Creating a Fantasy Metropolis: Cities by Stephan Abrams and Jon Everson

Creating a Fantasy Metropolis: Cities by Stephan Abrams and Jon Everson

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Cities (Chaosium, 1986). Third Edition. Cover by Dan & David Day

As a follow-up to last week’s post on the Forgotten Realms City System, today I have Cities, from the Universal Supplement Series, published by Chaosium in 1986 (previous editions were published by Midkemia). It was written by Stephen Abrams and Jon Everson, with cover painting by Dan and David Ray, and it was illustrated by Kevin Ramos.

In stark contrast to last week’s City System boxed set published by TSR — which was nearly all maps and practically no content — this supplement takes the opposite tack: no maps, all content!

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New Treasures: The Devoured Worlds by Megan E. O’Keefe

New Treasures: The Devoured Worlds by Megan E. O’Keefe

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The Blighted Stars and The Fractured Dark (Orbit, May 23, 2023 and September 26, 2023). Covers by Jaime Jones

Megan E. O’Keefe, author of the The Protectorate trilogy (Velocity Weapon, Chaos Vector, Catalyst Gate) and The Scorched Continent novels (Steal the Sky, Break the Chains, and Inherit the Flame) has what looks like another hit on her hands with a popular new series. The first book, The Blighted Stars, arrived in May, and sequel The Fractured Dark is due in September.

I’m hearing a lot about the first book. It’s a space opera/romance with a fascinating premise (upload your consciousnesses into 3D-printed bodies), rich worldbuilding (a galaxy is ruled by wealthy families, a hunt for unspoiled “cradle worlds,” and a resistance group working to save them through guerrilla warfare), and great characters, including an idealistic resistance fighter stranded on a dead planet with the heir to the Mercator Dynasty.

But what fascinates me is the promise of creepy adventure on a dead planet, and The Blighted Stars sounds like it delivers.

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Talking Tolkien: Philosophical Themes in the Silmarillion – by Joe Bonadonna

Talking Tolkien: Philosophical Themes in the Silmarillion – by Joe Bonadonna

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We kicked off Talking Tolkien with Joe Bonadonna, and he’s back! After looking at religious themes in The Lord of the Rings the first time around, it’s philosophical ones in The Silmarillion. Joe does the heavy lifting – I’m just a pretty face. As with his first essay, he wades into pretty deep waters. Joe has guested for my ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ Pulp series, and I’m thrilled he wanted to Talk Tolkien. He even recruited two of our contributors. Read on, and thanks, Joe!

First, I want to reiterate that I am most definitely not an expert on Tolkien’s writings and his history of Middle-earth. Naturally, I’ve read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, as well as Smith of Wooton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham, and The Children of Hurin. But I haven’t read anything else Tolkien wrote. Thus, I’ll only be scratching the surface here.

My sources used in research, from which I quoted passages, are: Ruth S. Noel’s The Mythology of Middle-Earth, Robert Foster’s The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth, Paul H. Kocher’s Master of Middle-Earth, William Ready’s Understanding Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter’s Tolkien: The Complete Biography, and the Tolkien Gateway website, as well as The Hobbit, the appendices in The Return of the King, and The Silmarillion itself. Please note: although the titles of Kocher’s, Noel’s and Foster’s books use a capital E for “earth,” I will use Middle-earth as Tolkien himself did. All that being said, I just wanted to clear the air so you good folks who are reading this will know that I am by far no scholar or expert on all things Tolkien. I’m just here to share an old college essay with you.

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Wooden Pirates, Group Therapy for Super Heroes, and Crab Gods: July-August 2023 Print SF Magazines

Wooden Pirates, Group Therapy for Super Heroes, and Crab Gods: July-August 2023 Print SF Magazines

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July/August 2023 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction,
and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by 123RF, Eldar Zakirov
(for “Bridges”), and Mondolithic Studios

The big news for the print SF magazines this month isn’t good. In March Amazon stopped selling Kindle subscriptions to Asimov’s SF and Analog, and current issues will only be available for purchase until September 4, 2023. After that, Amazon will only offer access to the magazines through their Kindle Unlimited program.

This is a major blow to the magazines, which have come to rely on Amazon digital subscriptions for a substantial portion of their income. But they have rolled with the punches, and on July 20 Asimov’s SF and Analog announced a new digital subscription method. You can subscribe now to get the July/August issue and have Sept/Oct delivered on August 8th, and then the 8th every other month going forward. It costs just $6/an issue, and downloads are available as EPUB or PDF. Order directly here.

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Vintage Treasures: War in Heaven by David Zindell

Vintage Treasures: War in Heaven by David Zindell

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War in Heaven (Bantam Spectra, January 1998). Cover by Dean Williams

David Zindell came out of the gate strong as a young science fiction writer in the 80s and 90s. He was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986, and his debut novel Neverness won instant and wide acclaim. Edward Bryant said it “Propels him instantly into the big leagues with the likes of Frank Herbert and Ursula K. Le Guin,” and Kirkus Reviews gushed “Zindell succeeds brilliantly… in his convincing portrayal of what a super-intelligent being might be like…. Vastly promising work.” On the basis of that single novel, Gene Wolfe called Zindell “One of the finest talents to appear since Kim Stanley Robinson and William Gibson — perhaps the finest.”

