In my fourth grade year, my teacher, for reasons still unknown to me, decided to read F. Marion Crawford’s “The Upper Berth” aloud to our class. The story is not so well known these days, but back in the late seventies, it had gained a certain notoriety by virtue of its inclusion in Alfred Hitchcock’s Ghostly Gallery, an omnibus to which I have (with trepidation) returned to many times since. If Hitch was the source from which my teacher made…
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The following is a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat (SFFWRTCHT) special for Black Gate. For the first time, I was able to gather four of the Year’s Best editors to chat about genre, how they do what they do, why and more. So here are Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, and Gardner Dozois. SFFWRTCHT: Where’d your interest in SFF come from? Ellen Datlow: I was reading everything in my parents’ apartment from a very young age. I encountered Bullfinch’s Mythology, The Odyssey, the…
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By Vaughn Heppner This is a complete work of fiction presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of Vaughn Heppner and New Epoch Press, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Copyright 2013 by New Epoch Press. …Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea. — Isaiah 27:1 1. Whistles…
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I was reading Martha Wells’ excellent The Cloud Roads the other day and I was struck, as I often am when reading something very well written, by how few explanations there were. One of the most difficult things writers of Fantasy or SF face in creating a new world, and alien beings, is to find a way to give their readers necessary information seamlessly, and Wells has done a great job here. There are plenty of things about the world…
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As of Sunday, August fourth, the last installment of my Gemen trilogy is up and published right here on the Black Gate site. It’s a curious feeling to have these three closely linked tales “on display” at last. I wrote the first entirely on a whim back in 2004, but the storyline itself had actually evolved decades before, in 1986. How Gemen got to where he is today — that is to say, fictionalized, and available for public scrutiny —…
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This week, I’m going to take a break from the summer heat and my blogging of Arak, Son of Thunder to get all spooky on you. This is a topic I’d normally tackle in the autumn, closer to Hallowe’en, but it turns out that one of the surprise summer hits is a supernatural horror film called The Conjuring. If you enjoyed that film and are looking for some home-viewing follow-ups, here are a few to consider… The Messengers (2007) As…
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By Mark Rigney This is a complete work of fiction presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of Mark Rigney and New Epoch Press, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Copyright 2013 by New Epoch Press. This is Part Three of The Tales of Gemen the Antiques Dealer Read Part One, “The Trade”, here, or Part Two, “The Find”, here. Velori shot awake, screaming, her legs a kicking flurry as she…
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By Aaron Bradford Starr This is a complete work of fiction presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of Aaron Bradford Starr and New Epoch Press, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Copyright 2013 by New Epoch Press. Art by Aaron Bradford Starr This is Part Three. Read Part Two here. The Cipher and The Key By the time our larger party had arrived by longboat, Gloren and Yr Neh…
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By Aaron Bradford Starr This is a complete work of fiction presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of Aaron Bradford Starr and New Epoch Press, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Copyright 2013 by New Epoch Press. Art by Aaron Bradford Starr This is Part Two. Read Part One here. Twilight Falls Over the Expedition Sunset last night was an awesome sight, and I write this account by the light…
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Dreamers in Hell (Heroes in Hell, Volume 15) Created by Janet Morris, edited by Janet and Chris Morris, and written “with the diabolical assistance of their damnedest writers.” Perseid Press (478 pages, June 13, 2013, $23.95 in trade paperback) It is a place of swords and spears, revolvers and automatic weapons, sorcery and science, catapults and cannon, bows and arrows, computers and demons. It is a place where there is no Hope for the damned, merely the suggestion of it. Welcome…
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