Pellucidar Break: The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Pellucidar Break: The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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monster-men-original-dust-jacketI’ve reached the halfway point on my retrospective of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar novels — and if I’ve learned one thing from having done two other complete ERB retrospectives (aside from never get in a flying vehicle with Carson Napier), it’s that I should take a break before plunging forward into the second half. Or maybe plunging down into the second half. Once a Burroughs series enters the late 1930s, the drop off in quality can get frightfully steep.

So before going Back to the Stone Age, I’m rewinding to the salad days of ERB’s career and exploring a lesser-known work: a take on Frankenstein and The Island of Dr. Moreau filtered through the pulp jungle adventure; a book of great promises and great frustrations.

The story that would eventually become The Monster Men is an ambitious thematic and character experiment that explodes with the exuberance of early Edgar Rice Burroughs. It’s also a misfire where generic pulp elements and a terrible ending undermines the potential for one of its author’s most intriguing works. The ebullience of youthful ERB bursts through, but the control and follow-through with complex ideas seem to have been left to the concurrent Tarzan, Mars, and Pellucidar series.

Burroughs wrote the novel in April 1913 during a feverish period between The Cave Girl and The Warlord of Mars. He may have devised the idea in late 1912 as a short story. But he soon discovered the short story wasn’t his medium and expanded the idea into a full-length book titled “Number Thirteen.” It appeared as “A Man without a Soul” in the November 1913 issue of All Story. For its first book publication in 1929, the name was changed to The Monster Men, by far the weakest of the trio of titles, but the one we’re stuck with. “The Man without a Soul” had been used as the title for the U.K. book publication of The Mucker, which probably accounts for the change. The title coincidence between these two books, however, isn’t exactly a coincidence, something I’ll examine later.

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Future Treasures: The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle Steiger

Future Treasures: The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle Steiger

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The Empire's Ghost-smallIsabelle Steiger is something of a mystery, to me at least. She came out of nowhere… no previous novels, no short stories that I can find, zip. Not even a website.

Is Steiger a pseudonym, maybe? Who knows. All I know is that she’s produced the opening novel of a brand new fantasy series that’s getting a lot of attention — no small achievement. The Empire’s Ghost arrives in hardcover in ten days.

The empire of Elesthene once spanned a continent, but its rise heralded the death of magic. It tore itself apart from within, leaving behind a patchwork of kingdoms struggling to rebuild.

But when a new dictator, the ambitious and enigmatic Imperator Elgar, seizes power in the old capital and seeks to recreate the lost empire anew, the other kingdoms have little hope of stopping him. Prince Kelken of Reglay finds himself at odds with his father at his country’s darkest hour; the marquise of Esthrades is unmatched in politics and strategy, but she sits at a staggering military disadvantage. And Issamira, the most powerful of the free countries, has shut itself off from the conflict, thrown into confusion by the disappearance of its crown prince and the ensuing struggle for succession.

Everything seems aligned in Elgar’s favor, but when he presses a band of insignificant but skilled alley-dwellers into his service for a mission of greatest secrecy, they find an unexpected opportunity to alter the balance of power in the war. Through their actions and those of the remaining royals, they may uncover not just a way to defeat Elgar, but also a deeper truth about their world’s lost history.

The Empire’s Ghost will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on May 16, 2017. It is 419 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Young Jin Lim,

Worldbuilding a “Star Punk” Future #2: Post-Certainty Society in Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s Peace

Worldbuilding a “Star Punk” Future #2: Post-Certainty Society in Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s Peace

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Vatta Cold Welcome
…could be a superior Traveller campaign

Go on a Traveller RPG forum and ask for book recommendations, and somebody will suggest Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War series — a series that has just spawned a rather good sequel, Vatta’s Peace.

The Vatta books are, of course, a really good read. They’re gritty and realistic — it helps that Moon’s ex-military. They’re also fast-paced and well-written, they have vivid characters you enjoy hanging out with, and a strong female protagonist (or two). The same can be said of her other big SF series, affectionately known among my friends as “Scary Horse Aunts In Space” (*) but it’s the Vatta books that come up because they feel a lot like Traveller, meaning they fit my definition of Star Punk:

Set in [a] spacefaring civilization… where… technology has somehow failed to eliminate the human element, where you still need a human to pull the trigger or pilot the scout ship, and where nanotechnology, 3D-printing and vertical farms have neither eliminated trade, nor ushered in a crime-free post scarcity society. They all involve individuals or companions — adventurers, traders, investigators, contractors — pursuing goals of only local significance. (*)

Except for not being an ensemble piece, the series really could be a superior Traveller campaign! It even kicks off with Ky operating as a free trader having left Naval Academy due to a scandal — did somebody fail her survival roll during character generation? It expands to encompass family corporations, commercial espionage, romance, family drama, conspiracy, politics, atrocity, piracy and ultimately set-piece space battles.

