Black Gate – Page 831 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Software Review: A look at Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus

Thursday, March 12, 2015 Comments 3 comments

Jaw-Peninsula-East-Close — Their output is beautiful. Just looking at it takes you places (click for bigger version).

When I snagged a pre-release review copy of Profantasy Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus, smugness quickly turned to irritation… then to understanding and respect.

Let me tell you about it.

Though just a 3-person company, Profantasy are the behemoths of Fantasy cartography.

They’ve been around since 1993 (so far back that I think Richard III was still on the throne) which says a lot. They have a massive suite of programs for designing things like dungeons, cities, star systems and starship.

Their output is beautiful. Just glancing at what people can do with is enough to take you to otherwhen places .

So as I downloaded their not-inexpensive software, I was grinning happily to myself…. just like one of the dark lord’s minions walking into an ambush.

The new version is certainly an improvement on the old (which, however, did as advertised).

It’s more stable, makes full use of the power of modern PCs, has a prettier, less confusing interface, a really very useful “verbose” tooltip that pops up when you use any tool, and smoother navigation.

I had the power to create beauty. I was mesmerized!

Then the ambush sprung.

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Terry Pratchett, April 28, 1948 – March 12, 2015

Thursday, March 12, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Sir Terry Pratchett, the besteselling author of more than 40 Discworld novels who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for services to British literature in 2009, died today at his home in Britain.

Pratchett published his first novel, The Carpet People, in 1971. The Colour of Magic, the first novel in the famous Discworld series, appeared in 1983. Discworld was an international phenomenon, making him the UK’s best-selling author in the 1990s. By the year 2000 he’d been knocked off that lofty pedestal by JK Rowling, but he remains the second most-read writer in the UK.

Pratchett sold over 85 million books in 37 languages. The 2011 Discworld release Snuff became the third-fastest-selling hardback adult novel on record in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days. He was very prolific, averaging about two novels a year.

Pratchett was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature in 2009. In 2010 he received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

In December 2007, Pratchett announced he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Against all odds he continued writing, completing five additional novels in the Discworld series, including the forthcoming The Shepherd’s Crown, scheduled to be released in August. All told, Sir Terry published more than 70 books in a career than spanned more than four decades.

His death was announced on his Twitter account on Thursday morning. He died on March 12 at the age of 66.

New Treasures: Old Venus, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Thursday, March 12, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I think my favorite book of the year (so far) is George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois’s new anthology, Old Venus, which imagines Venus just as the pulp writers of old: a steamy, swampy jungle planet with strange creatures lurking amidst the dripping vegetation.

Old Venus is a follow-up to Old Mars, a tribute to “the Golden Age of Science Fiction, an era filled with tales of interplanetary colonization and derring-do.” It includes brand new fiction from Lavie Tidhar, Paul McAuley, Joe Haldeman, Eleanor Arnason, David Brin, Garth Nix, Joe R. Lansdale, Ian McDonald and many others. Russell Letson at Locus Online offers an enthusiastic review, saying:

In the introduction, co-editor Gardner Dozois writes that he and George R.R. Martin were looking for a return to the ‘‘heyday of the Planetary Romance,’’ when ‘‘the solar system swarmed with alien races and civilizations, as crowded and chummy as an Elks picnic…’’ These 16 stories, mostly of novelette length, aspire to resuscitate not only the obsolete, imaginary planetology of Old Venus, but the iconography and tropes that filled the pulp adventure stories once set there: the rain-soaked frontier outback where questionable characters meet in roughneck saloons before setting out to find abandoned temples or lost cities, guided or preyed upon by aquatic or amphibious natives, pursued by hungry local fauna, and perhaps tempted by exotic-erotic possibilities…

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What to Read Next?

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 Elizabeth Cady Comments 11 comments

How do you choose what to read next?

That’s not a rhetorical question. I’m genuinely curious, for a number of reasons.

I tend to have a set list of authors whose work I will pre-order the instant I hear about it. Neil Gaiman, Sarah MacLean, Kate Elliot. I have authors I forget about for a few years and then dive in to read everything they’ve put out in the meantime (Stephen Brust tops that list: I can’t quit Vlad Taltos). I have graphic novel series I follow closely (Pretty Deadly, Ody-C, Rat Queens) and others I dabble in when the mood strikes.

I am deeply blessed to have friends who throw books at me, as well. One of my oldest and dearest friends recently sent me an entire box full of books, including Trudy Canavan’s Traitor Spy trilogy; another hounded me until I read Cold Magic (thank goodness!).

