Sorry the blog’s been quiet! Not because nothing’s been going on… just that it’s been going on in other forums. One day I’ll get around to updating the bibliography and other pages, but in the meantime they’re like a peek back. Hard to believe the first posts are nearly 10 years old, moved here when I switched to WordPress all the way back in 2008!
RSS supporting our friends at Black Gate- Future Treasures: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham JonesCover designed by Ella Laytham Stephen Graham Jones is the author of the World Fantasy Award nominee Mapping the Interior, The Last Final Girl, Mongrels, and the acclaimed collection After the People Lights Have Gone Off. His latest novel, The Only Good Indians, arrives from Saga Press in two weeks. Paul Tremblay calls it “A […]
- Goth Chick News: A Plea for Classic HorrorBlack Gate photographer Chris Z and I have the pleasure of meeting horror enthusiasts year-round at the various events and trade shows we attend. Though this year is definitely different is some regards, it thankfully has not interrupted the connections we continue to make in this fascinating industry. I had the pleasure of meeting Scott […]
- Humanity Uplifted: Poul Anderson’s Brain WaveBrain Wave by Poul Anderson; First Edition: Ballantine Books, 1954 Cover art by Richard Powers Brain Wave by Poul Anderson Ballantine Books (164 pages, $0.35, paperback, June 1954) Cover by Richard Powers Poul Anderson was a prolific writer of both science fiction and fantasy from the late 1940s to his death in 2001. He was […]
- Space Opera and Romance in Equal Measure: The Consortium Rebellion Trilogy by Jessie MihalikAuthors love to blend genres these days, and I’m heartily glad to see it. Thus you get the Horror Comedy, the Science Fiction Police Procedural, the Weird Western (my favorite!) and many other tasty fiction concoctions. Of course, some are harder to craft than others. I think the trickiest may be the science fiction romance, […]
- The Stakes Have Never Been More Reasonable: A Quiet Afternoon, edited by Liane Tsui and Grace SeyboldI don’t think of science fiction as a predictable genre. It’s filled with widely varying ideas, settings, characters, and plots, and produced by a hugely diverse group of writers all over the planet. But in at least one way, SF does tend to be predictable: it’s a genre of high-stakes drama. It concerns itself with […]
- New Treasures: Corporate Gunslinger by Doug EngstromCorporate Gunslinger by Doug Engstrom (Harper Voyager, June 2020). Cover design by Yeon Kim Doug Engstrom definitely has one of the more original debuts of the month with Corporate Gunslinger, a new-future adventure tale in which…. well, maybe it’s best if we jump right to the Publishers Weekly review. Engstrom’s promising debut offers a stark, […]
- Inherent Evil is LazyImage by socialneuron from Pixabay Surely it cannot be controversial to say that the idea of inherent evil is just terribly lazy writing, right? The broad strokes and decidedly absent nuance that the idea of inherent evil necessitates is just that – broad and without nuance. No one has to think too hard about it. Why […]
- Vintage Treasures: Crossroads in Time edited by Groff ConklinCrossroads in Time (Permabooks, 1953). Cover by Richard Powers Modern science fiction is top notch, and I’d hold today’s best writers — John Scalzi, N.K. Jemisin, Mary Robinette Kowal, Martha Wells, Nnedi Okorafor — up against the greats of yesterday without hesitation. If I were to be stranded on a desert island (or, more likely, locked in my basement […] […]
- A (Black) Gat in the Hand: All Through the Night (Bogart)“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) Today it’s a look at All Through the Night – […]
- Who is Daemon Grim? Hell Gate by Andrew P. WestonCover by Roy Mauritsen Back in the Underworld with Andrew P. Weston’s Hell Gate. Published by Perseid Press. Copyright © 2019 by Janet Morris and Andrew P. Weston. 523 pages. Cover art and design by Roy Mauritsen Hell Gate is Weston’s third novel set in Janet Morris’ Heroes in Hell ™ universe, the first two being […]
- Future Treasures: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
