Black Gate – Page 589 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Modular: An Interview with Jeffrey Talanian, the Creator and Publisher of Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea

Friday, November 11, 2016 Gabe Dybing Comments 4 comments

This November 3-5 I had the pleasure of attending the fourth iteration of Gamehole Con in lovely Madison, Wisconsin. At the con I had the additional pleasure of sitting down at Jeffrey Talanian’s table to play an Amazonian Fighter in Jeff’s Lovecraftian adventure “The Rats in the Walls”. I’m not going to give away spoilers here, but the creepy escapade had more to it than rats in walls! And, despite Jeff’s best attempts to kill us, our party overcame its antagonists in an epic last battle of first-level proportions! If you can’t tell from my exclamation points, it was great fun!

Jeff’s “The Rats in the Walls” takes place in the City-State of Khromarium. This is an area in Hyperborea, which is the official campaign setting for Jeff’s own roleplaying game that is published by North Wind Adventures. The second edition of Jeff’s game currently is 365% funded on Kickstarter with nine days left to go! After our game, Jeff graciously agreed to an interview with me. Here it is:

What is AS&SH?

AS&SH stands for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, a role-playing game of swords, sorcery, and weird fantasy. It is a tabletop RPG inspired by the fiction of Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith. Its rules are inspired by the works of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. AS&SH was released in 2012 as a boxed set. In 2013, it was nominated for several ENnie awards (Best Game, Best Production Values, Product of the Year), and in 2017 it will be rereleased in Second Edition hardback format.

Why did you create a game specific to the flavor of these writers and these genres? Did this grow out of what they call a “homebrew” game? If so, please tell us about that game and exactly how it resulted in AS&SH?

Growing up, I greatly admired fantasy, science fiction, and horror. I started reading genre fiction at a very young age (most notably the Conan paperbacks, The Hobbit, and The Chronicles of Narnia). I also got into comic books and magazines; Savage Sword of Conan and The Mighty Thor were my favorites. I also devoured sword-and-sorcery themed cartoons and films. I never missed an episode of Thundarr the Barbarian, and films like Conan the Barbarian, The Beastmaster, Hawk the Slayer, and Krull really captured my imagination in those halcyon days. I loved Tolkien, and read Lord of the Rings in the sixth grade, but for me it was always the grittier, more personal tales that I’ve loved most: Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum, Tarzan, John Carter, Carson Napier, Doc Savage, Gray Mouser, etc.

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November/December Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

Friday, November 11, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

There’s a great mix of new and established writers in the latest F&SF, including masters such as Robert Reed, Gardner Dozois, Esther M. Friesner, and Matthew Hughes, and newcomers like Lilliam Rivera, Minsoo Kang, and James Beaumon. Tangent Online‘s Bob Blough has particular praise for Esther Friesner and Robert Reed in his online review.

Esther M. Friesner starts it off with a fairy tale based on Puss n’ Boots called “The Cat Bell.” This concerns a famous actor at the end of the nineteenth century and his love of cats. It is told from the viewpoint of his pinched, mean cook who is in love with her master. She hates cats and hates having to feed them every night—all 19 of them. Each cat has a bell around its neck. But the cat bell is what the cook uses to gather the cats for a meal. Inevitably Puss n’ Boots shows up and works his inevitable charm on the household. The cook receives her heart’s desire in a way that gives her just desserts as well. Fun and a well-rounded main character make this most enjoyable…

Robert Reed writes a lot of short stories. Most of them of very high quality, but in “Passelande” he has outdone himself. This is a sneaky story concerning Lucas Pepper. Lucas lives in a time just years ahead of ours in which the world is falling apart outside the town of Passelande. The plot is complicated and concerns identity as people have backups who, if given a body, are almost as real as the progenitors themselves.

I read it twice. I thought it was excellent on the first read but the second solidified it as absolutely first rate. It has all the echoes of great Gene Wolfe stories but remains completely Reed’s.