However, it rarely loses sight of the business of space travel. Our intrepid hero must deal with crew, repairs, finance, quirky local custom, in addition to the issues around using a civilian ship in armed conflict against pirates and other enemies… this is like a story from the 1970s, but with a tighter plot, modern diversity and values, and much better writing.

The setting — the worldbuilding — is also very Traveller-like in that the technology is limited in such a manner as to create a near-future-but in spaaace feel. Moon achieves this mostly by deploying the third of the options identified in the my last article: she turns the technology against itself.

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In 500 Words or Less: Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal

In 500 Words or Less: Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal

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Ghost Talkers Mary Robinette Kowal-smallGhost Talkers
By Mary Robinette Kowal
Tor (304 pages, $24.99 hardcover/$11.99 paperback, August 2016)

Every year I end up teaching at least one section of Grade 10 Canadian History as part of my day job (yes, I work with high school students by choice on top of writing) and begin the course by talking about the First World War. I’ve discussed trenches, the Battle of the Somme, German artillery, etc. so often that that particular stretch of history feels like a long-time colleague. Which meant that Mary Robinette Kowal’s Ghost Talkers (my first exploration of her work, though I’ve listened to Writing Excuses for years) was interesting for me not just as an avid reader but also as a historian, to see how introducing mediums and spirits to the front lines would change the nature of the war.

The amount of research that Kowal must have done for this novel shows. From the dialogue between the characters, to the references to actual events and aspects of period culture and slang, the characters in Ghost Talkers felt the same as individuals from primary sources I’ve read for my teaching. At the same time, the characters are realistic and easy to relate to; central protagonist Ginger, one of the senior members of the army’s Spirit Corps, is particularly compelling because she’s motivated by the death and grief around her (some of which is quite personal) but keeps pushing herself to discover the threat against her people before it’s too late.

Ginger’s entire story is set against the historical fact of women’s status and patriarchal society at the time of the First World War (in Canada most women couldn’t vote at the time) and since part of the story is about women proving their worth in a “man’s war,” I’m left wondering what would happen at the end of this alternate war. Would women be forced to go back to their traditional roles, like in our world, or would things be different?

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Goth Chick News: C2E2 2017 – More Harley Quinn’s Than You Can Swing A Mallet At

Goth Chick News: C2E2 2017 – More Harley Quinn’s Than You Can Swing A Mallet At

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C2E2 2017

The annual cosplay bacchanalia that is the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (or “C2E2” for you cool kids) rolled into our city’s largest convention space on April 21 for three full days of exhibition in every sense of the word.

Now in its 8th year, preliminary attendance estimates easily top the 100K mark which was illustrated by the fact that the McCormick Center’s 6000 parking spaces were full on Saturday by 11 a.m. and attendees were being bussed from other nearby lots. Of course one must also consider that this year’s C2E2 event was sharing a small amount of their space with The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics annual Experimental Biology convention which accounted for some of the parking consumption.

Imagine with me if you will, jacketed and bespectacled scientist-types of a certain age, navigating the long pedestrian bridge connecting the garage to the event space alongside Superman, Wonder Woman and various members of the Seven Kingdoms. Now imagine Black Gate photog Chris Z and I under the influence of too little sleep, too much caffeine and more than the normal snark level, trudging along behind them.

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Vintage Treasures: Where Time Winds Blow by Robert Holdstock

Vintage Treasures: Where Time Winds Blow by Robert Holdstock

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Where Time Winds Blow Holdstock-small Where Time Winds Blow Holdstock-back-small

Several bloggers at Black Gate have piqued my interest in Robert Holdstock recently. In his November review of his pseudonymous sword & sorcery novel Berserker: Shadow of the Wolf, Fletcher Vredenburgh wrote:

Holdstock’s vision of the Viking age is merciless and dread-filled. The Norse are vicious, murderous bandits, continuously killing and raping their way across Ireland. The Norse themselves live in fear of the gods, no wonder in the face of murderous Berserkers. Haunts and monsters lurk in every shadow, sneaking from behind one tree to another. Men live under curses and the constant fear of sudden violent death. Most often death is unfair and ignoble.

And in his March review of Mythago Wood and Lavondyss, Derek Kunsken wrote:

There are a few novels I will return two over and over… one truly haunting work is Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood and Lavondyss. The novels won the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and the BSFA Award in 1988 respectively… reading Holdstock is to viscerally experience layers of deep, Jungian time. The wood is haunted not by ghosts of the past per se; it is haunted by the ancient memories of ghosts that each person carries within them, all the legends, remembered in story and forgotten.

The running theme through both reviews is that Holdstock is a master of setting, and that seems borne out by my most recent discovery, the Timescape paperback Where Time Winds Blow. It’s a standalone SF novel set on a strange SF planet where reality is fluid, and subject to mysterious winds that scream across the surface. That definitely sounds like my kind of book. Where Time Winds Blow was published by Timescape / Pocket Books in May 1982. It is 262 pages, priced at $2.95. The cover is by Carl Lundgren. I bought the copy above online this week for $2.79.

