Give Yourself Some Weird Horror for Christmas

Give Yourself Some Weird Horror for Christmas

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Weird Horror issues 4 and 5 (Undertow Publications, Spring & Fall 2022). Covers by Drazen Kozjan and Barandash Karandashich.

I love watching a new fantasy magazine get its sea legs. It’s been a real treat to see this decade’s crop of best new mags — including Tales from the Magician’s Skull (edited by Howard Andrew Jones), Startling Stories (helmsman Douglas Draa), New Edge Sword and Sorcery (edited by Oliver Brackenbury), and Wyldblood (Mark Bilsborough) — carve out unique identities, and grow better and better with each issue.

One of the best of the new lot — and there are times when I think it is the best — is Weird Horror, published by Michael Kelly’s Undertow Publications. Michael has been editing horror and dark fantasy for over a decade, and he’s one of the most gifted and respected editors in the industry. The roster at Weird Horror reflects that; in the last two years they’ve published new fiction from the best new horror writers in the biz, including John Langan, Steve Rasnic Tem, Brian Evenson, Josh Rountree, Stephen Volk, Steve Duffy, and Richard Strachan.

But the very best mags don’t rely on fiction alone. And what really makes we look forward to each new issue of Weird Horror are the lively columns by an enviable stable of authors, including Simon Strantzas On Horror, Orrin Grey Grotesqueries, Lysette Stevenson’s The Macabre Reader review column, and Tom Goldstein’s Aberrant Visions.

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Vintage Treasures: Dreamships by Melissa Scott

Vintage Treasures: Dreamships by Melissa Scott

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Dreamships (Tor paperback reprint, July 1993). Cover by Tony Roberts

Melissa Scott burst onto the scene with The Game Beyond in 1984 (a nominee for the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel), and followed that quickly with the first two novels in the Silence Leigh trilogy (Five-Twelfths of Heaven and Silence in Solitude, featuring the first polyamorous triad I can remember encountering in SF) and A Choice of Destinies. In 1986 she capped off that impressive run by winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (now known as The Astounding Award, so it’s no longer associated with a racist loon.)

But Scott didn’t really grab my attention until her 1992 novel Dreamships, her hardcover debut and a thoughtful examination of FTL and A.I. in a far-future setting. She followed it with a single sequel Dreaming Metal five years later; that one made the long list for the Locus Award for Best Novel. Dreamships is set in a universe in which the FTL drive that rockets travelers across impossible distances relies on a dreamspace navigated using a virtual reality landscape created by the pilot. Scientists in this future are on the brink of achieving true artificial intelligence, and these two advances drive the plot.
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New Treasures: Shattered Dreams by Ulff Lehmann

New Treasures: Shattered Dreams by Ulff Lehmann

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Shattered Dreams by Ulff Lehmann (Crossroad Press, March 16, 2018)

Shattered Walls, Book 4 of Ulff Lehmann’s Light in the Dark Book series, released this November, 2022. This post reviews Book 1, Shattered Dreams, to lure dark fantasy readers into the Dark. Do you like Tolkien-esque worlds with a unique perspective, perhaps sprinkled with Grimdark battle and horror? Shattered Dreams will whet your appetite. It’s a fresh, dark spin on traditional fiction.  You’ll be thrown into a mire of fractured perspectives and nightmares, and Lehmann controls the process of refining it all with a host of characters (the cursed Drangar Ralgon stealing the limelight). You’ll enjoy this if you enjoy mysteries, brutal melee, and Elvin worlds.

Shattered Dreams Cover Blurb

Epic Fantasy filled to the brim with Grimdark Reality.

If one looks too long into the abyss, the abyss looks back. Drangar Ralgon has been avoiding the abyss’s gaze for far too long and now he turns to face it. For a hundred years the young kingdom of Danastaer has thrived in peace. Now their northern neighbor, mighty Chanastardh, has begun a cunning invasion. Thrust into events far beyond his control, the mercenary Drangar Ralgon flees his solitary life as a shepherd to evade the coming war and take responsibility for his crimes.

In Dunthiochagh, Danastaer’s oldest city, the holy warrior Kildanor uncovers the enemy’s plans for invasion. As ancient forces reach forth to shape the world once more, the sorceress Ealisaid wakes from a century of hibernation only to realize the Dunthiochagh she knew is no more. Magic, believed long gone, returns, and with it comes an elven wizard sent to recover a dangerous secret.

