Forever An Important Life – Howard Andrew Jones (1968 – 2025)

Forever An Important Life – Howard Andrew Jones (1968 – 2025)

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(As long as Black Gate lets me post here, this will run every year the week of Howard’s passing (January 16), to help keep his flame alive)

A LIFE IS NOT IMPORTANT EXCEPT IN THE IMPACT IT HAS ON OTHER LIVES – Jackie Robinson’s epitaph

Mark Rigney, Howard Andrew Jones, Bob Byrne

I did an interview last week with Jason Waltz for his ’24 in 42′ podcast (Yeah, I know: You just can’t wait to hear that one…).

One of the questions was about my favorite quote/lyric/poem/motivational thought. Some of you who know me probably figure it’s a Bible verse. And there are a couple that are right up there.

But it’s the epitaph on Jackie Robinson’s gravestone, which leads off this post.

My buddy Howard Andrew Jones has passed away from brain cancer. You’re going to see a LOT of people singing his praises in the coming weeks. All of it deserved. If I can stop crying long enough, my Monday morning post will be on Howard.

But you’re gonna see a common thread in the talk about Howard. The impact he had on other people’s lives. Especially in encouraging and helping writers – mostly in the sword and sorcery field.

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The Sword & Planet of Adrian Cole

The Sword & Planet of Adrian Cole

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The Dream Lords trilogy by Adrian Cole (Zebra Books, February 1975 – December 1976). Covers: Thomas Barber, Jack Gaughan, and Thomas Barber

I discovered Adrian Cole (1949 – ) in the late 1970s through his Dream Lords trilogy.

1. Plague of Nightmares (1975)
2. Lord of Nightmares (1975)
3. Bane of Nightmares (1976)

All were from Zebra books, with covers by Tom Barber, Jack Gaughan (maybe), and Tom Barber respectively. Volume 2 was also published with a Tom Barber cover but I don’t have it. I’ve shown it below and wish I owned it because it’s cooler than my version. However, the Barber cover does wrongly list Lord of Nightmares as Volume 3.

I absolutely loved the Dream Lords trilogy. Not only did it have great ideas and a powerful story, but the writing was beautiful and poetic, which I don’t find nearly enough.

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Talking Out of School About Dark Academia: Katabasis by R. F. Kuang and We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad

Talking Out of School About Dark Academia: Katabasis by R. F. Kuang and We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad

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Katabasis by R. F. Kuang (Harper Voyager, August 26, 2025) and We Love You, Bunny by
Mona Awad (S&S/Marysue Rucci Books, September 23, 2025). Covers: Patrick Arrasmith, uncredited

The New York Times traces the inception of the “dark academia” genre to Donna Tart’s The Secret History, a Gothic murder mystery involving Classics students at a liberal arts college. The novel was published in the early 1990s, at about the time an entire generation was getting weaned on Harry Potter and Hogwarts, leading perhaps to an audience primed for settings of shadowy collegiate intrigue.

Perhaps not coincidentally, many dark academia authors hold graduate degrees and professorships at the very elite institutions whose campus culture and academic politics they mock. Which might seem like biting the hand that feeds you. Case in point are two recent novels, Katabasis by R.F. Kuang and We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad.

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Forgotten Authors: George Allan England

Forgotten Authors: George Allan England

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George Allan England

George Allan England was born in Fort McPherson, Nebraska on February 9, 1877. He attended Harvard University, where he earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees. In 1903, he published Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses. His first published science fiction story was “The Time Reflector,” which appeared in the September 1905 issue of The Monthly Story Magazine, edited by Trumbull White.

He published numerous short stories throughout the 1910s, which his novels Darkness and Dawn, Beyond the Great Oblivion, and The Afterglow being serialized in The Cavalier, between 1912 and 1913 and published by Small, Maynard & Company in 1914. These novels, set in 2915, a thousand years after “The Great Death” killed most of the human race during the 1920s. England’s protagonist, Allan Stern and his secretary survived the Great Death in a form of suspended animation, waking up to the new world. …

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A Skillful Handling of a Standard Mystery:Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers

A Skillful Handling of a Standard Mystery:Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers

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Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers (Avon Books, 1948)

Mysteries aren’t my first choice in genre fiction; science fiction and fantasy appeal to me more consistently. Even so, I’ve read a fair number of mysteries, by authors from Dashiell Hammett to P.D. James. (I’ve also enjoyed science fiction and fantasy mysteries such as Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy stories and Lois McMaster Bujold’s Memory.)

But two things happen to me over and over with mysteries: When I read a series by the same author, I lose interest before I’ve read the entire series, and I don’t come back to a series after I’ve put it down. The great exception on both counts is Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey novels. Of course I think that I come back to her because she’s especially good; at any rate her writing is to my personal taste. But my getting through the whole series, I think, has a more specific cause: Mystery writers tend to develop a formula for their novels, and at a certain point the investigations of V.I. Warshawski or Adam Dalgleish go stale for my mental palate; but it seems to me that Sayers, despite recurrent elements in the Wimsey novels, is taking up a different formula with each novel. They may not all be equally good, but they all offer the pleasure of novelty and experiment.

