Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Invitation to a Keelhauling

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Invitation to a Keelhauling

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Pirates of Tortuga (USA, 1961)

Once upon a time, back in the mid-20th century, pirate movies were a genre unto themselves, like Westerns, gangster films, or jungle adventures, familiar fare at Saturday matinees with rollicking stories and reliable action, with cutlass duels and fiery ship battles. Though the genre dwindled and then died by the late ‘60s, it evoked fond memories and was regularly revived thereafter in big-budget epics that were mostly too overblown and bloated for their own good.

Fortunately, the original modest but tight buccaneering adventures the blockbusters attempted to evoke are still available to watch and enjoy. Some of them hold up pretty well even in the 21st century, and you can see why they struck a chord with movie audiences back in cinematic piracy’s heyday.

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Talking Tolkien: Of Such a Sort Should a Man Be – Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien – by Fletcher Vredenburgh

Talking Tolkien: Of Such a Sort Should a Man Be – Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien – by Fletcher Vredenburgh

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Talking Tolkien is back for another installment and Black Gate’s own Fletcher Vredenburgh looks into the Professor’s delve into one of the classics of English literature: Beowulf. Read on! For all those who wander are not lost.

Of Such a Sort Should a Man Be: Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary by J.R.R. Tolkien

This is a book that shouldn’t exist. Prof. Tolkien began his translation of the Old English poem in 1920 and worked on it until 1926. It’s posited his move from the University of Leeds to Oxford and his commencement of The Hobbit prevented him from devoting more time to the translation. Ultimately, he undertook the effort for himself and was never satisfied enough with it to have it published. As with nearly everything else he left unfinished or unpolished, his son Christopher published it. In 2014 it appeared, collected with commentary on the poem Tolkien had prepared for and several Beowulf-inspired works.

For those unfamiliar with Beowulf, it is an epic poem in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. It is believed to have been composed between 975 AD and 1025 AD. It concerns events taking place in Scandinavia during the 6th century. The first half describes the ravaging of the King Hrothgar of Denmark’s great hall Heorot by the monster Grendel, and Beowulf’s effort to kill him (and the monster’s mother). The second half tells of Beowulf’s ill-fated battle in his old age against a dragon. Interspersed throughout the poem are tales of the fates of various kings and warrior during a period of constant raiding and war among the kingdoms around the Baltic Sea. Debate exists over whether it was originally composed during pagan time or Christian times.

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A Solid Dose of Weird Adventure: Old Moon Quarterly #3

A Solid Dose of Weird Adventure: Old Moon Quarterly #3

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Old Moon Quarterly Vol III — Winter (119p, March, 2023). Cover by Daniel Vega.

Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of weird sword-and-sorcery fantasy. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by swordsmen and swordswomen both.

Old Moon Quarterly emerged in 2022. This reviews the four stories inside the Winter 2023 issue (Vol III), which delivers solid doses of the weird adventure it promises. The Editor-in-Chief is Julian Barona, flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily Wilcox and Graham Thomas Wilcox (who recently debuted here on Black Gate with his review of John Langan’s Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies, so I gleefully checked this out).  Excerpts best convey the style and elements of what to expect, so you’ll get those here!

Vol III Contents

  • “Evil Honey” by James Enge
  • “Knife, Lace, Prayer” by T.R. Siebert
  • “Singing the Long Retreat” by R.K. Duncan
  • “The Feast of Saint Ottmer” by Graham Thomas Wilcox
  • A review of Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, edited by Ellen Datlow.

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Vintage Treasures: Chronicles of the Twelve Kingdoms by Esther M. Friesner

Vintage Treasures: Chronicles of the Twelve Kingdoms by Esther M. Friesner

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Mustapha and His Wise Dog and Spells of Mortal Weaving
(Avon, July 1985 and May 1986). Cover art by Richard Bober

Esther M. Friesner is one of the most prolific and popular writers of modern fantasy, with dozens of novels and over 200 short stories to her credit. She’s been nominated for a Hugo Award, and won two Nebula Awards for her short fiction. Her debut novel, Mustapha and His Wise Dog, appeared in July 1985, and the following year she was named the Outstanding New Fantasy Writer of 1986 by Romantic Times. It kicked off a popular series that ran for four volumes and came to be known as the Chronicles of the Twelve Kingdoms.

Mustapha and His Wise Dog is an entertaining fantasy in the style of the Arabian Knights, about a young man cast out by his bothers and destined to wander the world with only his faithful talking dog Elcolog for company. Fortunately for Mustapha, Elcolog turns out to be significantly smarter than anyone he meets on his encounters and, fortunately for readers, the wisecracking Elcolog turns out to be one of the most entertaining and lovable characters in modern fantasy.

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Worldbuilding in Witch King

Worldbuilding in Witch King

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Witch King by Martha Wells (Tor.com, May 30, 2023). Cover art by Cynthia Sheppard

I think people tend to talk about worldbuilding as if it’s one static process that is the same every time you do it. But I think it actually varies a lot based on the preferences of the writer and their method of work. It’s different for each writer, and for me at least it’s different for every book.

In the Ile-Rien books, I wanted to show a secondary world fantasy setting, centered around the city Vienne, that realistically aged and changed over time. Not just in politics and government and fashion, but in physical layout, with the city changing to accommodate the development of trains, automobiles, and electric light. I also used a lot of historical sources to create the material culture of the world.

