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- Goth Chick News: I Need a ThingAppropriately, 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 […]
- Random Reviews: “Why Do You Think They Call It Middle Earth?” by Susan CasperBecause 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 […]
- Gods, Demons, Monsters & Magic: The Mkalis Cycle by Kerstin HallThe 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 […]
- Future Treasures: The Citadel of Forgotten Myths by Michael MoorcockThe 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, i […]
- A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Norbert Davis’ Max Latin“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 […]
- Vintage Treasures: Faster Than Light edited by Jack Dann and George ZebrowskiFaster 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 bes […]
- Ruined Spaceships, Post-Apocalyptic San Francisco, and the Return of Gil Hamilton: November-December Print SF MagazinesNovember/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 […]
- New Treasures: The Stars Undying by Emery RobinThe Stars Undying (Orbit, November 8, 2022). Cover by Marc Simonetti For all that I rely on social media and online browsing to keep me in-the-know these days, there’s still no substitute for a well-stocked bookstore. Case in point: I visited our local Barnes & Noble in Geneva, Illinois on Saturday, and came away with an armful of discoveries that will k […]
- Random Reviews: “The Perfect Diamond” by Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie TemThe husband and wife team of Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem published the short story “The Perfect Diamond” in the first issue of Fantastic Worlds in 1996. This incarnation of Fantastic Worlds was a fanzine edited by Scott A. Becker, and was unrelated to an earlier fanzine of the same name published in the 1950s by Sam Sackett and Edward W. Ludwig. It isn’ […]
- Cinema of Swords: For the Horde!The Golden Horde (USA, 1951) Huns and Mongols, the mounted hordes who swept out of Central Asia into eastern and central Europe in the Middle Ages, made a lasting impact on the psyche of the folk of the lands they invaded, all the way down the 20th century—as shown by the fact that Allied propaganda during World War I successfully branded their German oppone […]
- Goth Chick News: I Need a Thing
SC Bryce 