Zindell followed up Neverness with a sequence set in the same universe, A Requiem for Homo Sapiens. War in Heaven (1998) was the last book in the series — and in fact the last science fiction book he ever wrote. At least until he returned to the genre this year, with his first new SF novel in a quarter century, The Remembrancer’s Tale.

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Get Ready for a Fantasy Revolution: Lord of a Shattered Land by Howard Andrew Jones

Get Ready for a Fantasy Revolution: Lord of a Shattered Land by Howard Andrew Jones

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Lord of a Shattered Land and The City of Marble and Blood
(Baen, August 1 and October 3, 2023). Covers by Dave Seeley

A few times in my life I’ve had an early look at a book that I knew was going to revolutionize fantasy. When I received an advance proof of A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin in 1996. When Andy Heidel at Avon sent us an early copy of Neil Gaiman’s first novel. When Betsy Wollheim at DAW sent me an advance reading copy of The Name of the Wind in the fall of 2006.

I had that same feeling while reading Howard Andrew Jones’ Lord of a Shattered Land, the opening book in the Chronicles of Hanuvar, on sale in less than two weeks. Howard is the leading Sword & Sorcery author of the 21st Century, and this series is his masterwork.

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Goth Chick News: del Toro Takes on the Monster Universe… Maybe

Goth Chick News: del Toro Takes on the Monster Universe… Maybe

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Forgive me if I’m a bit jaded when it comes to writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s announcements. Sometime back I stopped talking about the numerous horror-related projects he announced over the years including a scary adult-version of The Haunted Mansion, a sequel to Pan’s Labyrinth, and a film adaptation of Dan Simmons’ novel Drood. Why? Because almost as soon as the news hits, it is followed by a retraction. There is even a Wikipedia page dedicated to del Toro’s “unrealized projects,” (30 by the way) which is a nice way of listing out all the times he ghosted us.

But here I am again, about to give you details on an upcoming del Toro project I am too excited about to keep to myself. And the reason I’m going out on this limb one more time is that there are reasons to believe this one might happen.

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Remembering Waterdeep, the Most Famous City of the Realms: Forgotten Realms City System by Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb

Remembering Waterdeep, the Most Famous City of the Realms: Forgotten Realms City System by Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb

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Forgotten Realms City System (TSR, July 1988). Cover by Larry Elmore

City System is an interesting Forgotten Realms boxed set that was released in 1988 by TSR, written by Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb, and with cover art by Larry Elmore. Except for one very slim booklet, this essentially is a box full of maps (by Dennis Kauth), detailing the most famous city of the Realms, Waterdeep.

Now, I must admit, I have always favored Greyhawk over FR, because it’s what I cut my teeth on, but this set is pretty nice for the development of an enormous city in any campaign. Poster maps include the typical grid of the city, a beautiful, three-dimensional artistic rendition of the city, and then 10(!) poster maps that zoom in on different wards.

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The Complicated Morality of Joel Miller

The Complicated Morality of Joel Miller

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Hello! I’m back with more The Last of Us stuff because I’m not quite done with it all. I want to talk about how the first game (and the first season) ended, and the maelstrom of morality debates that followed the incredible, tortured conclusion.

What follows will include spoilers, so if you haven’t played the game or watched the series, you might want to go ahead and do that and then come back to this.

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Talking Tolkien: On The Tolkien Reader – by Rich Horton

Talking Tolkien: On The Tolkien Reader – by Rich Horton

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It’s another of my Black Gate cohorts this week for Talking Tolkien. Rich is one of the science fiction cornerstones at the Black Gate World Headquarters, but he’s been a Tolkien fan since the seventies. He’s gonna talk about a book I never added to my shelves. Before the explosion of books like The History of Middle Earth Series, and Children of  Hurin, and his Beowulf, there weren’t a lot of ‘other’ Tolkien books out there besides the main five.

But even before The Silmarillion finally saw print, there was The Tolkien Reader. 

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The Tolkien Reader was first published in 1966 by Ballantine Books in the US; in response to the greatly expanding popularity of The Lord of the Rings, driven by the paperback editions from Ballantine (and the pirated edition from Ace.) This was an attempt to bring a varied sampling of his work to readers hungry for more. I read it myself in the early ’70s, after I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As an introduction it reprints a piece Peter Beagle did for Holiday (perhaps at the instigation of Alfred Bester?) called “Tolkien’s Magic Ring”, which primarily discusses the Middle-Earth books.

It’s a good and varied collection throughout, and really does the job of showing a different side to Tolkien (though not THAT different!) from that seen in The Lord of the Rings. I’ll be looking at each of the sections separately, and slightly out of order, in that I think the best part by far is Tree and Leaf, which comes second in the book.

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