Search Results for: New Edge Sword

Fantasia Diary 2015, Day 9: Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, 100 Yen Love, The Royal Tailor

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On Wednesday, July 22, I saw three movies at the Fantasia Festival — which made it an average day, to the extent I had an average day at Fantasia. It began at 1 PM, with a documentary called Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made. After that was a Japanese comedy-drama called 100 Yen Love. Then I made a difficult decision to pass on both the New Zealand horror-suspense film Observance and the American science-fiction film Synchronicity…

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Atlantis, Vikings, and the Hordes of Kublai Khan: Merlin’s Ring by H. Warner Munn: Part I

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A few months ago I wrote an article about H Warner Munn’s excellent books The King at the World’s Edge and The Ship From Atlantis. Munn wrote both in the 1930’s, although the latter was only published later. By all accounts he took a hiatus from professional writing to concentrate on raising a family and providing the financial security that entails. His passion for writing had not totally subsided, and as his “day job” career wound down, Munn embarked upon what…

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Discovering Robert E. Howard: Pigeons From Hell From Lovecraft by Don Herron

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Before the Cumberbunnies took over and flooded the internet with “I heart Sherlock” memes, the term ‘Sherlockian’ referred to those who studied (and often wrote about) Arthur Conan Doyle’s sixty stories of Sherlock Holmes. Some  of it was dead serious, some was tongue in cheek and much was in between. Monsignor Ronald Knox’s 1921 “Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes” is the cornerstone of Holmes studies. With that, I tell you that that Don Herron is THE Ronald Knox…

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Discovering Robert E. Howard: Jeffrey Shanks on The Worldbuilding of REH

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We are trying to look at as broad a range of topics related to Robert E. Howard as we can in this series. Characters, genres, events, themes: Black Gate really wants to showcase the many facets of the man and his works. Today’s guest post is such an example. Jeff Shanks wrote the introduction to the just published facsimile edition of Howard’s essay, The Hyborian Age and is the REH consultant on Modiphius’ upcoming Conan RPG  (we’re gonna have a…

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The Genre Game

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Like many people, I have mixed feelings about genres – those pesky labels we use to sift and sort writing into neat little silos, isolated and bubbling away in incestuous fermentation. Both as a reader and a writer, I’ve never seen the world that way. In some ways, thinking about genre reminds me of the “Honk if Pluto is a planet” campaign. For some, it’s a major, emotive issue if Pluto is categorized as a “planet”, or a “dwarf planet”,…

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Fantasia Diary 2015, Day 5: Teana: 10000 Years Later, Crimson Whale, and The Shamer’s Daughter

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One of the things people don’t tell you about getting older is that the more books you read and movies you see, the more likely you are to see those stories echoed in other stories. The new books and movies you come across remind to you of the older books and movies you already know. Sometimes there’s good reason for that, as artists try to engage in a dialogue with their forebears. Sometimes you’re just seeing things. Saturday, July 25,…

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A Wild Ride Through a Cold Hell: A Review of J.P. Wilder’s Schade of Night

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Schade of Night J.P Wilder iUniverse (350 pages, $20.95 in trade paperback, $3.99 in digital format, December 19, 2014) Don’t let the lovely young lady and her smile gracing the cover of J.P. Wilder’s wonderful Schade of Night fool you: Schade Lee does little smiling in this dark, action-packed, modern-day fantasy that reads like a paramilitary thriller graced with supernatural overtones. Schade has some issues, for sure. But she’s one tough, no-nonsense private detective, who can be as stubborn as…

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in June

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Everyone loves an underdog, and last month the underdog was definitely Irene Gallo, the Creative Director of Tor Books and Associate Publisher of Tor.com. Ms. Gallo had a rough month in June, as she endured a series of scathing attacks from Sad Puppies, writers, and others who took offense to a personal comment she made to a friend on her Facebook page. The industry rallied strongly to her defense, however, and the two articles we wrote covering the affair, “Internet…

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Discovering Robert E. Howard: Frank Schildiner on Solomon Kane

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Martial arts expert Frank Shildiner has forgotten more about Adventure Pulp than I’ve ever known. His writings have included new tales starring  pulp characters Richard Knight and Thunder Jim Wade (if you’re a Doc Savage fan, you should check big Jim out). Solomon Kane is probably Robert E. Howard’s second best-known character after a certain well-muscled barbarian, and one which influenced Frank very early on. So, I turned to Frank for a look at the puritan sword slinger, as Black…

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June Short Story Roundup

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It’s that time again, folks: the short story roundup! June was a pretty good month, with some nice work from lesser-known (to me, at least) authors as well as some bigger names. A good sample of work from the spectrum of heroic fiction. While there’s not a lot of action in either of Swords and Sorcery Magazine Issue 41‘s two stories, there is some very good writing. The first, “Wind Song” by Kevin Cockle, is my favorite story this month. The…

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