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Goth Chick News: I Need a Thing

Goth Chick News: I Need a Thing

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Appropriately, Netflix launched its new mega-hit series Wednesday on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This was brilliant marketing even though you might have suspected this gothic, Tim Burton creation would have been better suited for release in October. Instead, a late November release capitalized on the fact that most of us would be in some sort of carb coma Thanksgiving weekend, unable to move anything but the finger it would take to operate the TV remote. We would, therefore, be more than happy to roll up on the couch and binge-watch.

And much as it pains me to say it, the marketers were right.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday enjoyed the biggest ever opening week for an English language series in Netflix history, overtaking the previous record set by ratings behemoth Stranger Things. Wednesday racked up a staggering 341.2 million hours of viewing globally last week, beating the previous 335 million hours set by Stranger Things season 4.

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Random Reviews: “Why Do You Think They Call It Middle Earth?” by Susan Casper

Random Reviews: “Why Do You Think They Call It Middle Earth?” by Susan Casper

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Cover by Larry Elmore
Cover by Larry Elmore

Because I’ve been asked about the process by which I’ve been selecting stories for the Random Review series, I thought I’d take a moment to explain how the stories are selected.

I have a database of approximately 42,000 short stories that I own sorted by story title. When it comes time for me to select a story to review as part of this series, I role several dice (mostly ten sided) to determine which story should be read. I cross reference the numbers that come up on the die with the database to see what story I’ll be reviewing.  This week I rolled 40,278, which turned out to be Susan Casper’s short story “Why Do You Think They Call It Middle Earth?”

One of the things I hoped to get out of this series, from a personal point of view, was to discover authors and short stories that I’ve owned and have never read. Of course, I also hoped to share those discoveries, good or bad, with the readers of Black Gate.

Casper’s story is told from Emily Prentiss’s point of view, a thoroughly unlikable, self-absorbed woman who prides herself on her no-holds-barred attitude in the boardroom. While berating a homeless man one day, she falls through a crack in the earth and finds herself in a fantastic realm, intent on finding someone who will pay for her misfortune.

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Gods, Demons, Monsters & Magic: The Mkalis Cycle by Kerstin Hall

Gods, Demons, Monsters & Magic: The Mkalis Cycle by Kerstin Hall

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The Border Keeper and Second Spear (Tor.com, July 2019 and August 2022). Covers by Kathleen Jennings and Jamie Jones

Kerstin Hall is the Senior Editorial Assistant at Scott Andrews’s excellent online magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and perhaps it was years of reading submissions that gave her the chops to write her acclaimed debut, the Tor.com novella The Border Keeper, a 2020 Nommo Award Finalist. (Yeah, I didn’t know what a Nommo Award was either, but I googled it and it’s legit — it’s presented by The African Speculative Fiction Society.) The Guardian called it “A phantasmagorical picaresque through a lushly realised underworld, populated by a grotesque bestiary of fantastical creatures… [a] twisty example of the new weird,” and Max Gladstone summed it up as “A labyrinth of demons, dead gods, [and] cranky psychopomps.” That sounds pretty cool.

The Border Keeper appeared in 2019, and the follow-up Second Spear arrived in August. Looking at the covers above, radically different in design and tone, the two books don’t look related (at all), but they are both part of what’s now being called The Mkalis Cycle. I much prefer Jamie Jones’s dynamic cover for Second Spear over Kathleen Jennings’ more abstract effort for The Border Keeper, but I gotta believe the dramatic cover shift was risky, and probably confused a few readers. I hope it pays off.

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Future Treasures: The Citadel of Forgotten Myths by Michael Moorcock

Future Treasures: The Citadel of Forgotten Myths by Michael Moorcock

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The Citadel of Forgotten Myths (Saga Press, December 6, 2022). Cover artist unknown.

No, your eyes don’t deceive you. That’s a brand new Elric novel, arriving in hardcover next week.

Described as a prequel, The Citadel of Forgotten Myths takes place between the first and second books in the Elric Saga, Elric of Melniboné (published a whopping 50 years ago, in 1972) and The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1976). It’s the first new Elric novel since The White Wolf’s Son, way back in 2005, and is highly anticipated.

