A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hardboiled Fantasy – Garrett, PI

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hardboiled Fantasy – Garrett, PI

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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)

The extremely talented Glen Cook is best known for his excellent dark fantasy series about a mercenary group, The Black Company. In 2018, Fletcher Vredenburgh wrote a FOURTEEN-part deep dive into the series. If I ever write anything even half as impressive here at Black Gate, I’m going to ask them to actually pay me. I love The Black Company series, and cannot recommend it enough.

Cook has written several other fantasy and sci-fi series’ – none of which I have read. They are all well-regarded. But the other one I have read from start to finish – more than once – is his Garrett, PI series. I think that every Writer (or in my instance, lower case ‘w’ writer) has that ONE series they wish they had come up with and written. For me, it’s the Garrett books.

They are light years away in tone and style of The Black Company. And also from what I understand of The Dream Empire and The Instrumentalties of the Night series.’ However, they are identical to the Black Company in regards to quality of writing. Garrett is the ore-eminent fantasy PI (private investigator).

Cook has written a series of books that appeals to fans of the hardboiled PI, notably practiced by Raymond Chandler; fans of the humorous fantasy world best typified by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and to those who have read Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries. The fact that Cook has masterfully combined all three of these elements is admirable in the extreme. And the reason I wish I had come up with something like this.

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Vintage Treasures: New Arrivals, Old Encounters by Brian Aldiss

Vintage Treasures: New Arrivals, Old Encounters by Brian Aldiss

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New Arrivals, Old Encounters (Triad/Granada, August 1983). Cover by Tim White

New Arrivals, Old Encounters was Brian Aldiss’s 17th collection, an incredible accomplishment no matter how you slice it. It contains ten stories published between 1966-78, plus two originals.

The book is crammed full of classic Aldiss, including spacefarers who return after a century to find a radically transformed Earth, a society that worships computers, the Tahiti underworld, dream research, the future of human evolution, and missionary clones on a distant planet. There’s adventure, thoughtful speculation, dark comedy, and bleak satire all wrapped up in a tight package, as only Aldiss could do it.

Thomas M. Wagner wrote a detailed (and highly enthusiastic) review 25 years ago for SF Reviews; discussing each of the tales. Here’s the highlights.

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Haunted Trains and the Rock-and-Roll Afterlife: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Haunted Trains and the Rock-and-Roll Afterlife: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X (DAW, August 1982). Cover by Michael Whelan

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X was the tenth volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, copyrighted and printed in 1982. A whole decade for this anthology thus far! This was the third volume edited by horror author and editor Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). Michael Whelan’s (1950–) artwork appears for an eighth time in a row on the cover. This is one of his eeriest and best yet. The same cover would later appear on the 1989 omnibus Horrorstory: Volume Five, a collection of volumes XIII-XV of this series from Underwood Miller.

Of the eighteen different authors in The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X, all but two were male, with one story cowritten by a male/female team. (G. W. Perriwils is the pen name for Georgette Perry & William J. Wilson.) Eleven were American, the other seven were British. Of the fifteen stories included seven were from professional magazines, four from books, three from fanzines or booklets, and one was original to this anthology, though was to appear shortly afterward in another periodical.

I enjoyed the first volumes in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories edited by Richard Davis (Series I–III) and Gerald Page (Series IV–VII). I would not say that these editors were “stale,” but Wagner does seem to bring a fresher vitality. I think this is due primarily to his introductions, which operate more as “state of horror field” yearly addresses, and his short bios before each story. I’m sure all good editors put forth their best efforts, but Wagner’s passion, I think, really shows itself in these volumes.

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Future Treasures: The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley

Future Treasures: The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley

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The Wraithbone Phoenix (Black Library, August 30, 2022). Cover uncredited.

Black Library’s new Warhammer Crime imprint has caught my eye recently. I heartily enjoy their Warhammer 40K novels — and we’ve covered them at Black Gate fairly extensively over the past 20 years — but there’s only so much bleak far future military SF you can include in your regular diet.