The cover is by Kristin Kest. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Fantasia 2016, Day 17: Forging Dreams (Battledream Chronicle, the International Science Fiction Short Film Showcase, and The Dwarvenaut)

Friday, November 11, 2016 Matthew David Surridge Comments 0 Comment

Saturday, July 30, I had hopes of seeing four shows at Fantasia. In the event, I saw three — and ended up with an interesting chat after the last one. First came an animated teen dystopia from Martinique, Battledream Chronicle, in which a young woman fights to free her homeland from digital colonialism. After that came a collection of short films, the International Science Fiction Short Film Showcase 2016 (one of the shorts being an adaptation of Ken Liu’s short story “Memories of My Mother“). Then I’d see The Dwarvenaut, a fascinating documentary about gamer and miniature-maker Stefan Pokorny that incidentally takes an interesting angle on gaming in general and Dungeons & Dragons in particular.

(Bad health has slowed my posting these Fantasia reviews, so as I type these words The Dwarvenaut has already debuted on Netflix. I go into more detail about the film below, but in brief: it’s a fine documentary, entertaining for a general audience and a must-watch for anyone interested in gaming and especially in the Old School Renaissance. Also, I would think, of particular relevance for anyone with an interest in fantasy. Or, for that matter, in New York City.)

Battledream Chronicle, like Nova Seed, is a nearly one-man creation. Alain Bidard wrote, directed, and produced much of the art for the nearly two-hour film. Computer graphics make for detailed backgrounds and fluid action scenes in a science-fictional action story about young people fighting to defeat a corrupt global superpower. It’s a richly-imagined and deeply satisfying story marked by an incredible visual imagination, if also by some unusual plot choices.

In the future, countries settle disputes with gladiatorial contests in a virtual-reality game world, the Battledream, established by a mysterious force called Isfet. One country, Mortemonde, has developed a weapon that gives it unquestioned supremacy in the Battledream. Mortemonde soon conquers the rest of the planet, except for the floating city of Sablerêve, and puts the gamers now under its power to work grinding for experience points in the Battledream — a post-modern computer-gaming colonialism. Syanna Meridian and her friend Alytha Mercuri (Steffy Glissant; I can’t find a voice credit for Syanna) are two of those gamers, a team called the Syrenes de Feu, struggling to keep their heads above water. Then, after a routine combat, they stumble upon a mysterious weapon that might change the balance of power, topple Mortemonde, and bring freedom to the world. Will they survive long enough to reach Sablerêve and turn the tables on Mortemonde?

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Two New Canadian SF Anthologies

Friday, November 11, 2016 Violette Malan Comments 0 Comment

lazarus I know I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of the original anthology, and I’d like to take the opportunity to draw your attention to two new ones that have crossed my table in the last month or so.

The first is Lazarus Risen, edited by Hayden Trenholm and Mike Rimar. Here’s how the editors describe the premise:

Lazarus Risen presents sixteen stories from around the world that explore the economic, political, social and psychological consequences of life extension, human cloning, the hard upload and other forms of The Biological Singularity.

It’s very rare that I find an anthology where I thought every single story was a winner, but this is one of them. Here are some of my favourites: Sean McMullen’s “The Life and Soul of the Party” tells us about the steampunk-style resurrection of Oscar Wilde. Matthew Shean’s “Sylvia and Larry,” where a woman needs a new body before her husband’s Alzeimers makes it impossible for him to recognize her new self, is vaguely reminiscent of Spider Robinson’s “Antimony” but hits harder, I think.

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Goth Chick News: Thirty-Five Years Later, We’re Heading Back to The Slaughtered Lamb

Friday, November 11, 2016 Sue Granquist Comments 8 comments

It’s the 1981 Academy Awards ceremony and creature-effect magician Richard (“Rick”) Baker is stepping on stage to receive not only the first of what would be his total of seven awards to date (out of 11 nominations), but the first ever handed out for Best Makeup. The award was newly minted that year in response to the lack of an award in 1980 with which to celebrate the incredible makeup effects of The Elephant Man.

Though Baker was already known in Hollywood for his work in The Exorcist, King Kong and The Fury, and would go on to win Academy Awards for Ed Wood and Men in Black among others, his first award for his achievements in An American Werewolf in London would forever be ground-breaking on multiple levels.

