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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 Signals,” 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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A Patroller for a Vanished Federation: In the Hands of Glory by Phyllis...
In the Hands of Glory (Timescape/Pocket Books, November 1981). Cover by Rowena Morrill Here’s my new look at an SF paperback from the ’70s/’80s. Phyllis Eisenstein’s In the Hands of Glory is a book I...
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Goth Chick News: Let’s Leave the Alien Franchise Alone Now… Please
Alien: Romulus (20th Century Studios, August 16, 2024) To begin, I’d like to review two important facts. First, with the 2019 acquisition of Fox, Disney became the owners of the long-running Alien...
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A to Z Reviews: “Fiat Silva” by Jack Oakley
Jack Oakley published two science fiction short stories in the mid 90s. His debut, “The Tragedy of KL,” appeared in Weird Tales from Shakespeare, edited by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg. His...
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The Space Unicorn Was Caitlin
This blog post wasn’t supposed to be about our late daughter, Caitlin. This was supposed to be a lovely list of awesome things we’ve published in the 10 years of Uncanny Magazine. But right now, and...
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Vintage Treasures: The Doom That Came to Sarnath by H.P. Lovecraft
The Doom That Came to Sarnath (Ballantine Books, November 1976). Cover by Murray Tinkelman H.P. Lovecraft, creator of the Cthulhu Mythos, was one of the greatest horror writers of the 20th Century....
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