely the kind of question that could fill an hour-long episode all on its own. But…
Tarzan and the Lost Empire is the twelfth Tarzan novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The ape-man discovers a valley in Africa with a remnant of ancient Roman civilization.
I ended last week’s review of The Broken Lands (the first part of Fred Saberhagen’s The Empire of the East) by saying it felt like something big was coming. I was right! The second book, The Black Mountains (1971), is one great big splashy explosion of pulp majesty. Even though I liked The Broken Lands, I didn’t get why Gary Gygax included it in Appendix N, the list of books that inspired his initial vision of D&D. Now I get it, 100% and absolutely….
Lots of great reading for fiction fans in April, including new stories by Black Gate writers John R. Fultz, Mike Resnick, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, plus Sarah Pinsker, Cassandra Khaw, Nalo Hopkinson, Rob Vagle, Ray Vukcevich, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Marissa Lingen, Sarah Monette, Will McIntosh, Timothy Mudie, Adam-Troy Castro, Rich Larson, Jiang Bo, O’Neil De Noux, Jerry Oltion, Steve Perry, and lots more. The big news this month is the return of Pulphouse in a brand new quarterly, Pulphouse Fiction…
I wonder if Fred Saberhagen suspected that his short 1968 novel, The Broken Lands, was laying the groundwork for a series that would ultimately run 15 volumes. The initial three books, The Broken Lands, The Black Mountains (1971), and Changeling Earth (1973) — collected together as The Empire of the East — take place in America a long time after some yet-undefined catastrophe. While bits and pieces of technology — one giant piece in particular — survive, there is also magic….
Later today, early tomorrow, sometime next week, the world began to end. Imagine the Earth wreathed in storms spitting red and blue lightning. Imagine invaders from beyond reality turning the world piece by piece into something other than what we know. Imagine a cyberpunk theocracy in France, dinosaurs overruning the great cities of the United States, colonial gothic horrors in India, a post-apocalyptic wasteland in Russia haunted by decadent technodemons, zombies in East Asia, a mad pulp super-villain and would-be…
Cover by Arthur Rackham, 1910 Jim C. Hines was born on April 15, 1974. Hines took first place in the Writers of the Future first quarter contest in 1999 for his story “Blade of the Bunny.” His novel Red Hood’s Revenge was nominated for the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. In 2012, he won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. “Spell of the Sparrow” first appeared in Sword and Sorceress XXI, edited by Diana L. Paxson. An audio version was included…
I recently discovered the Coode Street Podcast, hosted by editor Jonathan Strahan and Chicago Tribune critic Gary K. Wolfe, and have been thoroughly enjoying it. They discuss a wide variety of topics of interest to SF and fantasy readers every week — everything from the Hugo nominations, the best debuts of the year, art in science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin, conventions, upcoming releases, and so much more — and they’re both so articulate and knowledgeable, and so darn enthusiastic,…