Defending of Realm

Defending of Realm

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Defenders of the Realm-small

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A dragon, a demon, and an undead walk into a kingdom. Oh, and an orc. Mustn’t forget the orc. These four generals are leading their hordes of minions in a march on Monarch City, and it’s up to the players to stop them. This is the cooperative board game Defenders of the Realm, designed by Richard Launius and published by Eagle Games.

The players have no army of their own to oppose the invaders. Instead they have one to four heroes of the sort you’d expect: paladin, ranger, wizard, sorceress, rogue, etc. The bad guys have several ways to win. The players have one: defeat all the generals, no matter how many of their minions remain on the board.

The mechanics of Defenders bear more than a passing resemblance to the board game Pandemic, but this isn’t a reskinned knock-off, as the fantasy theme is strongly integrated into the game. Miniatures add to the theme, with a unique plastic mini for each hero and general, and hordes of color-coded minions. (Sapphire, the dragon general, has the place of pride in the game, standing nearly two inches tall. However, the amorphous cloaked minions are my favorite.)

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New Treasures: The Choice Series by Paul McAuley

New Treasures: The Choice Series by Paul McAuley

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Something Coming Through Paul McAuley-small Into Everywhere Paul McAuley-small

Paul MaAuley was an early contributor to Black Gate, with a review column titled On the Edge. His first novel, Four Hundred Billion Stars (1988), won the Philip K. Dick Award; his 1996 novel Fairyland won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel. His latest is a pair of contemporary SF novels about an enigmatic alien race who make an equally enigmatic gift to mankind… Alastair Reynolds calls the first one, Something Coming Through, “as tight and relentlessly paced as an Elmore Leonard thriller… the freshest take on first contact and interstellar exploration in many years.” Here’s the description for Something Coming Through.

The Jackaroo have given humanity fifteen worlds and the means to reach them. They’re a chance to start over, but they’re also littered with ruins and artifacts left by the Jackaroo’s previous clients. Miracles that could reverse the damage caused by war, climate change, and rising sea levels. Nightmares that could forever alter humanity — or even destroy it.

Chloe Millar works in London, mapping changes caused by imported scraps of alien technology. When she stumbles across a pair of orphaned kids possessed by an ancient ghost, she must decide whether to help them or to hand them over to the authorities. Authorities who believe that their visions point towards a new kind of danger. And on one of the Jackaroo’s gift-worlds, the murder of a man who has just arrived from Earth leads policeman Vic Gayle to a war between rival gangs over possession of a remote excavation site.

Something is coming through. Something linked to the visions of Chloe’s orphans, and Vic Gayle’s murder investigation. Something that will challenge the limits of the Jackaroo’s benevolence …

Something Coming Through was published by Gollancz on June 21, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $12.99 in paperback and $1.99 for the digital edition. The sequel, Into Everywhere, was published in paperback by Gollancz on June 14, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $19.99 in paperback and $5.99 for the digital edition.

The Queens’ Pyramids at Giza

The Queens’ Pyramids at Giza

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DSC_2495

The pyramid of Menkaure (2532-2504 BC) and
its three Queens’ Pyramids, looking east

We’ve all seen the pictures. Tucked beside the massive pyramids at Giza are a few little pyramids. They are generally described in one line as the “Queens’ Pyramids” or “satellite pyramids” and not mentioned any further. They seem like such an afterthought to the awe-inspiring pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, not to mention the Sphinx, that they get all but forgotten. But why were these monuments built? And who were they for?

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Why You Should Go to Conventions

Why You Should Go to Conventions

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The Dray Prescot series 3-small

The Dray Prescot series, by Alan Burt Akers

Last month, I posted in a couple of Facebook groups a piece of new art that Deb and I had bought. In response to the post, one person asked how to go about acquiring illustration art, and I mentioned that one good venue was going to conventions such as The Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention (shameless plug) or PulpFest for vintage art, or IX or Spectrum Fantastic Art Live for new stuff. And many of the larger comic conventions also have some dealers who specialize in vintage illustration art, or artist attendees doing current work. And several SF/fantasy conventions, such as World Fantasy, Boskone or Worldcon still have good art rooms (and Boskone in particular has strong vintage art components to their art shows), though in most cases SF cons are not what they used to be when it comes to art. In addition to conventions, I also mentioned various auction houses, eBay and dealers, which are more typical day-to-day places to find illustration art, as cons are scattered throughout the year and most of us can’t attend all of them.

Of course, this is only my opinion, and others may have different experiences, particularly when it comes to collecting newer illustration art. Our focus is on older illustration art, and while we do have several pieces that have been created in the past few years, the bulk of our collection is illustration art that’s at least 30 years old, with the majority of it at least 60 years old and some over 100 years old.

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