But it’s easy to find oneself in a reading rut. Which is a shame, given the wealth of material out there. Self-publishing and digital publishing can make it easier to be published, but that isn’t always a good thing. Finding quality work in those muddy waters is its own trick. So how do you find something new?

Sites like our own here are helpful. I discovered Saladin Ahmed because of a review here, and that has been an absolute delight. (And if I’m dropping names and titles left and right, it’s because I’m returning the favor.) But even comprehensive sites can’t cover everything.

So how do you find new stuff to read? And how do you find new stuff to read when you realize you’ve gotten in a rut? When you discover that everything you’ve read in the last year is, say, fantasy by white women, or all space sci-fi? What are your favorite resources, and what was your favorite surprise find lately?

Ancient Hatra: Another Victim of ISIS

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 Sean McLachlan Comments 3 comments

This photo gives an idea of the vast scale of Hatra.

Last week I shared some of my memories of visiting Mosul before it was taken over by ISIS. In that post I wondered if the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud would be destroyed just like Nineveh was. A day after the article went live, ISIS militants moved in and started smashing all the statues.

A week later they did the same with Hatra, an ancient site that’s less well known. This time they weren’t just smashing Iraq’s ancient history, they were smashing their own ancient history.

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Vintage Treasures: Sheila Gilluly’s Greenbriar Trilogy

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Sheila Gilluly had a brief career as a fantasy writer. She published two trilogies in the late 80s and early 90s, and has produced nothing else for the last 20 years. But I’ve always been curious about her Greenbriar Trilogy — composed of Greenbriar Queen (1988), The Crystal Keep (1988), and Ritnym’s Daughter (1989) — mostly because of the beautiful covers (click the images above for bigger versions). I’ve tried to identify the artist, but the art is uncredited in my copies, and so far an internet search has been fruitless.

Greenbriar Queen opens in a pretty dark place, with the Dark Lord’s reign about to begin, the heroes scattered, the king dead, and a traitor on the throne. If you like high stakes and desperate battles, The Greenbriar Trilogy might be for you.

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Clarkesworld 102 Now on Sale

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

The latest issue of Clarkesworld, one of the most acclaimed fiction mags on the market, went on sale last week. Issue 102 contains seven short stories:

Slowly Builds An Empire, by Naim Kabir
Cassandra by Ken Liu
The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild (Part 2) by Catherynne M. Valente
All Original Brightness by Mike Buckley
Coming of the Light by Chen Qiufan
The Clear Blue Seas of Luna by Gregory Benford
The Book Seller by Lavie Tidhar

Non-fiction includes “Dark Angels: Insects in the Films of Guillermo del Toro,” by Orrin Grey, “Another Word: A Shed of One’s Own,” by Chuck Wendig, interviews with Randy Henderson and Silvia Morena-Garcia, and Chen Qiufan, and an editorial, “Reader’s Poll Winners, Nebulas, and Forever,” by Neil Clarke. This issue’s podcast is “Slowly Builds An Empire,” by Naim Kabir, read by Kate Baker.

Clarkesworld is a three-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine. In 2013 Clarkesworld received more Hugo nominations for short fiction than all the leading print magazines (Asimov’s, Analog, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) combined, and last November the magazine was awarded a World Fantasy Award.

We last covered Clarkesworld with Issue 101. Clarkesworld 102 was edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, and published by Wyrm Publishing. The contents are available for free online; individual issues can be purchased for $3.99, and monthly subscriptions are $2.99/month. A 6-month sub is $17.94, and the annual price is $35.88. Learn more and order individual issues at the magazine’s website.

This issue’s cover, “Keter,” is by Peter Mohrbacher. See the complete issue here.

See all of our recent magazine coverage here.

Representations of the Amazon in Poul Anderson’s Virgin Planet and in DC’s Wonder Woman

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 Gabe Dybing Comments 8 comments

But first, I’d like to ask readers a very important question:

Do Tolkien’s Elves have pointy ears?

This came up after my last post, in which I wondered why Anderson and Tolkien (and many other fantasy writers) agree that elves are tall and have pointy ears. After reading this, Frederic S. Durbin contacted me to say,

Does Tolkien ever say that the elves have pointed ears? To my knowledge, he never does. Please correct me if I’m wrong! This is a bone I had to pick a few years back, when some writer somewhere described hobbits as having “hairy toes and pointed ears.” I think this misconception about Tolkien’s elves and hobbits has come from artwork. Artists need to have a way of making magical races look different from humans, so they go for the ears. We need Spock to look different from humans in a cheap and easily-reproducible way from day to day in the studio, so we give him pointed ears. People have been seeing illustrations of pointy-eared elves and hobbits for so long that they’ve begun to believe Tolkien described them that way. I don’t think it’s true. (Again, I’m willing to stand corrected if someone shows me a passage!)

