Mission Impossible in Space: The Icarus Novels by Timothy Zahn

Mission Impossible in Space: The Icarus Novels by Timothy Zahn

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The Icarus Hunt (Bantam Spectra, August 1999) and The Icarus Plot
(Baen Books paperback reprint, June 27, 2023). Covers by Paul Youll and Dave Seeley

Timothy Zahn is one of my favorite short story writers. I read his early fiction, like the Hugo Award-winning novella “Cascade Point,” in the early 80s in Analog magazine, and in gaming mags like Ares and Fantasy Gamer. In 1983 I thoroughly enjoyed his debut novel The Blackcollar, the runner up for the Locus Award for Best First novel. In the following years he produced some major work, including the bestselling Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire and its sequels, the Cobra series, the Conquerors trilogy, and the popular Dragonback books.

In 1999 Zahn published The Icarus Hunt, the tale of a renegade space pilot named Jordan McKell, who ekes out a living at the edges of the iron-fisted regime of the Patthaaunutth, dabbling in interstellar smuggling for customers who represent the last vestiges of free trade in the galaxy. When McKell and his alien partner Ixil are hired to fly a strange ship named The Icarus and its special cargo to Earth, they soon find themselves caught up in events that could change the course of galactic history.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Down those Mean Streets in 2023

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Talking Tolkien takes a one-week break, as we are into summer – though Ohio’s pleasantly cool weather might belie that. And since 2018, summer Mondays at Black Gate mean it’s pulp time with A (Black) Gat in the Hand.

Talking Tolkien has pushed the start back later than usual, but I’ve been doing pulp reading and writing to gear up for another great run. I have two introductions over at Steeger Press, ready to come out before the end of the year (I hope). I’ll post both here at book release time.

Talking Tolkien will be back next week, but I want A (Black) Gat in the Hand to make a June appearance again this year – we’re almost at 100 essays in the series! Not bad for an award-winning fantasy and sci-fi site. With me, expect the unexpected (to paraphrase from a Monk episode).

CASS BLUE

I’d not read any John Lawrence, but I picked up Steeger’s first ebook of Cass Blue. The second (and final) volume is in the works. These are different. The settings for the first three of four are more Agatha Christie than the mean streets of Chandler. A country estate with a seance, or  mansion on a secluded island.

The tone and plot are more weird menace than typical hardboiled, while Blue himself plays rough. The fourth story is a serial killer hunt in the city, that is a mix of weird menace and robbery heist.

I liked, but didn’t love, these. They are definitely a change of pace, which is nice. I will be checking out his Marquis of Broadway stories. They seem to be about a police squad who are brutal thugs, in NYC’s theater district.

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Vintage Treasures: Time to Come edited by August Derleth

Vintage Treasures: Time to Come edited by August Derleth

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Time to Come (Berkley Books, December 1958). Cover by Robert E. Schulz

Back in December I kicked off a survey of the Science Fiction Anthologies of August Derleth, starting with his 1948 reprint anthology Strange Ports of Call.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls Derleth “one of the pioneering anthologists in the genre.” He began his editing career with horror collection Sleep No More in 1944. Strange Ports of Call, which drew heavily from pulps such as Astounding, Wonder Stories, Amazing, The Black Cat, Planet Stories, and others, was his first SF volume. It was a success, and so was the Berkley paperback, and very quickly the formula was set. Over the next six years Derleth produced six more SF anthologies, all of which drew heavily from pulp magazines, and all of which were released in paperback — packaged and heavily abridged with machine-like precision to hit a 172-174 page count and a profitable 35-cent price point.

Time to Come was something different. Derleth’s first original science fiction anthology, it contained brand new stories by the biggest writers of the day, including Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Charles Beaumont, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Carl Jacobi, Ross Rocklynne, Robert Sheckley, and Clark Ashton Smith. Like the others it was very successful, remaining in print in multiple editions for 15 years.

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A Burroughs Bonanza Estate Sale Recovery

A Burroughs Bonanza Estate Sale Recovery

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Some of the September 22 estate sale finds made by Deb Fulton

Deb’s Part of the Story

I almost skipped this estate sale, which was held on September 22, 2022. The meat of the description posted online was model railroad items, with a side dish of old radios and parts. The few pictures that showed books were not particularly encouraging. Typical of estate sale companies, there was not enough detail in the pictures to read the title or author on the spines or covers of the few books shown.

Atypical of estate sale companies, the description had a little detail — it mentioned Tarzan books and “other books” from the ‘20s/’30s. But what I saw smacked of reprint editions, and that was not exciting enough for a fifty minute drive (each way). A brief consultation with Doug confirmed my view.

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New Treasures: Dragonfall by L.R. Lam

New Treasures: Dragonfall by L.R. Lam

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Dragonfall (DAW, May 2, 2023). Cover by Micaela Alcaino

L.R. Lam, who also writes as Laura Lam and Laura Ambrose, is the author of the Micah Grey trilogy (Pantomime, Shadowplay, and Masquerade), about an an intersex youth who runs away from home to become a circus aerialist. Lam is also the author (with Elizabeth May) of the Seven Devils duology, Seven Devils and Seven Mercies.

Lam’s new book is the opening volume in a new fantasy series, Dragon Scales. The tale of a street thief who steals a powerful artifact from the bones of the hated Plaguebringer, Dragonfall is a tale of the world-changing events triggered by that small bit of larceny… beginning with Everen, the last male dragon, dragged him through the Veil and disguised as a human, who find himself unexpectedly in the thief’s power. Publishers Weekly calls it “Sumptuous epic fantasy,” and GrimDark magazine sums it up as “a slow burn, full of angst, moral dilemmas and emotionally damaged characters… an exciting opening to a series with a lot of potential.”

