Black Gate – Page 418 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Birthday Reviews: A. Bertram Chandler’s “Planet of Ill Repute”

Wednesday, March 28, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 3 comments

Infinity Science Fiction November 1958-small

Infinity Science Fiction November 1958-back-small

Cover by Ed Emshwiller

A. Bertram Chandler was born on March 18, 1912 and died on June 6, 1984.

Chandler has received four Ditmar Awards for his novels False Fatherland, The Bitter Pill, and The Big Black Mark, as well as the story version of “The Bitter Pill.” His story “Wet Paint” won the Seiun Award in 1976 and he was nominated for a Retro Hugo for his novella “Giant Killer.” Chandler was the author Guest of Honor at Chicon IV, the 1982 Worldcon in Chicago.

“Planet of Ill Repute” originally appeared in the November 1958 issue of Infinity Science Fiction, edited by Larry Shaw. The story was reprinted in the NESFA Press book Up to the Sky in Ships/In and Out of Quandry, released to coincide with the Chicon where Chandler was Guest of Honor. Published in the Ace Double format, the Up to the Sky in Ships side contained stories by Chandler and the In and Out of Quandry side contained essays by fan Guest of Honor Lee Hoffman. The cover for both sides was by Chicon Artist Guest of Honor Kelly Freas.

“Planet of Ill Repute” looks at “The Protection of Undeveloped Peoples Act,” which has stark similarities to Star Trek’s Prime Directive. In this case, when Commodore Pendray discovered that his men had run afoul of “The Act” during an initial survey of the planet Lishaar, he followed proper protocols, arresting the men responsible with the goal of having them court martialed.

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Time Travelers, Witches, and Prophets: The Clingerman Files by Mildred Clingerman

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Last week I received an e-mail from someone named Mark Bradley. He said he’d gotten my address from Gordon Van Gelder, publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and that he’d recently self-published a collection of stories written by his grandmother, Mildred Clingerman, in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. It contained all of the stories from her 1961 collection A Cupful of Space as well as many unpublished works.

I remember Mildred Clingerman! I’d tracked down A Cupful of Space decades ago, and her name popped up frequently in the vintage science fiction magazines I obsess over. I asked Mark for more info, and this is what he sent me.

First off, Mildred is my grandmother on my mom’s side. A few years ago I was contacted about renewing a copyright on one of Mildred’s stories from a school book company. I started rooting around on the internet and saw that Mildred still had a fairly active following. During a visit to San Diego I saw my cousin who had a stack of old F&SF magazines that I had never seen. I talked to my mom about possibly re-releasing her stories because maybe there was still a fan base. My mom had a good many stories that had never been published and sent them to me. At some point I started talking to Gordon about publishing possibilities. We went down a road with a university press that didn’t work so I looked to self publish. I put the book together, my wife did the cover art, had it printed in Austin and here we are. My mother and I participated on a panel at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio and the reception was very gratifying. We are very excited about the project and our hope is to re-introduce Mildred to an entirely new audience as well as give long time fans some new stories.

This is exactly the kind of project we heartily endorse here at Black Gate, and I’m delighted to have the opportunity to showcase Mark’s new book The Clingerman Files.

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March Short Story Roundup: Part 1

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 7 comments

It was one of those months. By which I mean one where there were a lot of of new swords & sorcery stories. In addition to the regular two monthly stories from Swords and Sorcery Magazine, there were new issues of Cirsova and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Then, on top of all that, last Monday, what arrived at my door but the long waited-for first edition of the Howard Andrew Jones-edited and Appendix N-inspired Tales from the Magician’s Skull. Because there’s so much, I’m going to review HFQ and Tales this week and Cirsova and S&SM next week.

I don’t have much to say about Heroic Fantasy Quarterly (edited by Adrian Simmons and company) that I haven’t said time, and time again. It remains the best and most consistent source of new swords & sorcery fiction. If you aren’t reading it already, you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice. Issue #35, with magnificent banner art by Jereme Peabody, is no exception.

All right, I’m biased, but Raphael Ordoñez is one of my favorite writers working today, and I loved his new story, “White Rainbow and Brown Devil” in Issue #35. Not only is it a new story of “vagabond conquistador Francisco Carvajal y Lopez,” it’s got another of Ordoñez’s wonderful illustrations. In this tale of magic and danger, Francisco remains the same self-pitying, greedy but ultimately brave, hero he was introduced as in the first of his tales, “Heart of Tashyas.” He ended that tale in search of gold. This story opens with him frustrated and angry:

“Still no sign of them,” he growled, fingering the fishbone beads at his belt. “O Most Sweet Virgin, am I the victim of damnable perfidy yet again? With childlike trust have I followed Dacate’s word, seeking a modest recompense for all my sufferings in the painted canyons of the west. How many days has it been since I set out from the land of the Guequisales? Four? Five?” He raised the brown maul of his fist to heaven and shook it. “And where are these accursed canyons?”