Or is there? In the last two years Black Library has branched out with new Warhammer Horror and Warhammer Crime imprints, which re-focus the galaxy-spanning genocidal conflicts of the Warhammer 40K era into far more personal tales of urban crime and supernatural intrigue, and they have reinvigorated my interest in the rich and consequential milieu. Some of the most exciting and well-crafted far-future SF of the past few decades has been published under the 40K banner, and I’m excited to see that tradition carry on with a new generation of talent.

The latest release to pique my interest is The Wraithbone Phoenix by Alec Worley, which arrives in trade paperback and audio formats next Tuesday. It’s the second tale featuring Baggit and Clodde, a fast-talking ratling and his ogryn pal, following the popular audio title Dredge Runners.

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Goth Chick News Interviews: Stephen Tramontana, Writer/Director of Killer Piñata and Bride of the Killer Piñata

Goth Chick News Interviews: Stephen Tramontana, Writer/Director of Killer Piñata and Bride of the Killer Piñata

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As someone who loves indie film makers, I’ve sat through a lot of independent films. And though I admire the tenacious, passionate and fearless way all of these artists approach their craft, the outcomes, as you would expect, display varying degrees of talent. The films which stood out in some way, at least to me, I have shared with you here. But honestly, most of the time because I can’t honestly say something nice, I just don’t say anything.

So, when a friend excitedly told me her nephew had starred in an indie horror film and that it would be a perfect topic for GCN, I received the news with some trepidation. I mean, if the movie was good, no issues; but if it wasn’t…?

When I was presented with Killer Piñata, the name alone seemed promising. Clearly this was going to be humorous horror that didn’t take itself seriously. What I discovered was an absurdly funny, low-tech story that put me in the mind of Second City TV’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater; totally entertaining in an “omg I can’t believe they actually did that,” kind of way. When I then discovered a sequel, Bride of Killer Piñata, was in the works, it was time to track down the person from whose mind this all came.

Enter writer, director and producer Stephen Tramontana. As I have so many questions, let’s jump right in…

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Random Reviews: “Blink” by Thomas Seay

Random Reviews: “Blink” by Thomas Seay

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Cover by Donato Giancola
Cover by Donato Giancola

One of the great mysteries of life, or rather death, is what happens after we die. It has proven a constant fodder for authors to explore in short stories and novels. Often this exploration takes the form of some aspect of mundane life in order to provide a relatable experience to something that is completely unknowable.

In Thomas Seay’s “Blink,” which appeared in the April 2003 issue of Realms of Fantasy, the afterlife is a trainride through a dreamlike nightmare populated by various aspects of a person’s younger life. In this case, Gary finds himself aboard the train, wanting only to be reunited with his wife and daughter. Instead, he finds the clique he belonged to in college, who clearly viewed him as more of a hanger-on than a member of their group.

Gary’s ride includes brief encounters with a shape changing being who may well be God, who provides cryptic answers to Gary’s questions, but at the same time appears to be helping him to acclimatize to his afterlife.

While there are some versions of the afterlife which are appealing and others which are not, Seay’s afterlife seems like an unpleasant purgatory: an interminable train ride in which the illusions Gary built up to help him cope with the reality of life are carefully stripped away. Even as the truth is revealed to him, Gary retreats into a different fantasy world, denying the occurrence of his death and focusing on seeing his wife and daughter again.

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Making Weird Fiction Fun: Grilling Dorgo the Dowser!

Making Weird Fiction Fun: Grilling Dorgo the Dowser!

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We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction.” Usually we corner an author and query them about their muses and ways to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C Hocking. (See the full list at the end of this post).

I’m excited to corner Joe Bonadonna this round. When his Dorgo character grilled/interviewed me in 2017, the questioning began with:

Who the Hell are You?

JB: Who in the Nine Circles of Hell do you think I am? Quasimodo? Doctor Frankenstein? You mean you don’t know who I am? Have you never heard of me? Why, I’m famous the world over! Joe Bonadonna, I am. (I could never settle on a pen name, so I stuck with the name I was given at birth.)

[Aside by SE: To clarify, he often writes about Quasimodo and Dr. Frankenstein for Janet E. Morris’s Heroes in Hell series (Perseid Press). Here’s Joe Bonadona’s official Bio.]

