In 2016, DC launched a new imprint called Young Animal, an offshoot of its Vertigo stuff, led by Gerard Way and editors Jamie Rich and Mark Doyle. Young Animal’s goal is to relaunch some DC characters for mature audiences. I hadn’t been paying attention, but got drawn in by Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye.
Director Tobe Hooper, the man who helped alter horror forever in the transgressively transformative 1970s with the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, died at age 74 last weekend. Although the 1974 Chain Saw Massacre (yes, it’s two words, dammit) is Hooper’s most important work, he leaves behind a filmography of strange and, shall we say, eclectic quality. His other movies include the swamp-sploitation Eaten Alive; a notorious Stephen King adaptation, The Mangler; a quite good Stephen King television adaptation, Salem’s Lot; a remake of Invaders from Mars; his own black-comedy sequel to Texas Chain Saw Massacre (now with Chainsaw as a single word); a likable classic-era slasher, The Funhouse; and a remake of ‘70s sleaze The Toolbox Murders.
There’s also a film called Poltergeist on his resumé. The most financially successful movie of Hooper’s career, it also has a large asterisk next to it, as the question of who actually directed the film remains a point of contention. I’m not rehashing that debate now, because I have a bizarre nude space vampire epic to look at.
Lifeforce, Hooper’s 1985 science-fiction horror film, is receiving plenty of press in the wake of the director’s death. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is his principal legacy, but most people would rather not relive this existential nightmare of brutality for the purpose of a eulogy. Despite the minimal amount of on-screen gore — the film is far bloodier in memory than actuality — this original visit to a backwoods Texas family of cannibals is a descent into unrelieved madness that leaves most audiences scarred. My first viewing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is still one of the most depressing movie-watching experiences of my life.
Watching Lifeforce, however, is all about joy. This is a sprawling, wonderful, insane, bizarre, ridiculous, beautiful work of big-budget dementia. It should not exist. Not as a $25 million tentpole movie in the same summer as Back to the Future.
I’ve been making my through the games that I saw at this year’s GenCon, first of fantasy deck-building games and then some science fiction games, but I’d like to focus now on games with a particular audience focus: games for kids.
Over the years, I’ve become a huge fan of RPG-in-a-box style games. While I love my old school Dungeons & Dragons, the fact of the matter is that I don’t always have the time to create an ongoing, engaging storyline, create NPCs, and so on. Games that can generate the storytelling experience that I love from role-playing games, but eliminate much of the up front work, are definitely things that catch my eye. One of the knockout games of this type is Plaid Hat Games’ Mice & Mystics (Amazon, Plaid Hat), which I first learned about and discussed at GenCon in 2012. My youngest son was a mere 2 years old at the time, so too young for the game, but now it’s one of his favorite games, and one of the more epic games that are enjoyed equally by myself, both my kids, and my wife. The game has two expansions, Heart of Glorm and Downwood Tales, as well as a spin-off Tail Feathers (Amazon, Plaid Hat), which is more of a tactical wargame in a box, as you play mice and rats who wage war on each other by riding on the back of sparrows and ravens. There are also infantry troops, and the heroes and villains from Mice & Mystics can be incorporated as solo units in Tail Feathers.
Jerry Hawthorne, creator of these games, has a new release coming up from Plaid Hat Games, which seems like it will be equally endearing. The game, Stuffed Fables, tells the story of a group of stuffed animals who, upon the first night that their child owner is in her big girl bed, learn that there are evil forces that seek to draw her into a world of nightmares. The first in Plaid Hat Games’ AdventureBook series, Stuffed Fables is an adventures that takes place by proceeding through pages in a book. The book contains both the map for the scene that is unfolding, as well as the storyline you follow as you play, giving you directions of what encounters take place on the given map, what happens when villains are defeated (or not), whether any new information is provided about the storyline, and so on. (This is one advantage over Mice & Mystics, which includes an expansive tile-based game board but then has you flipping through a separate story book to figure out what happens on a particular tile.)
I know, I know. Call this one a guilty pleasure. Bob Byrne, our resident Sherlock guru, is probably rolling over in his grave, and he ain’t even dead.
What can I tell you? Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu, together again. A whole lot of promising novels from bright young faces got shoved aside this week in my eagerness for this one. Titan Books, you’re deranged, and I love you for it.
Titan has made quite an industry of Sherlock Holmes pastiches over the years, publishing novels by Sam Siciliano, Mark A. Latham, Steven Savile, David Stuart Davies, Cavan Scott, Barrie Roberts, William Seil, Richard L. Boyer, and others. This isn’t even their first Holmes/Cthulhu crossover — I believe that honor goes to The Cthulhu Casebooks trilogy by James Lovegrove. How well did that turn out? Here’s Bob from his BG review:
Lovegrove, who has written several non-Holmes books, is part of Titan’s stable of new Holmes authors. Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows is the first of a trilogy, with Sherlock Holmes & The Miskatonic Monstrosities due out in Fall of 2017 and Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea Devils to wrap things up in November of 2018.