Because of Moorcock’s stature in the field these days, the back cover of his new novel is strewn with glowing quotes from J. G. Ballard, The New Yorker and NPR — and I have to admit, that NPR quote is pretty darn good. It’s taken from a 2014 piece titled (of all things) These Nautical Reads Will Put Wind In Your Sails, and is written by novelist Jason Sheehan. Here’s the whole thing; it’s worth the read.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ Max Latin

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ Max Latin

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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)

A Black Gat in the Hand makes a rare Fall guest appearance! I think that John D. MacDonald was one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century – in any genre. He’s my favorite author, and I’ve written several essays about him here at Black Gate. His last piece of professional writing before he died was an introduction to The Mysterious Press’ collection of Norbert Davis’ Max Latin short stories. Written for Dime Detective magazine, they are one of my favorite private eye series’.

Unfortunately, MacDonald comes across as a grumpy old man shaking his cane and yelling “Get off my lawn, you kids!” He essentially accused Davis of being  a sell-out for moving from the pulps to the slicks. It’s a very unflattering intro. Steeger Books has reissued the collection, but with a new introduction: by me!

Getting to replace something that John D. MacDonald wrote is a thrill for me. As I am an unabashed Norbert Davis fan, it’s a lot more complimentary than JDM’s was. I listen to the audiobook of these stories several times a month. I really enjoy them. Below, find my new intro. And if it sounds like something you might like, swing by Steeger Books and order a copy. It really is one of my favorites.

Norbert Davis is considered one of Joseph ‘Cap’ Shaw’s Black Mask Boys: Those writers who formed the core of the legendary magazine editor’s stable. But Shaw only accepted four of Davis’ submissions, and one has to think it likely that there were more, but which were rejected. Davis would sell ten stories to subsequent Mask editors. Shaw did include a Davis story in his ground-breaking The Hard-Boiled Omnibus, but in reality, Davis was much less of a ‘Shaw guy’ than those more commonly identified, like Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler, Frederick Nebel, Raoul Whitfield, or even Horace McCoy.

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Vintage Treasures: Faster Than Light edited by Jack Dann and George Zebrowski

Vintage Treasures: Faster Than Light edited by Jack Dann and George Zebrowski

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Faster Than Light (Ace Books, March 1982). Cover art by Attila Hejja

Recently I’ve been on a steady diet of anthologies from the most respected SF editors of the 20th Century, including Isaac Asimov, Terry Carr, Mike Ashley, Lin Carter, and Karl Edward Wagner. And I cannot lie, it’s been a blast. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying classic tales by some of the best storytellers in the business, from A.E. van Vogt to Lucius Shepard.

But it’s time to branch out! I dunno, be intrepid. Try some new editors, maybe. Like Jack Dann, who’s produced over 50 SF anthologies in the past four decades. I recently picked up a copy of his very first, Faster Than Light, co-edited with George Zebrowski in the distant year of 1976, and it piqued my curiosity immediately.

It purports to be  a serious study of the problems and possibilities of FTL travel, with five highly-regarded essays on the topic by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Keith Laumer, Ben Bova, and Poul Anderson, plus the first appearance of Harlan Ellison’s original teleplay for the TV show The Starlost, Phoenix Without Ashes, and original stories by Poul Anderson, Ian Watson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Gregory Benford, Hal Clement, A. A. Jackson and Howard Waldrop — and two long stories by George R. R. Martin.

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Ruined Spaceships, Post-Apocalyptic San Francisco, and the Return of Gil Hamilton: November-December Print SF Magazines

Ruined Spaceships, Post-Apocalyptic San Francisco, and the Return of Gil Hamilton: November-December Print SF Magazines

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November/December 2022 issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Maurizio Manzieri (x2), and Mondolithic Studio

More than a month after their October 18th on-sale date, the November/December issues of Asimov’s SF and Analog are still not on the newsstand at my local B&N here in Illinois, which is annoying. At least I was able to find the Sept/Oct issue of F&SF, so I suppose that’s something.

I’m left relying on their (excellent) websites to learn what’s packed into the end-of-year issues of each magazine. And there’s a great deal to anticipate — including a brand new Gil Hamilton tale from Larry Niven & Steven Barnes, a story of desperate survival on a ruined spaceship by Suzanne Palmer, a novella of an enigmatic Galactic Federation by Mark W. Teidermann, and a cyberpunk mystery in post-apocalyptic San Francisco by J.C. Hsyu, plus tales by Marc Laidlaw, Nick Wolven, Ray Nayler, Michael Cassutt, Tom Purdom, James Maxey, Nick Mamatas, John Shirley, Sam J. Miller, Bennett North, and many others.

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