So there you have it, folks! Please help! Is there a passage anywhere in Tolkien’s writings that suggest that Elves (or even Hobbits) have pointy ears?

And now let’s turn our attention to Poul Anderson’s Virgin Planet.

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Get in the Dungeon with Munchkin #1

Tuesday, March 10, 2015 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Earlier this year Boom! Box comics, publishers of Lumberjanes and Mouse Guard, released Munchkin #1, the first issue of a new ongoing series based on Munchkin.

What the heck is Munchkin, you ask?

Munchkin is one of the most popular fantasy games on the market. Designed by Steve Jackson (creator of Ogre, Melee, and Car Wars), it’s a card game that pokes fun at role playing, and especially gamers who play to win at any cost. In his review last year, Bob Byrne called it “the funnest (Most fun? More fun than any other?) game I play.” Since its release in 2001 Munchkin has become a true phenomenon, winning the 2001 Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game, and accounting for more than 70% Steve Jackson Games sales for much of the past decade. It has been followed by dozens and dozens of expansions, accessories, and spinoffs, including Munchkin Quest, Star Munchkin, Super Munchkin, Munchkin Cthulhu, The Good, The Bad, And The Munchkin, and Munchkin Conan.

As you’d probably expect if you’ve played the game, the comic adaption is clever, highly irreverent, chaotic, frequently very silly, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. The art is universally excellent, and the scripts… well, the scripts are downright goofy. I expected a character-based narrative, something akin to the excellent Skullkickers, but what I got was closer to Bongo’s Simpson comics — an anthology that goes for strictly laughs, rather than attempting to tell any kind of cohesive story.

There are four tales within: “What is a Munckin?”, a 3-page introductory strip which gets the concept across pretty well; “Humans Got No Class,” in which a wizard, dwarf and ranger deep in a dungeon attempt to figure out what a long-haired slacker is doing in their midst; “Ready for Anything,” in which an experienced Munchkin shows a newbie the ropes (with predictable results), and a 1-page gag by John Kovalic. The humor is a little uneven, but fortunately you don’t have to have played the game to appreciate most of it. I definitely look forward to future issues.

Munchkin #1 was written by Tom Siddell, Jim Zub, and John Kovalic, and illustrated by Mike Holmes, Rian Sygh, and John Kovalic. It was published by Boom! Box comics in January 2015. It is 24 pages, priced at $3.99; each issue contains a unique card usable in the game. The cover is by Ian McGinty. For more details, see the Boom! Box website. Check out all our recent comic coverage here.

Robert Silverberg on the First Year of Galaxy Science Fiction

Tuesday, March 10, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Galaxy magazine was founded in 1950; its legendary first editor was H.L. Gold. At the time Astounding Science Fiction, under John W. Campbell, was the leading SF magazine, publishing such writers as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak, and H. Beam Piper. Within a single year, Gold wrestled the mantle of leadership away from Campbell, making Galaxy the top magazine in the industry. In his first two years Gold published some of the most memorable SF of the century, including Ray Bradbury’s “The Fireman” (later expanded as Fahrenheit 451), Robert A. Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, and Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man.

Author Robert Silverberg (who credits the first issue of Galaxy with saving him from becoming a smoker) offers his own comments on the effect Galaxy had on the field, saying:

It is impossible to overestimate the impact that Galaxy had on us in its first twelve or fifteen issues. There had never been such a succession of brilliant stories in an s-f magazine, not even in the Campbell Astounding of 1941, which had plenty of future classics but also a high percentage of pulp filler.

That first year of Galaxy left us all gasping, and I still look at those early issues with reverence and awe. It was as if Campbell’s whole stable had been holding in its best work, which Gold now was able to set free. Alas, by 1954 much of the magic was gone, and from 1955 on Galaxy was a good magazine indeed but no longer, well, astounding.

Rich Horton has been reviewing individual issues of Galaxy (and other vintage science fiction digest magazines) for us for the past few years. And Matthew Wuertz has taken on the ambitious project of reading and reviewing the Gold issues of Galaxy for Black Gate, starting with issue 1, dated October, 1950. His most recent review was the July 1952 issue, containing stories by John Wyndham and Richard Matheson, and the second installment of Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth’s serial novel The Space Merchants.