Among the vast catalog of werewolf films there are, of course, many standouts – not the least of which is Universal’s 1941 classic The Wolf Man, which introduced the werewolf concept to the then new medium of film. But we’d also need to count Joe Dante’s The Howling and the teenage coming-of-age horror flick Ginger Snaps. In fact, ilovewerewolves.com tallies over 150 werewolf movies made to date; but An American Werewolf in London tops their list.

Starring David Naughton as a young American traveler who is cursed to become a murderous beast when the moon is full after an unfortunate encounter on the British moors, and Griffin Dunne as his dead friend Jack, An American Werewolf in London is generally regarded as not only one of the greatest werewolf movies ever, showcasing what was then the most ingenious special effects, but one of the greatest horror films of all-time.

David and Jack, two American college students, are backpacking through Britain when a large wolf attacks them. David survives with a bite, but Jack is brutally killed.

As David heals in the hospital, he’s plagued by violent nightmares of his mutilated friend, who warns David that he is becoming a werewolf. When David discovers the horrible truth, he contemplates committing suicide before the next full moon causes him to transform from man to murderous beast.

Basically what I’m saying here is that if you haven’t seen it, go do so immediately.

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The Limits of Wargaming #1: Morale, Untried Doctrine and Friction

Thursday, November 10, 2016 M Harold Page Comments 4 comments

frank_frazetta_thedestroyer_mc — A lot of pre-modern battles do just come down to morale.

One warm French afternoon in AD 1176, William the Marshal and the Young King found themselves without their comrades on the main street of the little village of Anet. At the other end stood a local knight, intent on capturing them, plus infantry archers and spearmen.

“What shall we do?” asked the Young King (Henry, heir to the throne of England, who I always imagined played by Rick Mayall at his brattiest).

“Charge them by God!” said the Marshal (I tend to cast Russel Crowe).

And so they did.

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New Treasures: The Diabolic by S. J. Kincaid

Thursday, November 10, 2016 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

S. J. Kincaid’s debut novel Insignia, the tale of a war between governments and corporations that rages across the solar system, grew into an ambitious trilogy, and was optioned by 20th Century Fox.

Her newest novel is a story of galactic court intrigue, the tale of what happens when the galaxy’s most deadly weapon masquerades as a senator’s daughter and a hostage of the galactic court. It is available now in hardcover from Simon & Schuster.

A Diabolic is ruthless. A Diabolic is powerful. A Diabolic has a single task: Kill in order to protect the person you’ve been created for.

Nemesis is a Diabolic, a humanoid teenager created to protect a galactic senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The two have grown up side by side, but are in no way sisters. Nemesis is expected to give her life for Sidonia, and she would do so gladly. She would also take as many lives as necessary to keep Sidonia safe.

When the power-mad Emperor learns Sidonia’s father is participating in a rebellion, he summons Sidonia to the Galactic court. She is to serve as a hostage. Now, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia. She must become her. Nemesis travels to the court disguised as Sidonia — a killing machine masquerading in a world of corrupt politicians and two-faced senators’ children. It’s a nest of vipers with threats on every side, but Nemesis must keep her true abilities a secret or risk everything.

As the Empire begins to fracture and rebellion looms closer, Nemesis learns there is something more to her than just deadly force. She finds a humanity truer than what she encounters from most humans. Amidst all the danger, action, and intrigue, her humanity just might be the thing that saves her life — and the empire.

The Diabolic was published by Simon & Schuster on November 1, 2016. It is 403 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $10.99 for the digital edition. The cover art is by There Is Studio.

Reading The Sheriff of Babylon

Wednesday, November 9, 2016 Sean McLachlan Comments 4 comments

28953137 I didn’t read many comics growing up. My pocket money was very limited and if I had a spare dollar, I was far more likely to spend it on a used fantasy or science fiction paperback than a comic book. It wasn’t that I didn’t like comics, it was simply a matter of practicality. A paperback would give me a couple of days of entertainment while a comic would only last an hour.

What comics I did read were never of the superhero variety. I liked grittier stuff like Sergeant Rock and Eerie. And of course every straight male adolescent growing up in the 1980s liked to sneak a peek at Heavy Metal.

