Black Gate – Page 544 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Future Treasures: The Queen of Swords, Book 3 of the Golgotha Series, by R.S. Belcher

Friday, June 9, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

R.S. Belcher’s last novel, The Brotherhood of the Wheel, was selected as one of the best horror novels of the year by the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog. For his next novel, he returns to Golgotha, the Weird Western setting of The Six-Gun Tarot (which RT Book Reviews called “Fascinating… like a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Deadwood,”) and The Shotgun Arcana (“Golgotha is the wildest of the Wild West, attracting mystics, minor deities, alchemists, seers, and fanatics in a fantastical romp” — Publishers Weekly). It arrives in hardcover from Tor later this month.

1870. Maude Stapleton, late of Golgotha, Nevada, is a respectable widow raising a daughter on her own. Few know that Maude belongs to an ancient order of assassins, the Daughters of Lilith, and is as well the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Anne Bonney, the legendary female pirate.

Leaving Golgotha in search of her daughter Constance, who has been taken from her, Maude travels to Charleston, South Carolina, only to find herself caught in the middle of a secret war between the Daughters of Lilith and their ancestral enemies, the monstrous Sons of Typhon. To save Constance, whose prophetic gifts are sought by both cults, Maude must follow in the footsteps of Anne Bonney as she embarks on a perilous voyage that will ultimately lead her to a lost city of bones in the heart of Africa ― and the Father of All Monsters.

One of the most popular characters from The Six-Gun Tarot and The Shotgun Arcana ventures beyond Golgotha on a boldly imaginative, globe-spanning adventure of her own.

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The 33% Mark: When it’s OK to Stop Drafting Go Back and Edit

Friday, June 9, 2017 M Harold Page Comments 0 Comment

"Ticket to the last station!" — “Ticket to the last station!”

When you’re writing that first draft, standard advice is: Don’t go back to edit!

Make like Omar Khayyám:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Or if you prefer, Guderian:

Ticket to the last station.

Yes, the ideal first draft is a blitzkrieg: rampage onward with the story, ignore pockets of resistance, you can catch them on the second draft.

However, you are neither a medieval Persian ruminating on life, nor a Panzer general. For all we like to skin it with the aesthetic or the macho, writing is its own activity. The truth, so I’ve learned, is more complex.

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The Play’s The Thing

Friday, June 9, 2017 Violette Malan Comments 3 comments

Leiber Ghost Light Here at Black Gate we often have posts on films and TV shows as they connect with or pertain to our favorite genre(s). If we don’t talk as much (or at all) about live drama, it’s probably because there’s not as much SF or Fantasy happening on the stage as there is on the screen. I’d think we’d all agree that with a very few exceptions stage effects are simply not equal to the kind of special effects SF and Fantasy often need.

But if we don’t see our favourite novels and stories on the stage, we certainly do see the opposite: we see the stage in our novels and stories.

We’re all familiar with the “play within a play” concept since we had to read Hamlet in high school. After all, practically every Fred Astaire movie musical is about a musical production, and there can’t be anyone alive who doesn’t know that Singing in the Rain is about making a movie musical. But again, what I’m looking at here is play-within-the-story. We should note that if we follow in Shakespeare’s footsteps, the device has to have purpose. In Hamlet, the play was “the thing to catch the conscience of the king,” that is, it played an integral part of the plot. The same should be true if we see the device in a short story or novel.

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Goth Chick News: “Show Me the Mummy!” or Universal Studios Eats Its Young…

Thursday, June 8, 2017 Sue Granquist Comments 5 comments

Back in October I reported on the travesty that Universal Studios was perpetuating on its own iconic catalog of classic movie monster films. Though I was sincerely hoping the early rumors were not true, it has recently been confirmed that Universal is indeed committing this violent crime which they are entitling their “Dark Universe,” the umbrella under which it is planning at least five films including The Invisible Man (with Johnny Depp), Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe), Frankenstein’s Monster (Javier Bardem) and Bride of Frankenstein (not yet cast but Angelina Jolie is rumored).

