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A to Z Reviews: “Know Your Target Audience,” by Dan Mygind
In 2010, Carl-Eddy Skovgaard selected several examples of Danish science fiction to be translated into English. The stories were published in the anthology Sky City and included Dan Mygind’s “Know...
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Beating Heart & Battle Axes – New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine Forges a Book
Beating Hearts & Battle Axes – A Romantic Sword & Sorcery Anthology seeking funding, championed by New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine. Cover Art is by M.E. Morgan New Edge Sword and Sorcery...
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A Year of Demonic Public Service: The Fallible Fiend by L. Sprague de Camp
The Fallible Fiend (Signet/New American Library, February 1973). Cover uncredited This is another in my series of looks at fairly obscure SF from the ’70s and ’80s. In this case, I rescued a book that...
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Remembering Carl Jacobi
Revelations in Black by Carl Jacobi (Jove/HBJ, January 1979). Cover uncredited D.H. Olson delivered this eulogy for Carl Jacobi on Friday, August 29, 1997 at Lakewood Chapel in Minneapolis, Minnesota....
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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hardboiled Manila – Jo Gar
“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...
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Truth, Lies, and Vinyl Wonderland
Vinyl Wonderland (Castle Bridge Media, June 25, 2024). Cover uncredited Some months back, I was toiling away in the vast Indiana compound of Black Gate, when I received a text from publisher John...
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We Are All Time Traveling Together: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
The Ministry of Time (Avid Reader Press, May 7, 2024) Perhaps second only to space travel, science fiction is obsessed with time travel and in particular the paradox that if we go back to the past,...
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Goth Chick News: Lego Jaws? Just Take My Money Now.
The original design submitted by Diving Faces (aka Jonny Campbell) During 2020 when I was looking to fill quite a lot of downtime, I discovered the Lego Ideas website. Though I have never been a Lego...
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A to Z Reviews: “Signs and Symbols,” by Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov originally published “Signs and Symbols” in the New Yorker on May 15, 1948, although the editor, Katharine White, switched the order of the title to “Symbols and Signs.” Nabakov...
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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 4 Anthology Now Available
The Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 4 (June 6, 2024). Cover Art by Karolína Wellartová After gathering the cold fire and the breath of virtuous fish we were finally able to forge mithril and...
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The Scottish Play: Macbeth by William Shakespeare
All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be king hereafter! Macbeth, ACT I, SCENE III Looking back on my second time around here at Black Gate, I saw that each for the first two summers I’d undertaken the...
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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: 7 Upcoming Attractions
“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...
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There’s Nothing to Say
Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I have to admit, I’m a little stuck as to what to share with you today, given the horrendous news cycle. I am struggling to think of...
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Little Madhouse on the Prairie: Wisconsin Death Trip
Like many of you, I own a lot of books. Like perhaps not quite as many of you, I own a lot of very strange books, among them Aleister Crowley’s autobiography, a volume of Criswell’s predictions, a...
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In the tradition of Conan: The Kyrik and Kothar Novels by Gardner F. Fox
The Kyrik novels by Gardner F. Fox (Leisure Books, 1975-1976) I’m getting ready to embark on a series of posts about Philip Jose Farmer, but got distracted looking through my shelves and decided to...
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A to Z Reviews: “Butterflies Like Jewels,” by Eric Nylund
Eric Nylund’s “Butterflies Like Jewels” appeared in Elemental, an charity anthology published to support relief efforts for the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that struck on Boxing Day. The anthology was...
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To Walk on Worlds: Matthew John’s Sword & Sorcery Collection
To Walk on Worlds (Rogues in the House Podcast, 2024, 188pages). Cover art by Mike Hoffman Black Gate highlighted Rogues in the House (RitH) podcast in 2022, and in a few years, that crew rapidly...
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I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie, Part II
Ice Spiders (Syfy Channel, 2007), Tail Sting (Shoreline Entertainment, 2001), and Big Bad Bugs (SuperNova Films, 2012) Ice Spiders (2007, YouTube) Giant bugs? Very large spiders! About the size of a...
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What I’ve Been Listening To: July, 2024
It’s a week off from A (Black) Gat in the Hand, as I am currently reading Pulp, but except for the constant revisiting of Norbert Davis’ Max Latin, I’m not listening to it (though The Continental Op...
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The Great Escapes: James, Kindred, The Reformatory by Percival Everett,...
James (Doubleday, March 19, 2024), Kindred (Doubleday,July 1979), and The Reformatory (S&S/Saga Press, October 31, 2023 Percival Everett’s James is receiving a lot of well-deserved critical...
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