One thing about a global pandemic… at least it doesn’t interfere with my reading time. Book stores may be closed and book sales may be down, but books continue to be published, and I continue to enjoy them. And the always dependable John DeNardo at Kirkus Reviews showed up on time (as always) to give us his read on the best SF and Fantasy for April, making sure I’m kept abreast of the month’s top releases. Here’s a few of his…
Cover by Tom Barber Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery By Brian Murphy Pulp Hero Press (282 pages, $19.95 in trade paperback/$7.99 digital, January 16, 2020) At long last, we have a history of the sword-and-sorcery genre, and a very welcome and erudite study it is. Brian Murphy is to be commended for his honest appreciation of our frequently dismissed and often mocked genre. He intelligently surveys the expanse of the sword-and-sorcery field warts and all, low points and…
Everyone’s heard of Frankenstein, and most people also know its author, Mary Shelley, but on the 200th anniversary of that novel’s publication, Kymera Press is doing something very, very cool. Mary Shelley Presents is a graphic novel series about other Victorian women horror writers. These women were famous in their own day, but their legacies have faded over time. Now, with the help of Kickstarter, Kymera press seeks to assemble the multiple stories of this series into one trade paperback that they will then bring…
If you live somewhere that, like Chicago, has been experiencing temperatures incompatible with human life recently, then thinking about a lounge chair, a book and an umbrella drink wearing anything less than a Tauntaun skin is pretty darn appealing. And with perfect timing, here comes the 2019 Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot hot off the press from the The Horror Writers Association (HWA), providing a categorized list of reading material. Now all you need is the lounge chair, an umbrella…
I chose to finally write about The Walking Dead after nine seasons because of the departure of a major character, which changed the whole dynamic of the series, turning it into a different direction (Season 10 broadcasts Oct 6, 2019). For fans of the show, much of what is in this article is me stating the obvious. I know many people who have stopped watching the show after various seasons, for one reason or another. I also know people who…
That’s right: The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes is back! Well, for one week, anyways. A (Black) Gat in the Hand will resume next Monday. There were quite a few topics I never got around to covering during TPLoSH’ 156-ish week run. (Wow!) And one was Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range series. I recently got around to finishing the short story collection that I bought for my Nook back in 2011 (I’ve got a bit of a reading backlog,…
Gene Wolfe at Top Shelf Books in Palatine, IL When John asked me to write an article for Black Gate about Gene Wolfe, I agreed immediately. I had written a blog about his passing, and a poem, and then a remembrance for the latest issue of Locus — the print magazine, not the online zine, although they have a wonderful remembrance of him here. I wanted to keep writing about him, as if writing were an act of resurrection. I wanted to write everything. But…
Welcome back to the latest installment of Hither Came Conan, where a leading Robert E. Howard expert examines one of the original Conan stories each week, highlighting what’s best in it. Today, it’s Ryan Harvey looking at the only Conan novel, Hour of the Dragon (not Conan the Conquerer!). And here we go! When Robert E. Howard’s twenty-one completed Conan stories are randomly distributed to twenty-one people, each challenged to argue that their assigned work is the finest of all,…
It is not intuitive to seek beauty in art deemed grotesque, but most authors who produce horror/fantasy actually are usually (a) serious about their craft, and (b) driven by strange muses. Weird fiction masters (Robert E. Howard, Poe, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft…) held serious beliefs that their “horror” was actually beautiful. This interview series engages contemporary authors & artists on the theme of “Art & Beauty in Weird/Fantasy Fiction.” Previously we cornered weird fantasy authors like John Fultz, Janeen Webb, Aliya Whiteley, Richard Lee…
As we close out 2018, I’m proud to look back at the last twelve months and all the new authors we’ve championed and celebrated. Dozens of debut novels, and hundreds of new short stories, from a lively graduating class of SF and fantasy writers. Of course, Black Gate isn’t just about the new — we try to spend just as many pixels illuminating the neglected writers of the Twentieth Century, who become more forgotten with each passing year. We published hundreds…