The basic premise of the book (yea, the trilogy) is that Watson made up the sixty stories in the Canon. He did so to cover up the real truth behind Holmes’ work. And that’s because the truth is too horrible to reveal. In a nutshell, Watson has written three journals, each covering events fifteen years apart, to try and get some of the darkness out of his soul… something extremely unpleasant happened to Watson in a subterranean city in Afghanistan – giving him a wound that had nothing to do with a Jezail bullet.
Holmes and Watson take lodgings together at 221B Baker Street and immediately set off on a case. In a nutshell (somebody needs to clean the floor of all these nutshells here at the Black Gate offices!), Holmes is going to do battle with beings from the Cthulhu tales. The first part of the book has almost a Fu Manchu type of feel to it, but then it shifts into straight Lovecraft horror.
Much has been said about technology and the changes it brings with respect to our day-to-day world. It’s even been said that SF is the literature of change, exploring how evolution in technology, in scientific knowledge, in philosophical and political thought might, could, or does, affect our lives.
Changes in technology screw with one particular aspect of our lives that touches us all here at Black Gate very closely. They change what writers can and can’t write.1 If what you’re working on has anything to do with the present day world as we know it, every cell phone update can screw with your manuscript.
This is a kind of double-reverse example, but consider Larry Niven’s short story, “The Alibi Machine,” which essentially explores what would happen to crime and crime detection if instantaneous matter transfer was invented. If you could literally be anywhere, anytime in a matter of moments, how could you establish an alibi? How would the police eliminate you as a suspect?
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Here at the end of the month, I’ve been amusing myself by comparing the books selected by each of the major genre sites for their monthly lists:
August’s Must-Read Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror (John DeNardo, Kirkus Reviews) — 19 books
The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of August (Jeff Somers, the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog) — 25 books
The Best Comics & Graphic Novels of August (Ross Johnson, the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog) — 29 comics and graphic novels
14 SF, Fantasy, and Horror Books for August (Andrew Liptak, The Verge) — 14 books
Andrew Liptak at The Verge, for example, seems to really dig white covers.
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I don’t get over to my local comic shop nearly as often as I’d like to. Fortunately, there are some great resources to let me know what I’m missing. One of the best is the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, which does occasional surveys of the best new graphic novel releases. Two days ago I reported on Jeff Somers’ summary of the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of August at the B&N Blog; this month I found Ross Johnson’s summary of the 29 top comics and graphic novels of the month just as fascinating.
It includes Atari Classics: Swordquest by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, Valerian: The Illustrated Treasury, by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières, George R. R. Martin’s The Mystery Knight, Paper Girls, Vol. 3, by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, Invader Zim, Vol. 4, SLAM! Vol. 1, by Pamela Ribon and Veronica Fish, Batgirl: Stephanie Brown, Vol. 1, and lots more. Here’s a few of the highlights.
The Mighty Thor, Vol. 3: The Asgard/Shi’Ar War, by Jason Aaron, Steve Epting, Russell Dauterman, and Matthew Wilson (Marvel, 160 pages, $24.99 in hardcover, August 1, 2017)
The War of the Realms is well and truly underway, and Malekith the Dark Elf is using the chaos to his advantage. Thor takes it upon herself to unite the squabbling factions that make up the ten worlds under her command in order to strike back at Malekith and end the war. But he’s ready with an alliance of his own, and the Odinson stands in the shadows.
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Lots of great reading in August’s fiction magazines. In addition to those we’ve covered here during the month — including Analog, Black Static, F&SF, Graphic Classics, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 33, and Interzone — there’s plenty more on the shelves to keep you busy in those idle hours, including all those above. Click on any of the thumbnail images to visit their respective websites.
Our additional magazine coverage in the past few weeks includes Steve Case’s interview with Scott H. Andrews, editor of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fletcher Vredenburgh’s August Short Story Roundup, and Apex Magazine‘s report on the Best Short Fiction Reviews. For our vintage magazine fans, we have Retro-Reviews of the November 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction (by Matthew Wuertz), the November 1969 Galaxy (by Adrian Simmons), and the July 1964 Amazing Stories (Rich Horton).
Our July Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.
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One of the reasons I love Angry Robot is their enthusiasm for new authors. Paired with their commitment to mass market, they’ve allowed me to take a chance on dozens of new writers over the last few years, and all for the price of a few $7.99 paperbacks. That’s a rare and precious thing these days, and it’s worth supporting.
John DeNardo tipped me off to a trio of great-looking Angry Robot paperbacks arriving September 5. Here’s all the deets.
Andre Norton is one of the most revered science fiction writers of the 20th Century. True, much of her work is out of print these days, and she seems to have more or less fallen out of favor with modern readers (except Fletcher Vredenburgh, naturally), but there are still plenty of SF fans who credit her with their introduction to science fiction.
Many readers don’t know that Norton made a name for herself as an editor before she became acclaimed for her own writing. Her three SF anthologies for World Publishing Co., all published between 1953-56, remain some of her most collectible work. Party that’s due to their relative rarity, but the Vigil Finlay covers are also a big factor. These are gorgeous books, eagerly sought by collectors, especially in good condition.
Over at his website Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton reviews the first one, Space Service. It appeared in hardcover in 1953 and, like the other two, has never been reprinted.