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Goth Chick News: Yes, I Realize Its Only June, But It’s the Midwest Haunters Convention

Goth Chick News: Yes, I Realize Its Only June, But It’s the Midwest Haunters Convention

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The fabulousness that is the Halloween season does not simply appear on October 1st. Much like Christmas décor in September, the haunt season needs a good long runway, with the primary difference being that we aficionados don’t normally start blasting Monster Mash while temperatures are still in the 80’s. No, our lot is slightly more subtle. When we start getting all spooky in the summertime, we do it in private at events like the Midwest Haunters Convention.

The MHC is the largest Halloween show of its kind in the US, dedicated to all Halloween lovers; actors, enthusiasts, home/pro haunters, makeup artists and special effects creators. MHC is part of the TransWorld family of events and organizers of the largest professional haunt show in the country, the Halloween and Attractions Show which takes place in the early part of each year in St. Louis. However, unlike the earlier show, MHC is open to the public, and Black Gate photog Chris Z and I were once again lucky enough to score an invitation to this year’s event at the Rosemont Convention Center outside of Chicago.

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A Modern Gaming Classic: Against the Giants by Gary Gygax

A Modern Gaming Classic: Against the Giants by Gary Gygax

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Against the Giants by Gary Gygax (TSR, 1981). Cover by Bill Willingham

Against the Giants (G1-2-3) is an absolute classic by the legend, Gary Gygax.

These three strung-together adventures are some of the finest he wrote, IMO. I enjoyed this series first as a player when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, and then running it myself as DM years later. Hill giants, frost giants, fire giants, and drow! Oh, how I enjoyed recurrent use of the drow as a diabolical, super-intelligent, evil menace.

This is how Mr. Gygax described them.

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Look for the Light: The Last of Us, Episode Nine

Look for the Light: The Last of Us, Episode Nine

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Well, here it is. The final episode. I didn’t really want to get here for two reasons. One, it’s the end of a most excellent season of a most excellent show. Two, I have absolutely no idea what my next article will be about. There was some comfort in having an article already decided two weeks before it must be written. But enough of the pity party. C’est parti!

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Talking Tolkien: A Magical Tolkien Celebration – by David Ian

Talking Tolkien: A Magical Tolkien Celebration – by David Ian

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Rarely a day goes by that I’m not listening for at least a few minutes to a radio play or an audiobook. They have become weaved into the fabric of my life. David Ian of Unchained Productions recounts a live performance of The Hobbit at a Middle Earth Convention. This is SO neat! Read on.

“In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit,” the narrator Cindy McGean begins at the microphone. Flanking her on stage is a phalanx of microphone stands where actors, script in hand, play the voices of Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin Oakenshield, Gollum, the trolls Tom, Bert & William, and many other characters of Middle Earth. On the floor in front of the stage, sit two long tables filled to the brim with sound effects props. They will provide the sounds for cracklings fires, clopping ponies, booming thunder storms, creepy spiders in the dark forest, and the drip, drip, drip of Gollum’s cave. The former elementary school gym now turned to small stage theater is filled with audience members, hobbit fans of all ages, and some even dressed up as if they came directly from Middle Earth.

This is the scene at the McMenamin’s hotel and pub housed in a former elementary school in Portland, Oregon, on the weekend closest to JRR Tolkien’s birthday (which is January 3rd). The building is transformed for a day into a Middle Earth convention, which includes Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit films played in the auditorium, and in the gymnasium, a local audio theater troupe, Willamette Radio Workshop, performs a live rendition of Tolkien’s original classic, The Hobbit.

A half-dozen voice actors hold scripts in hand, and play a wide cast of characters famous to the “There And Back Again” tale of Bilbo, the dwarves and the dragon. The sound effects operators bring the scenery backgrounds of Mirkwood, Gollum’s cave, and Smaug’s lair to the mind by using only sound. They also make the clamoring chaos of dwarves eating up Bilbo’s larder, the mighty fury of Smaug’s attack on Lake Town, and the huge vast scope of the Battle of Five Armies.

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Knowing the Rules, and Choosing to Break Them: An Interview with K.B. Wagers

Knowing the Rules, and Choosing to Break Them: An Interview with K.B. Wagers

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The NeoG trilogy, published by Harper Voyager: A Pale Light in the Black
(March 2020), Hold Fast Through the Fire (July 2021), and The Ghosts of Trappist
(June 27, 2023). Covers by Vadim Sadovski and Reginald Polynice

K.B. Wagers is one of the most exciting of the new crop of space opera writers. Their first novel, Behind the Throne, appeared in 2016 from Orbit Books, and it kicked off what eventually became a popular six-volume series featuring Hail Bristol, a runaway princess who becomes one of the most fearsome gunrunners in the galaxy. Packed with alien gods, centuries-long conflicts, treasonous plots, interstellar civilizations, invasions, intrigue, diplomatic missions, a spaceship with a motley crew, and full-scale galactic war, the Hail Bristol universe is terrific rest stop for anyone who enjoys space opera and political intrigue.

K.B.’s new NeoG series, set in our own solar system, follows the adventure of the Near-Earth Orbital Guard, a military force patrolling and protecting space. The first two volumes, A Pale Light in the Black and Hold Fast Through the Fire, will be followed by The Ghosts of Trappist, arriving in hardcover from Harper Voyager on June 27, 2023. Lara Báez, the Publicity Manager at HarperCollins, was kind enough to arrange an interview with K.B. before the release of the new book. The complete text of our email discussion, which took place between May 31 and June 5th of this year, is below. It has been lightly edited for clarity, and to correct the worst of my spelling mistakes.

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