So what’s the problem you ask?

These films have already been remade multiple times, you say.

True enough.

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Princesses, Space Battles, Monsters and Aliens: The Sirantha Jax Novels by Ann Aguirre

Thursday, June 8, 2017 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

I love adventure science fiction, but I’m a little shy of all these open ended series. I want to fall in love with a series, sure… but do I want to fall for a publishing endeavor with an uncertain future, one that could easily be derailed by an author illness, a fickle market, publishing setbacks or other unexpected tragedy? Who needs that anxiety and potential heartache? Not me; I have three teenagers.

Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary, since most of the adventure SF I like tends to be part of series. But there are a few completed story arcs, out there — not many, but a few. Successful series that have wrapped up with a beginning, middle, and an end. And one of those is Ann Aquirre’s 6-volume Sirantha Jax cycle, a far-ranging space opera in a well-realized universe that left fans happy with a satisfying concluding volume.

My friend Sharon Shinn was one of the first to alert me to these books, with her review of the opening volume Grimspace: “Sirantha Jax doesn’t just leap off the page — she storms out, kicking, cursing, and mouthing off. No wonder her pilot falls in love with her; readers will too.”

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May/June Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

Thursday, June 8, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The May/June F&SF features the second appearance of Matthew Hughes’s new series character Baldemar, in the issue’s cover story “The Prognosticant.” Matt had an interview with Stephen Mazur on the Fantasy & Science Fiction blog in which he discusses the series.

It’s a continuation of the career of young Baldemar, who was introduced in the last issue in “Ten Half-Pennies” as a budding wizard’s henchman working for a thaumaturge who calls himself Thelerion the Incomparable (though his fellow wizards would likely change that to “Incompetent”).

In “The Prognosticant,” Baldemar and his supervisor, Oldo, are sent out to a ruined ancient city in the desert to bring back a magical object known as the Helm of Sagacity. But the Helm, it turns out, is not just an object: it’s an entity, and a powerful one. And it has its own agenda…

I’m writing the life of a character in a Jack Vance-inspired, Dying Earth fantasy world. Like most of my characters, Baldemar is an outlier, as becomes evident as he deals with what the world hands him. He’s not your average henchman.

The cover is by Maurizio Manzieri. The issue also includes fiction by Richard Bowes, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Leah Cypess, Shannon Connor Winward, and others.

Victoria Silverwolf has a fine review of the issue at Tangent Online, with particular praise for the stories by Brian Trent, Kelly Jennings, Zach Shepard, and R. S. Benedict. Here’s a snippet.

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New Treasures: The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume One, edited by James D. Jenkins and Ryan Cagle

Wednesday, June 7, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Now here’s an interesting idea — a collection of horror stories showcasing the work of a single publisher.

How appealing is that? Depends on the publisher. In the case of Valancourt Books, an independent small press specializing in the rediscovery of rare, neglected, and out-of-print Gothic, Romantic and Horror fiction, it’s very appealing indeed. Here’s a snippet from the Editor’s Forward to give you a taste.

Since 2005, Valancourt Books has made available almost 40 neglected classics by dozens of authors, most of them out of print for decades, sometimes even for a century or two. Our catalogue includes Gothic novels from the late 1700s and early 1800s, Victorian ‘penny dreadfuls’ and ‘sensation’ novels, vintage mystery and horror fiction from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, rediscovered gay interest fiction from the mid-20th century, and more recent horror and science fiction from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. The idea behind this anthology was, “What if we distilled the best of each part of our catalogue into a single volume? What would a horror anthology spanning two centuries, and featuring only Valancourt authors, look like?”