In Witch King I wanted to do something a little different. I’ve done secondary worlds with a wide range of different, distinctive cultures in the Books of the Raksura series, but in Witch King I wanted to show more about the interactions between cultures.

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Goth Chick News: One from the Vaults, The Egyptologist Remains One of My Favs

Goth Chick News: One from the Vaults, The Egyptologist Remains One of My Favs

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The Egyptologist (Random House paperback edition, May 2005). Right: Canadian edition

You might assume that with stacks of books waiting patiently in every corner of GCN’s Black Gate offices, I shouldn’t have time to read something twice. And that assumption would be a correct one if I could consistently maintain a reasonable amount of self-discipline. However, I am a firm believer in the benefits of comfort food, no matter how nutritionally deficient it is, and that goes double for the mental comfort food that is a remarkable story. So yes, when I’m having a lousy week, I grab a cinnamon PopTart and one of my favorite stories off the bookshelf. The beauty of the re-read is that you can generally plow through the entire tale in roughly the same amount of time it takes to eat an entire box of PopTarts.

With that background in mind, I want to tell you about The Egyptologist. A quick peruse through the Black Gate archives confirmed my suspicion that I never wrote about this book when I first read it, probably because back then, we were still in print, and I wrote only one article per issue. First published in hardcover in 2004, I purchased The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips, to take with me on one of my dream trips; a three-week tour through Egypt in the company of Medu Hassan, a researcher from the Cairo Museum. This pre-dates e-books being a thing, as the Sony Libre wouldn’t hit the market until later that year. So back then, traveling with reading material meant packing books and this particular hardcover was a last-minute addition, added to my bag primarily due to the title and my destination, and not because I knew what I was getting into.

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Tales of Unease: Riding the Nightmare by Lisa Tuttle

Tales of Unease: Riding the Nightmare by Lisa Tuttle

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Riding the Nightmare (Valancourt Books, August 22, 2023). Cover by Vince Haig

Lisa Tuttle was born in USA, but relocated to the UK many years ago. She is a successful novelist, but especially a great short story writer, the author of numerous collections of dark fiction.

Her latest collection, forthcoming from the small but excellent imprint Valancourt Books, collects twelve previously published stories and is introduced by Neil Gaiman who, very aptly, emphasizes the Aickmanesque nature (meaning it somehow recalls the atmosphere of Robert Aickman) of some tales.

As a short fiction lover, a Lisa Tuttle fan, and a long time admirer of Aickman, my expectations for this book were high. And I was not disappointed.

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The Legacy of a Legendary Collector: Denny Lien, September 26, 1945 – April 15, 2023

The Legacy of a Legendary Collector: Denny Lien, September 26, 1945 – April 15, 2023

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A handful of items from Denny Lien’s incredible collection I was able to save from the dumpster

On Wednesday May 3, I drove 379 miles from St. Charles to Minneapolis, to help clean out the last of the legendary collection of the late Denny Lien. I’d been reliably informed that it was the final week his estate would have access to the house; the following Monday, Habitat for Humanity would take possession, and everything left would go in the dumpster.

Denny had the most incredible collection of magazines I’ve ever seen. During the scant few hours I had in the house I found virtually complete runs of Amazing Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Worlds of If, Galaxy, Fantastic, Astounding/Analog, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Locus, Cemetery Dance, and many, many more — far more than I could ever pack and fit in the minivan I’d rented for the trip. Most were unread, in pristine condition.

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Talking Tolkien: The Architects of Modern Fantasy, Tolkien and Norton – by Ruth de Jauregui

Talking Tolkien: The Architects of Modern Fantasy, Tolkien and Norton – by Ruth de Jauregui

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Talking Tolkien is back for another installment and Ruth de Jauregui brings in another Fantasy giant, the great Andre Norton. Those DAW paperbacks are classics. Read on!

The influences of J.R.R. Tolkien and Andre Norton fill the world of speculative fiction and, while the genre existed before and after both authors, their works have forever shaped new authors and the flow of the modern fantasy novel.

Tolkien forged the modern rendition of the epic journey tale that has its roots in Beowulf and The Odyssey, pitting good against evil in the world known as Middle Earth. The master of the epic journey, the battle of good and evil, wizards, brave men and elves, sturdy dwarves, and never to be forgotten, the little hobbits, began the adventures of Middle Earth with a journey to recover the dwarves’ stolen home and treasure in The Hobbit. It was followed by his continuation, “The Road goes ever on and on…,” with the next generation of hobbits in an epic quest to save Middle Earth from its version of Satan in The Lord of the Rings.

And it all began with a hobbit in a warm and cozy hole.

Actually though, Tolkien’s works began much earlier. He was writing poetry and the beginnings of his epic work as early as 1910, and perhaps even earlier as his first published poem, “The Battle of the Eastern Field,” was printed in the King Edward’s School Chronicle in March 1911. At age 19, he was already on the long road leading to Middle Earth after being orphaned, his romance with his future wife forbidden by his guardian, and failing and then winning a scholarship to Oxford.

As Tolkien himself said in the introduction to The Fellowship of the Ring: “…to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends was dead…”

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