Search Results for: book club

Into the Tomb: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Eleven: Valley of Death

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Ah, the excitement in the theater is palpable as we near the end of our journey and today’s eleventh chapter in The Adventures of Captain Marvel, “Valley of Death,” begins to flicker across the screen. Because the seats are largely filled with sweaty elementary school children, something else is palpable too — whew! Baths and showers are definitely called for when you get home, kids… Today’s title cards summarizing Chapter Ten will, as always, enlighten the enlightenable and confuse the…

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in June

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The most popular article on the Black Gate blog last month was “An Open Letter to Dave Truesdale,” which was visited roughly 8,000 times and generated 100+ comments. It’s the first article to beat out New Treasures in overall monthly traffic in nearly a year — which just goes to show you, controversy trumps tradition, every time. Next was my brief article “Star Trek 3 Confirmed,” which was read over 5,500 times. Glad to see interest in classic Trek remains strong among BG readers!…

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The New York Times on How Dungeons & Dragons Influenced a Generation of Writers

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Ethan Gilsdorf, a contributor for Gygax Magazine, wrote an intriguing feature for the Sunday New York Times last weekend. Interviewing several popular writers, Gilsdorf shows how profoundly Dungeons and Dragons, which turned 40 this year, has influenced the current generation of fantasy authors. For certain writers, especially those raised in the 1970s and ’80s, all that time spent in basements has paid off. D&D helped jump-start their creative lives. As [Junot] Díaz said, “It’s been a formative narrative media for all…

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New Editions Past

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A new edition of Dungeons & Dragons has been released, as Andrew Zimmerman Jones discussed the other day. This is the third new edition released since Wizards of the Coast took over publication of the world’s first fantasy roleplaying game in 1997. If you’re the sort of roleplayer who spends any time online, visiting forums, blogs, and social media, you’ll know that this latest edition has already generated a lot of discussion, both pro and con, much of it enthusiastic…

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A Date with the Scorpion: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Seven: Human Targets

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Okay boys and girls, settle down. Before watching newsreel footage of Winston Churchill walking through the ruins of London or thrilling to the terrifying spectacle of Lon Chaney Jr. changing into a human Scottish Terrier in The Wolf Man, let’s Join Billy, Betty, the Scorpion, and the rest for this week’s chapter of The Adventures of Captain Marvel, “Human Targets.” We begin with two terse title cards that will bring everyone up to date. “The Scorpion — Tricks Bentley and…

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True North

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The hobby of tabletop roleplaying games was born in the American Midwest, but very quickly spread beyond the wargames clubs of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Forty years after the publication of Dungeons & Dragons, RPGs are played and enjoyed throughout the world. Many countries outside the United States can rightly boast of their own roleplaying games and designers, some of which, such as Britain’s Warhammer games, have arguably proved as influential as D&D. Since today is Canada Day, I thought it…

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Medea

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Lately in this space I seem to be writing a lot, one way or another, about worldbuilding. As it happens, I also read a book not long ago which both imagines a detailed science-fictional world and determinedly lifts the curtain on the group act of creation that generated the world. The book is Medea: Harlan’s World, and there are some interesting things to take away from it — not just ideas about worldbuilding, either. Medea is in the lineage of…

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Dodging Molten Rock and High Voltage: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Six: Lens of Death

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Congratulations on squeezing a dime out of your notoriously stingy dad, and successfully ditching your twerpy kid brother on the way to the show. You’ve proven your worthiness and can now lean back and enjoy today’s chapter of The Adventures of Captain Marvel, “Lens of Death.” (You can’t put your feet up, not just because you’d get in trouble with the ushers, but because the floor is so sticky you’d leave your shoes behind if you tried.) By this point,…

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Meet Nero Wolfe

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In 1926, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle penned his last Holmes tale, The Adventure of the Retired Colourman. Rex Stout, a fan of those tales, would shortly create a detective who would not only evoke memories of Holmes, but who would cast his own (gargantuan) shadow: Nero Wolfe. The seventy-four stories, written over forty-one years, would be collectively known as the Corpus, akin to the Sherlockian Canon. Nero Wolfe lives in a New York City brownstone with Archie Goodwin, Fritz Brenner,…

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My Favorite Fantasy Villains

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Last month, I did an article about my favorite fantasy heroes. Now it’s time to give the bad guys some love. And I do love villains. I was the kid in the theater rooting for the Death Star to shoot down those annoying rebel fighters. I cheered when Hannibal Lector escaped captivity. I laughed out loud when the horse died on the ferry boat in The Ring. (Hey, even Death needs a fan club.) Anyway, as a young boy I…

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