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A Must-Buy For Any Howard Fan: Robert E. Howard Changed My Life edited by Jason M. Waltz

A Must-Buy For Any Howard Fan: Robert E. Howard Changed My Life edited by Jason M. Waltz

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Robert E. Howard Changed My Life (Rogue Blades Foundation, June 9, 2021). Cover by Didier Normand

Many of us “older folk” (I’m using that term very broadly) can attest to some experience in their early years — usually somewhere around 13-years old — where some individual, some book or books, some movie, some band or something similar made a huge impact upon our lives, an impact with a positive and profound, lasting influence.

For me, it was probably getting my first basic box set of Dungeons & Dragons (with the Erol Otus cover) for Christmas in 1981. I was only 12 at the time. Thereafter I immediately began to beg for, or scrap together any money I could to buy, any D&D books that I could get my hands on. And probably the most influential D&D book I got shortly thereabout was the hardback Deities & Demigods (again with an Erol Otus cover). This book had chapters on a host of traditional mythologies, each with its own heroes, gods and monsters — provided with D&D stats of course! But Deities & Demigods also contained other “mythologies” that were rooted in the books of authors like Michael Moorcock, H. P. Lovecraft and Fritz Leiber. This opened up a whole literary world for me that, I can fairly say, changed my life in integral ways.

Perhaps you’re old enough to relate to something similar happening to you. Evidently many can claim that the books of Texas writer Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) had such an impact. Rogue Blades Entertainment’s new book Robert E. Howard Changed My Life: Personal Essays about an Extraordinary Legacy gives a whole litany of testimonies to such. How did this interesting book come about?

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: David Dodge

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: David Dodge

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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)

I have discovered several writers I like, such as Day Keene, Pete Hamill, and Richard Powell, through the Hard Case Crime imprint. Another writer they reissued is David Dodge. Dodge wrote To Catch a Thief, which Alfred Hitchcock masterfully turned into a taut thriller film.

Two years earlier, Dodge’s Plunder of the Sun, an adventure novel starring Al Colby, was filmed with Glenn Ford. That script was written by hardboiled writer Jonathan Latimer. He wrote some fine movies in the genre, including The Glass Key, Nocturne, The Big Clock, and The Night has a Thousand Eyes.

Accountant Whit Whitney was Dodge’s first character. Dodge was a certified public accountant, and he wrote four hardboiled PI-like novels featuring him. He wrote the first when he bet his wife he could write a better mystery novel than the one she was currently reading.

He served in the Navy during the war, and he explored Latin America with his family after getting out. This led to the creation of Al Colby. Plunder of the Sun (you can listen to a radio play of it here) was Colby’s second book (of three). He is an American private eye, living in Mexico City.

The Long Escape – originally a Dell Mapback, and now available as an affordable ebook – is his first, and Colby is about to take a weekend trip when he gets a letter from an LA lawyer named Adams. Robert R. Parker had done a runner on his shrew of a wife; who is Adams’ client. In order for her to sell some property, she needs him to either agree to it, or be definitely dead.

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Alexei Panshin, August 14, 1940 — August 21, 2022

Alexei Panshin, August 14, 1940 — August 21, 2022

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The Anthony Villiers by Alexei Panshin: Star Well, The Thurb Revolution,
and Masque World (Ace Books, 1968-1969). Covers by Kelly Freas

Alexei Panshin has died. He was one of the first SF critics I read — I read both Heinlein in Dimension and SF in Dimension as a teen. At the time I took his words as Gospel — in times since I have learned to question a lot of what he said, but what he said was well considered and an advance in understanding science fiction.

He was also a novelist of considerable ability. I don’t like his Nebula winner Rite of Passage as much as many, in part for the petty reason that I felt its Nebula undeserved in the presence of novels like the Hugo winner Stand on Zanzibar, Joanna Russ’ Picnic on Paradise, and above all one of my favorite novels ever, Samuel R. Delany’s Nova. But as I said that’s petty — Rite of Passage is an accomplished and enjoyable novel, a triumph as a first novel; and if I would argue with it that’s OK — I think it was arguing with itself (something I failed to perceive when reading it as a young teen.)

But for me his prime achievement is the three novels about Anthony Villiers: Star Well, The Thurb Revolution, and Masque World. These are not perhaps deathless fictional masterpieces, but they are supremely entertaining.

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