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The Sword & Planet of Roland Green: Blade by “Jeffrey Lord”

The Sword & Planet of Roland Green: Blade by “Jeffrey Lord”

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Jeffrey Lord’s Blade paperbacks, published by Macfadden-Bartell (1971) and Pinnacle Books (June 1973 – March 1976). Covers by Tony Destefano, Tran Mawicke, and others

Jeffrey Lord was a house name used for a series of 37 fantasy/SF novels published between 1969 and 1984. They were billed as an “adult” fantasy series, meaning that they had sex in them. However the sex was pretty mild by today’s standards. The hero is Richard Blade, an agent who works for the British Intelligence service MI6. He’s a combination of James Bond and Conan, although he doesn’t have much of the anti-hero aspects of those characters. He’s pretty much of a white hat guy.

Despite the character and general setting being British, the books were published by Pinnacle Books, an American Publisher, and all written by American authors. The three authors involved were Manning Lee Stokes (1911- 1976), Roland J. Green (1944 – 2021), and Ray Nelson (1931 – 1922). Stokes wrote the first 8 and then Green (apparently) wrote the rest except for #30: Dimension of Horror, by Ray Nelson.

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This is Silly. Book Goals Are Not Personal

This is Silly. Book Goals Are Not Personal

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A tea cup sits atop a stack of artfully placed old books.
Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

How was your winter holidays? I hope you found it gentle and restful and full of the things that make you happy. I spent some time with family, which is always lovely, and more time by myself recovering (the joys of being a massive introvert). It seems that the end of the year was more fraught for others than myself, though.

I’m speaking of the BookTok community. There have been a few ruffled feathers with folks getting angry at other folks for the massive number of books they may (or may not, as one of the accusations proclaim) have read.

If that sounds silly to you, you are not alone. I’ve been watching from the sidelines giggling or rolling my eyes, depending. Let’s get into this nonsense… because sometimes watching train wrecks in slow motion is mildly amusing. And so I am here after another adventure into social media to report on what’s going on over there.

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The Best of Bob: 2025

The Best of Bob: 2025

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Happy 2026! Let’s kick butt for another year. Or at least, limp to the finish in 52 weeks. I really enjoy ‘meeting’ with my friends – and some strangers – here at Black Gate every Monday morning. Keep checking in, and let’s keep the discourse going on things we love. Or at least that catches our eye. Black Gate really is a family. My time writing here has almost been longer than my marriage was!

I continued to evade the Firewall at Black Gate (no, I do not earn a cent a word every time I mention ‘Black Gate.’ like some kind of blogging Pulpster), so I showed up every Monday morning. I had a much harder time conning other folks into writing my column for me – they’re catching on. Drat! So, I had to do my own work this past year.

Here are what I thought were ten of my better efforts in 2025. Hopefully you saw them back when I first posted them. But if not, maybe you’ll check out a few now. Ranking them seemed a bit egotistical, so they’re in chronological order. Let’s go!

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Catching My Breath & Some Things to Recommend

Catching My Breath & Some Things to Recommend

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Blessed are the legend-makers with their  rhyme of things not found within  recorded  time.

from ‘Mythopoeia‘ (1931) by JRR Tolkien

The impetus to write my Tolkien series came from rewatching Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and realizing just how much I dislike them. That realization drove me back to the actual books. Diving once more into Middle-earth inspired me to begin a deeper exploration of Prof. Tolkien’s works, creation, and their influences.

My original motivation, largely of drafting a retort to the films, was quickly supplanted as soon as I picked up The Fellowship of the Ring and once again read that opening line:

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

I found myself immediately being pulled into the great vortex of Tolkien’s art and ideas. As my previous entries into this series describe, my attention was sometimes drawn to different elements that it had been on previous reading and my appreciation for certain things had grown over the years. What I’m not sure I brought up much was how much enjoyment I get from actually reading Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

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My Top Thirty Films, Part 1

My Top Thirty Films, Part 1

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The City of Lost Children

Here’s a New Year’s treat* to distract you from the fact that I haven’t completed a new themed watch-a-thon (it’s coming, eventually).

I’ve had a little think about my favorite films, and what makes them my favorites. As you will see, my choices are on the whole rather fluffy, but these are the films that I return to time and time again for comfort, or as a way to reset my brain. I should be ashamed to admit that there really aren’t many ‘sensible’ films on this list — in the sense that critical classics such as Citizen Kane, Belle de Jour, Black Narcissus, The Seventh Seal, or White Chicks don’t show up — however, the films that make me truly happy are the jolly romps, flights of fancy, or nostalgia-triggers.

I can appreciate, even love, a serious drama, but I won’t return to it time and time again.

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