Hello, Readers!
We’re back at it with season one episode six of HBO’s The Last of Us. Based on the thumbnail alone, this is the episode where Joel reunites with his baby brother Tommy. With their relationship so changed in the show as compared to the game, I wonder how this will play out. Only one way to find out. C’est parti!
I haven’t done a What I’m Watching this year, so here’s a new installment.
DANGER! THERE BE SPOILERS
I’m talking about shows I’ve watched. I won’t give away anything huge, but in the context of the discussion, there will probably be spoilers. You have been warned.
STAR TREK PICARD: SEASON THREE
Prior to Strange New Worlds and the terrific job that Anson Mount continues doing as Captain Pike, ST: The Next Generation, was my favorite Trek series.
I wrote about ST: Picard a couple times here at Black Gate. I struggled through the plodding season one. With John de Lancie (Q) in the picture, season two was much better – excluding Picard’s child-hood angst.
Season three brought a wrap-up to TNG. More Picard-centric emotional angst slowed things down, but it was tremendous closure for TNG. Just about any face you wanted to see popped up.. It was wonderful to see Trekkers from the past (and not just TNG). And on the new side of things, Todd Stashwick as Captain Liam Shaw is in my Top Five for all time Trek-verse characters. He was terrific.
Phasers on Stun – I cannot believe I watched this entire season without realizing that Jack Crusher was the same actor who played James Kent in Downton Abbey. Completely didn’t register until I looked him up for this essay. Man, did I miss that one!
Quite simply, season three of Picard was fantastic, and the series finale was outstanding. They closed out the franchise in wonderful fashion. There was also a Marvel-esque credits scene which certainly could be the basis for a spin-off show.
Nothing has been announced in any fashion for one, but it would be nice.
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Some of the eye-popping pulps from the Bob Weinberg collection auctioned at Windy City
This weekend was the Windy City Pulp & Paper show, an annual gathering of about 600-800 pulp and vintage paperback enthusiasts in Lombard, Illinois. Founded by Doug Ellis and run by a dedicated and talented team, Windy City has gradually become my favorite convention. Back when Black Gate was a print magazine I used to get a table and sell back issues, but these days I spend my time more productively. Namely buying stuff, but also hanging out with friends and attending the auction.
And gawking at amazing sights. If you’re interested in rare and unusual items — such as mint-condition pulps, rare first editions, signed volumes, original art, and letters and esoterica from pulp writers such as Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt, and countless others — Windy City is the place to be. It’s a chance to hang out with like-minded individuals, gossip, and (especially!) find incredible treasures.
Reader, I found some treasures.
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Weird Tales #366, the Sword & Sorcery issue (January 2023), and #367, the
Cosmic Horror issue (May 2023). Covers by Bob Eggleton and Mike Mignola
I ordered a copy of the new Sword & Sorcery issue of Weird Tales last year, and it finally arrived a few weeks ago — so late that I almost forgot I ordered it.
But it did arrive — and turned out to be damn impressive. A huge oversize (8×10) issue in full color, with terrific front and back covers by Bob Eggleton and Archer H. Anglow (see below), and weighing in at 128 pages. The stellar TOC includes a new Elric tale by Michael Moorcock, plus Kevin J. Anderson, Marguerite Reed, and Black Gate‘s own Howard Andrew Jones (an exclusive excerpt from his upcoming book Lord of the Shattered Land), along with an appreciation of Moorcock by Neil Gaiman, and a delightful full-color article on Sword & Sorcery by Charles R. Rutledge.
Issue 367, shipping next month, looks even more impressive. The Cosmic Horror issue offers an eye-catching Hellboy cover by Mike Mignola, a Hellboy story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, plus new work from Ramsey Campbell, Paul Cornell, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tim Lebbon, F. Paul Wilson, and lots more.
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All 9 volumes of The Fey by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
(WMG Publishing, 2013 – 2023). Covers by Dirk Berger and WMG Publishing
In the mid-90s Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote The Fey, a 5-volume fantasy series released by the hottest publisher in fantasy, Bantam Spectra (publisher of, among other things, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin). Jayme Lynn Blaschke interviewed Kristine for my old website SF Site in 1998, and she gave a great synopsis of her ambitions for the series.
When I started working on The Fey, I described it to my editor as a Hundred Years’ War. Now, if you’ve read The Fey, you realize I haven’t gotten anywhere close to a hundred years. We’re in the first twenty years, and I’m starting in on book five. If this series sells well, I could probably go the full hundred years. It may take me twenty years to write, but I know the cycle is going to be long. We’re talking War of the Roses here. And there are a lot of stories in there, and they don’t necessarily have to be about the same characters.
Kristine followed the first five books in The Fey with a 2-volume sequel, The Black Throne, in 1999 and 2000. When the rights reverted back to her, she repacked the books in handsome new editions and re-released them through WMG, the publishing house she runs with her husband, the talented Dean Wesley Smith. As she predicted back in 1998, she is still writing the series 20 years later, and in fact she just released volume 9, The Kirilli Matter, last month.