This book has something for fans of each section of our catalogue. Those who have enjoyed our Gothic Classics series will surely find Matthew Gregory Lewis’s rare ghost story in verse, “The Grim White Woman,” to their liking. If, like us, you love a good, old-fashioned Victorian horror story, you’ll relish the creepy tales we’ve included by authors hugely popular in the day but now little known, like Florence Marryat, Richard Marsh and Mary Cholmondeley. Readers who have appreciated our efforts to rediscover lost gay fiction will be pleased to find contributions from authors such as Forrest Reid, Hugh Walpole and Francis King in this volume. Of course, no horror anthology would be complete without stories from some of the great contemporary masters of horror like Michael McDowell, Bernard Taylor and Stephen Gregory. But perhaps the biggest surprise for some readers will be the excellent tales by writers not normally thought of as “horror authors,” like Christopher Priest, Michael Blumlein and Francis King.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Stained Glass Windows in Cairo

Wednesday, June 7, 2017 Sean McLachlan Comments 4 comments

20170223_130024

Last week in my post on the Coptic Heritage of Cairo I posted a photo of a stained glass window done in the traditional Egyptian style, from the so-called “Hanging Church” in Cairo, officially known as St. Virgin Mary’s. It got its name because it’s built atop an old Roman gatehouse.

I was surprised at this and other stained glass windows I found all over Cairo, both in Christian and Muslim settings. I had never read about these windows in my (admittedly small) collection of Islamic art books, and I didn’t remember them from my previous visit in 1991. I’ve been able to find very little about them online, so if anyone knows more, please comment!

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Vintage Treasures: World’s Best Science Fiction 1965 – 1970, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr

Wednesday, June 7, 2017 John ONeill Comments 22 comments

If you’ve been paying attention over the past two months, you’re probably aware that we’re deep into the Year’s Best Science Fiction season. So far this year Solaris, Night Shade, and Prime Books have all released Best of the Year anthologies (edited by Jonathan Strahan, Neil Clarke and Rich Horton, respectively), and in the next few months we can expect additional volumes by Gardner Dozois, John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Stephan Jones, and others.

Now I know what you’re thinking. What the heck, world? My favorite fantasy series gets canceled after three volumes, but eight publishers happily produce Best of the Year anthologies every single year? How is that even possible? And you know, that’s not a bad question. How did we get to the point where the market is willing to bear so many books that all claim to contain the best science fiction of the year?

Everett F. Bleiler and T.E. Dikty are widely credited with creating the first such anthology, The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949. But our current appetite for Best of the Year volumes can be traced back to Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, two of the most important editors our field has ever seen. Starting in 1965 and running until Wollheim’s death in 1990, together and separately Wollheim and Carr produced over 50 Best of the Year volumes, and in the process they shaped the direction of short fiction in the genre for generations to come. Their books were of such high quality that they were must-reads for all serious fans of science fiction and fantasy. Year after year the Carr and Wollheim anthologies were absolutely indispensable, and if you enjoy the rich assortment of modern Best of the Year editions, you can trace our modern enthusiasm for the format directly back to these two men.

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Catching Up With the Fiction at Tor.com

Tuesday, June 6, 2017 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Extracurricular Activities by Yoon Ha Lee

The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage by Alix Harrow

The Scholast in the Low Waters Kingdom by Max Gladstone

Tor.com is one of the most successful and acclaimed sources of genre short fiction we have. They routinely lead the field in award nominations, as they did with this year’s Hugo nominations. And as recently as 2014, they swept the short fiction categories of the Hugo Awards.

They publish one new work of short fiction every week, completely free, at the Tor.com website. But because they don’t have regular issues, I don’t do a very good job of including them in our regular magazine coverage. So that means I have to report on them as best I can every few months. Which brings us to today’s massive catch-up post featuring 30 stories and 11 flash fiction pieces — enough to fill two decent-sized anthologies.

And what a dazzling list of contributors! Over the last 6+ months Tor.com has published brand new fiction from Peter S. Beagle, Carrie Vaughn, Yoon Ha Lee, Lavie Tidhar, Max Gladstone, Jo Walton, Kelly Robson, M. Dellamonica, Theodora Goss, Allen Steele, S.B. Divya, Stephen Leigh, and many others, plus reprints from Ken Liu, Ellen Klages, and others. All of it gorgeously illustrated by a talented group of artists, and available online completely free. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

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