Search Results for: bram stoker awards

Joyce Carol Oates’ Gothic Quintet, Part I: Bellefleur

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Published in 1980, Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Bellefleur is an astonishing gothic tour-de-force, a breathtaking and phantasmagoric book that whirls through generations of an aristocratic New England family. It deals in almost every kind of traditional horror-story trope: a sprawling, crumbling, haunted house; angered spirits of the land; men who take the shape of beasts; at least one innocent heiress who develops a peculiar case of anemia after being courted by a sinister European nobleman. All these things are folded…

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A Smalltown Horror Masterclass: Paul Finch on Norman Partridge’s Dark Harvest

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Dark Harvest (Tor Books, September 4, 2007, cover by Jon Foster) and the film adaptation (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, October 11, 2023) Paul Finch’s “The Carrion Call” appeared in the eighth issue of the print version of Black Gate, and over the last decade he’s produced over a dozen Terror Tales anthologies (most recently Terror Tales of the West Country, which Mario Guslandi reviewed for us back in January). But he also maintains Walking in the Dark, one of the more entertaining and…

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Goth Chick News: “Crypt” Notes to Begin 2023

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Knock at the Cabin (Universal Pictures, February 3) We are a month into the new year and yet here I am writing my first post of 2023. This is the longest hiatus I have ever taken from Black Gate since beginning my tenure quite some time ago, but I have a good excuse. I recently returned from nearly a month on safari in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa, and between some amazing animal encounters and quite a lot of…

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Columbia College Chicago Alumni Fantasy Writers Look at the Changing Role of Heroes in Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge Film

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Troll Bridge, Snowgum Films (2019) The air blew off the mountains, filling the air with fine ice crystals.It was too cold to snow. In weather like this wolves came down into villages, trees in the heart of the forest exploded when they froze. In weather like this right-thinking people were indoors, in front of the fire, telling stories about heroes. This is the epic, atmospheric opening to Sir Terry Pratchett’s marvelous short story, “Troll Bridge,” set in his Discworld series. …

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Unbearable Utopias and Harrowing Adventures on Alien Planets: The Best of Jack Williamson

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The Best of Jack Williamson (Del Rey, 1978). Cover by Ralph McQuarrie The Best of Jack Williamson (1978) was, according to my research, the fifteenth installment in Lester Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series. Frederik Pohl (1919–2013) provided the introduction (his second in the series, he also did the intro for The Best of C. M. Kornbluth). Jack Williamson (1908–2006), who was still living at the time, does the Afterword. The famous sci-fi artist Ralph McQuarrie (1929–2012) provides his first (and only)…

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Terror, Existential Dread, and Surprised Laughter: A Review of Spectral Realms #11

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Cover by Daniel V. Sauer Spectral Realms magazine is a square-bound journal of weird poetry, reviews, and articles launched in 2014 and published twice yearly by S. T. Joshi — the field’s foremost scholar, writer, advocate, and critic.  If ever there was a man who should need no introduction, Mr. Joshi is he — 300+ books to date and counting. An avowed rationalist, rapier-witted satirist (in the savage tradition of Bierce, Twain, and Mencken), and sometime crafter of his own macabre tales,…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Night Shift, by Stephen King

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The Balrog Award, often referred to as the coveted Balrog Award, was created by Jonathan Bacon and first conceived in issue 10/11 of his Fantasy Crossroads fanzine in 1977 and actually announced in the final issue, where he also proposed the Smitty Awards for fantasy poetry. The awards were presented for the first time at Fool-Con II at the Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas on April 1, 1979. The awards were never taken particularly seriously, even by…

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Birthday Reviews: Fritz Leiber’s “The Cloud of Hate”

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Fritz Leiber was born on December 24, 1910 and died on September 5, 1992. Fritz Leiber won six Hugo Awards for his novels The Big Time and The Wanderer as well as the novelette “Gonna Roll the Bones,” the novellas “Ship of Shadows” and “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” and the short story “Catch That Zeppelin.” “Gonna Roll the Bones,” “Ill Met in Lankhmar,” and “Catch That Zeppelin” also received the Nebula Award. He won the World Fantasy Award for the…

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Wordsmiths: Talking Horror and White Noise with Geoff Gander and Tito Ferradans

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There’s been something about this past year – tons of creators I know are doing awesome things, particularly in my Ottawa backyard, nearby in Toronto and elsewhere across Canada. It sounds cliché, but watching these projects come to fruition is one of the highlights of being a creator myself, and I’ve been lucky to chat with a few people and put together interviews to share with all of you – starting today! Recently I had the pleasure of chatting with…

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Birthday Reviews: Neil Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples”

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Cover by Charles Vess Neil Gaiman was born on November 10, 1960. Gaiman has received Hugo Awards for his novels American Gods and The Graveyard Book, his novella Coraline, his short story “A Study in Emerald,” and his Graphic Story The Sandman: Overture. Both American Gods and Coraline won the Nebula Award and Gaiman has also won the Bradbury Award from SFWA for his screenplay for the Doctor Who episode “The Doctor’s Wife.” His short story “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,”…

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