It alarms quite a few people when I say I’m hit and miss on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As far as the hardcore fans I’m acquainted with, it seems I must be either in or out, and my spotty fandom is definitely not something they approve of.
For example, in a convo with the guy that cleans my office aquarium, I discovered he was super excited when I said one of my favorite films was Iron Man, but was super put out when I had no plans to see Doctor Strange. I also loved Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire, but have been only so-so on the Spider-Man’s since. Yes, I’m missing out on all the cool, interconnectivity of the stories, and no, I’d agree I can’t say I’m a true MCU fan. I just like what I like in the standalone films and frankly do not have the attention-span to take my viewership much further.
At this point I’m lucky my fish aren’t dead.
When it came to comics, it’s no surprise I was more of a DC fan, from Wonder Woman, to House of Secrets and The Unexpected. It’s probably also no surprise that if there was an MC character I consistently enjoyed, it was Blade.
The Adventures of Hajji Baba (USA, 1964)
Though the vogue for Middle Eastern Orientalism in 20th-century movies wasn’t entirely a scourge — where would the history of fantasy films be without Harryhausen’s 7th Voyage of Sinbad? — by and large it was mainly responsible for a lot of crap and claptrap. This goes way back to the Silent Era, peaking with The Sheik in 1921, the movie that made Rudolf Valentino a household word. Orientalist films set in the Near East almost always relied on visual clichés of colorful and exotic luxury, with female characters who exhibit a sensuality forbidden in the Christian west, and male antagonists who are cruel, dishonest, greedy, and lecherous. The protagonists, almost exclusively male, are either European or Americans of European descent, heroes who exemplify the “Western” traits of courage, daring, integrity, and respect for decency. Even when the heroes are themselves Middle Eastern, as in the movies we cover this week, they still embody those qualities deemed “Western” and are usually played by Europeans or Americans.
Weird Horror #6 (Undertow Publications,
March 14, 2023). Cover art by Asya Yordanova
The sixth issue of Michael Kelly’s excellent magazine Weird Horror has arrived, and it’s packed with deliciously creepy fiction and non-fiction from some of the most exciting writers in the business, including Simon Strantzas, Barbara A. Barnett, Neil Williamson, and many others — plus Steve Rasnic Tem’s 500th story sale (!!!).
Michael has made many of the stories — and the fabulous accompanying artwork — available for free on the Weird Horror website, so there’s no excuse not to check it out. Have a look below.
It’s installment number five in Bob’s Shelfie series. This time, I’ll do a shelfie for my favorite fantasy author (Tolkien is second) – Robert E. Howard.
He is of course best known for his Conan the Cimmerian (the movies made it ‘the Barbarian’). They are terrific sword and sorcery stories. If you only know the movies, you should read some of the stories.
On the bottom left are the Del Rey volumes, covering most of his writing. Howard struggled to make a living as a pulpster in Cross Plains, TX, during the Depression. He wrote fantasy, weird menace, westerns, boxing,spicy, horror, historical – the guy was an extremely talented writer. And those Del Reys are superb collections – with some great intros from very knowledgeable folks.
He was an extremely prolific letter writer, and I’ve got several books of his –mostly with fellow Weird Tales contributor, HP Lovecraft.
I never got into graphic novels, but I really like the Marvel Omnibus’ of the color comic that started in the seventies. The three mini-memoirs from Roy Thomas, covering the first hundred-ish issues, are fantastic and great buys.
Up top are various pastiches by other authors. I used to have all the Tors, but don’t any more. Many are pretty poor. For me, L. Sprague de Camp did pretty well (though he was an ass toward REH) and John Maddox Roberts was the best of the Tors, along with Chris Hocking’s lone book (he wrote a second, which has had a long, torturous path to still not being out there – but is due out soon). I like Robert Jordan’s six books, though they all kind of feel the same by the end.
And those two plaques are awards I’ve received from the Robert E. Howard Foundation for my work in the REH world.
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Rise of the Red Hand and Fall of the Iron Gods (Erewhon Books,
January 19, 2021, and April 30, 2024). Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio. Covers by Rashed AlAkroka
Liz Gorinsky is one of the most respected editors in science fiction and fantasy. In fact, when I finished my first novel The Robots of Gotham, Liz was the first person I brought it to (she didn’t buy it). Liz left Tor Books in 2018 to found an independent speculative fiction publishing company, Erewhon Books. Liz left Erewhon last year, but not before growing it into one of the most exciting new publishers of SF and fantasy.
One of their recent discoveries is Olivia Chadha, a Colorado author of literary novels (Balance of Fragile Things), comic books, and SF/Hopepunk. Her first SF novel was Rise of the Red Hand, the tale of a group of rebels in a climate ravaged future South Asia who discover an appalling government conspiracy, which Nerd Daily calls “a stunning read from beginning to end.” The sequel, Fall of the Iron Gods, is due next spring.