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Birthday Reviews: Patricia C. Wrede’s “Rakiki and the Wizard”

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 0 Comment

Patricia C. Wrede was born on March 27, 1953. Her novel Calling on Dragons was nominated for a Mythopoeic Award for Best Children’s Fantasy and her story “Utensile Strength” was long-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award.

“Rikiki and the Wizard” was written for the Liavek shared world series edited by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull. It appeared in the second volume, The Players of Luck, published in 1986. Wrede included the story in her collection Book of Enchantments and in Points of Departure: Liavek Stories, which collects Wrede and Pamela Dean’s Liavek stories.

Wrede tells a fable with the story of “Rikiki and the Wizard,” a pleasant take on a traditional lesson. Extremely powerful and lucky (for luck is magic in Liavek), the Wizard can never satisfy his need for fame and decides to trade his daughter Ryvenna to any god who will grant him the enduring fame he desires. In his hubris, the Wizard failed to consult with his daughter about this plan, which annoyed the gods, who feel that she should have some say in her own fate, and they agree to ignore his summons.

Rikiki, however, while a god, is also a blue chipmunk, with a short attention span about anything except his quest for nuts. Forgetting the bargain of the gods, Rikiki seeks out the Wizard and asks for nuts. While the Wizard tries to get rid of the chipmunk (causing the creation of the world’s geographic features, the way it happens in fables about gods), his daughter eventually gives Rikiki nuts.

Of course, there are different types of luck and different types of fame and in the end the Wizard gains his fame (although Wrede cleverly never gives him a name), and Ryvenna lives happily ever after.

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Big Adventure, Tiny Dungeons: SPI’s DeathMaze Mini-game

Monday, March 26, 2018 Deven Atkinson Comments 3 comments

Deathmaze Magic Capsule 2 SPI-back-small

Disclaimer: No chits were punched in the playing of this game.

I recently obtained a near-mint copy of the 1979 bagged version of DeathMaze for my collection. My interest was in its design and gameplay mechanics that some people thought linked it to other SPI products such as the Citadel of Blood mini-game, the Sword and Sorcery boardgame, and the DragonQuest RPG.

Because I collect these games, I look for examples that are in un-played condition. I take the effort to make my own game pieces that I then use to play the games with. In the case of DeathMaze I simply made my own copies of the ½ inch square cardboard game piece counters, normally referred to as chits by war gamers. I also carefully removed the staples from the rule book, photo copied it and reassembled it with the original staples. I now have a rule book that I can handle without worry of damage.

The original near-mint game has been packed away in my collection. SPI historically allowed for the copy of record sheets and for reproducing damaged or lost counters. The back cover of the DeathMaze rulebook is a complete black and white printing of the game’s counter sheet, provided for just such a purpose.

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Superheroes in a World of Wonder and Horror: The Interminables Series by Paige Orwin

Monday, March 26, 2018 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Superhero fiction is tricky. It’s hard to get right. Superheroes rule in comics and at the box office, but in print…. not so much. Why is that? If I’d cracked that puzzle I’d be a Manhattan super-agent. The best I can tell you is that in visual media like comics and film, superheroes naturally draw all the attention. But in the more studied medium of print, away from the fast-action visuals of comics and movies, superheroes require a more thoughtful touch to really be appealing.

There have been successful superhero novels, of course. Like Vicious by V. E. Schwab (which Matthew David Surridge reviewed for us here), Carrie Vaughn’s After the Golden Age, Sarah Kuhn’s Heroine Complex trilogy… and Paige Orwin’s The Interminables (2016), the tale of two powerful agents of a wizard’s cabal in a drastically altered Earth on a mission that lands them in a very dark place. No truly successful superhero novel stands alone for long, of course, and late last year the sequel Immortal Architects arrived in paperback. Here’s the description.

Edmund Templeton, a time-manipulating sorcerer, and Istvan Czernin, the deathless spirit of WWI, are the most powerful agents of the magical cabal now ruling the US East Coast. Their struggle to establish a new order in the wake of magical catastrophe is under siege: cults flourish and armies clash on their borders. Perhaps worst of all the meteoric rise of a technological fortress-state threatens their efforts to keep the peace.

As if that weren’t enough, a desperate call has come in from the west. A superstorm capable of tearing rock from mountains is on its way, and [it’s] acting unlike any storm ever seen before. Who better to investigate than two old friends with the sudden need to prove themselves?

The Interminables may be the breakout series that finally proves the superhero novel can be serious genre literature — and seriously entertaining. Immortal Architects was published by Angry Robot on September 5, 2017. It is 479 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Amazing15. Read the complete first chapter at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog here.

Chasing The Immortal

Monday, March 26, 2018 John Searle Comments 8 comments

The Immortal (1970)
ABC Television
TV Movie and 15 episodes, based on The Immortals by James Gunn.