Now that I’m older and have more spare cash, plus a kid getting into comics, I’m beginning to learn about a vast field of literature I’ve missed. Superheroes still don’t interest me (or my son) but I’ve found some really good stories set in the real world.

One of the best is The Sheriff of Babylon, published by Vertigo. A collection of the first six issues is out now.

The setting is Baghdad in 2003, as the American occupiers scramble to reorganize the country. Former police officer Christopher Henry has taken a lucrative contractor job to help train the new Iraqi police force. When one of his recruits gets murdered along with his entire family, Christopher tries to investigate the killing. He enlists the aid of Nassir al Maghreb, a former police investigator from Saddam’s regime who everyone from the CIA to a shadowy militia seem to be after. He also joins forces with Saffiya al Agani, a female Iraqi politician who spent most of her life in exile in the United States and has returned to join the interim government. Soon they find themselves in over their heads trying to make sense of Iraq’s Byzantine politics and warring factions.

Writer Tom King worked a brief stint in Iraq as a CIA operative and brings an insider’s knowledge to the story. Artist Mitch Gerards knows his subject too, and fills the larger panels with telling details.

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Where Fae Inhabits Diners, Dive Bars and Trailer Parks: The Gallow & Ragged Books by Lilith Saintcrow

Wednesday, November 9, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

By following so much independent and standalone fantasy, I think I tend to neglect a lot of fantasy series — especially urban fantasy. But much of the most popular fantasy being published today is in the form of exciting and fast paced urban fantasy series. Like Lilith Saintcrow’s Gallow & Ragged dark fantasy trilogy, which Patricia Briggs calls “A true faery story, creepy and heroic by turns… I could not put it down.”

All three volumes in the series have appeared in the last sixteen months — a pretty fast paced publishing schedule, too. The books are:

Trailer Park Fae (352 pages, $14.99 trade paperback/$7.99 digital, June 23, 2015)
Roadside Magic (368 pages, $14.99 trade paperback/$7.99 digital, January 26, 2016)
Wasteland King (352 pages, $15.99 trade paperback/$9.99 digital, July 26, 2016)

This is an intriguing series that’s been getting a lot of attention. Publishers Weekly called the opening volume “far darker and lovelier than the title suggests.” If you enjoy adventure fantasy, it could be well worth checking out. Click on any of the images for bigger versions.

Amazing Stories, May and June 1965: A Retro-Review

Wednesday, November 9, 2016 Rich Horton Comments 1 comment

Here we come to the very last two issues of Amazing edited by Cele Lalli.

The editorials, as ever by Norman Lobsenz, consider the difficulty of accurate and precise time measurements, and a very brief discussion of David Bunch, the writer readers of Amazing and Fantastic loved to hate. Lobsenz quotes Bunch (“I’m not in this business… to entertain. I’m here to make the reader think… chastise him for the terrible… world we allow… The reader I want is the one who wants the anguish… All space must look askance at us.”)

This last Lalli issue was the last issue Bunch would appear in (not surprisingly) for over three years — he didn’t return to Amazing until late 1968, under editor Barry N. Malzberg — and the only one for which he had the cover story. (One suspects the June cover was partly Lalli and Lobsenz saying, “Heck, we don’t care anymore, we’re going to promote what WE like!”) The covers are each by Gray Morrow. There are only two interior illustrations, both in May, by Morrow and by Virgil Finlay.

The letter column is gone, again perhaps in view of the upcoming sale of the magazines. Robert Silverberg conducts the book review column, The Spectroscope, sharply and indeed acerbically, to good effect. In May he reviews an Avalon Books reprint of George Allen England’s Darkness and Dawn, a somewhat famous piece of proto-SF. Silverberg calls it “a cruel resurrection,” and indeed it does seem awful (and shockingly racist) as described. He also covers Walter Cole’s Checklist of Science Fiction Anthologies (with much praise) and The Worlds of Robert F. Young (“I am not fond of the writing of Robert F. Young” – given that Young was a Goldsmith/Lalli regular, this is a perhaps brave statement – and a sensible one!)

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