John Wayne’s real name was Marion Morrison. I know this because my father told me. Along with a hundred other small stories he told me while we watched television together. Whatever was on the screen would almost always prompt him to tell me something about the cast or the production or even, rarely and more precious because of it, what the particular story meant to him.

He often ended the little tale with a question as to what my five or seven or ten year old self thought about it. We did not interact like that anywhere else in our lives; two solitudes meeting in the one place we shared. So whatever was on the screen at the time filled the silences between my questions and his tales.

I believe I was prompted to track down The Immortal, at the risk of being maudlin, by moving my father who is suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s from our family home to a care facility permanently. In times like these mortal thoughts rise from your subconscious like Grendel from his cave. Sometimes you do things and you don’t really know why at the time. Nostalgia can find you paying for things on a whim, and in this Amazon is a ready enabler.

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Birthday Reviews: G. Harry Stine’s “The Easy Way Out”

Monday, March 26, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 4 comments

Analog Science Fiction April 1966-back-small

Cover by Kelly Freas

G. Harry Stine was born on March 26, 1928 and died on November 2, 1997. Most of his short fiction has been published using the pseudonym Lee Correy and he publishes non-fiction using his own name. His novels have appeared with both bylines.

Stine has had a number of science fact articles appear in Analog over the years, as well as several articles in Analog’s “The Alternate View” series. He worked at White Sands Proving Grounds as a civilian scientist in the mid 1950s, and used his expertise to help create the model rocket movement. Stine served in the Citizen’s Advisory Council on National Space Policy, which helped create the Strategic Defense Initiative proposal.

“The Easy Way Out” was published in Analog in April 1966, purchased by John W. Campbell, Jr. and appearing under the byline Lee Correy. Campbell included it in the anthology Analog 6 in 1968 and Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh selected it for their anthology Science Fiction A to Z: A Dictionary of the Great SF Themes in 1982. Its last appearance was in Analog: The Best of Science Fiction, edited by Stanley Schmidt in 1985.

A group of alien invaders visiting Earth are the forerunners to a potential invasion. Part of a large intergalactic empire, their task is to rate the natives of the planet on a variety of indices to determine if an invasion is likely to succeed, although since they state that no planet has ever been bypassed, it isn’t clear what the purpose of the ratings actually is.

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Vintage Treasures: Annals of Klepsis by R.A. Lafferty

Sunday, March 25, 2018 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

I haven’t used Goodreads much, but I’m beginning to see that’s a mistake. It truly is a marvelous resource for those looking for a wide range of opinions about books — especially those that have been out of print for decades. For example, here’s a small sample of reviews for R. A. Lafferty’s gonzo space-pirate novel Annals of Klepsis, published as an Ace paperback original in 1983. First up is Andrew:

A surrealistic apocalypse from a master of surreal apocalyptic fantasy. Lafferty’s novels function with the logic of a Bugs Bunny cartoon written by Kafka.

Astonishing how on-point that is a 2-sentence review. Here’s a snippet from a much more in-depth review by Printable Tire.

The book’s setting is sort of a blend of science fiction, in that it takes place on another planet, with “zap guns” (not called that) and everything, and fantasy, in the way Alice in Wonderland is fantasy. The very loose sprawling story takes place on Klepsis, a pirate planet, who for the last 200 hundred years has been in a state of pre-history, a state of legend. One of the thousands of things Lafferty postulates is that all pre-history and pre-legend does not take place in linear time, but because it is pre-history it all takes place at the same time; thus Hercules was a contemporary of Achilles, and thus the proportion of ghosts in this book.

And finally, here’s a sample from my favorite Goodreads review, from Raymond St.

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in February

Sunday, March 25, 2018 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

January sure was popular with readers. The most popular article at Black Gate last month was… our summary of the most popular articles at Black Gate the previous month. If that patterns hold, this will be the most popular article on the blog in March. To guarantee that, I’ve put a big picture of Godzilla at the top. You’re welcome.

Getting back to more regular fare, the second most popular post on the blog last month was Elizabeth Crowens’ epic interview with Buffy the Vampire Slayer author author Nancy Holder. Third on the list was a Vintage Treasures feature on Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane 1: Skulls in the Stars (which just proves Bob Byrne’s thesis that REH is a sure ticket into the Top Ten). Rounding out the Top Five were our look at a much more recent book, the new Looming Low anthology from Justin Steele and Sam Cowan, and my salute to a vanished book imprint, A Farewell to Roc Books.

As always, games were well represented in the Top Ten. Andrew Zimmerman Jones scored the #6 slot with his feature review of the new RPG Tales from the Loop, and M Harold Page entertained us with his report on I Love the Corps, which was good enough for #7. No Top Ten list would be complete without Ryan Harvey, and he made his appearance at #8 with the latest installment of The Complete Carpenter, this time featuring Big Trouble in Little China (1986). Wrapping things up was our look at Unbound Worlds on A Century of Sword and Planet, and the debut effort of new BG blogger David Neil Lee, with his review of Kong – Skull Island.

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