Roger Zelazny’s Jack of Shadows: Amber-Lite is Still Awesome

Roger Zelazny’s Jack of Shadows: Amber-Lite is Still Awesome

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Jack of Shadows (Signet, August 1972). Cover by Bob Pepper

A decade ago this summer, Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny was reissued in print, after many years languishing in obscurity even among the author’s most devoted fans. The novel is vintage Zelazny. For many who just read those words, that will be enough. They can stop reading now and go and buy a copy and enjoy — even if, like me, they read it before, quite a while ago, in an earlier release from a different publisher. You guys, go have fun. We’ll chat later. The rest of you, continue on with me to the next paragraph, if you would.

If you’re still with me here, then two things must be true: One, you are intrigued enough to want to know more — and I applaud you for it! — but two, simply saying “a classic Zelazny book is back in print” is not enough to send you racing to the bookstore. You demand more. Very well.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Marvel Goes Noir. And NAILS It!!!

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Marvel Goes Noir. And NAILS It!!!

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“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.”
– Raymond Chandler

Spider-Noir is the best thing to happen to Marvel streaming since…well, Daredevil: Born Again. So yeah, not that long ago. I’ve only watched the first three – of eight – episodes so far. Because this is too good to binge. It should be savored. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but I LOVE that it’s an homage to hardboiled Pulp and Noir. Which you might know I blog about once in awhile…

No spoilers here (if I can help it). I just wanna talk about the Noir vibe a bit. I’ll do a full blown post after I watch it all (and when some spoilers will be okay). These folks absolutely know their source material. And I’m talking about Pulp, not Marvel.

A little Spider-Man Noir history first. The character appeared in a short comic book run in 2009, which I had certainly never heard of. But I’m not a comic book guy.

Then, back in 2018, the first of the animated Spider-Verse movies came out, with Miles Morales as the main Spider-Man. In the same scene with Spider-Ham (he still cracks me up), Peter and Miles meet a Nicholas Cage-voiced Spider-Man Noir. He has a few scenes after that.

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Kane and the Dark Fantasy of Karl Edward Wagner

Kane and the Dark Fantasy of Karl Edward Wagner

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Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane paperback editions

Karl Edward Wagner (1945 – 1994) is one writer I make a concerted effort to collect. I think I have almost his entire output, which is — unfortunately—not extensive. The man was a genius and I wish it was more. I met him briefly at a conference and corresponded with him some. He was only 48 when he died and that’s way too young.

The first work I found by Wagner (KEW) were his Sword & Sorcery stories of Kane, sometimes called “The Mystic Swordsman.” In my opinion, Kane is the most outstanding character creation in heroic fantasy, for he is Cain of the Bible, of Cain and Abel fame, although in later years Wagner seemed to be reinventing the character.

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Remembering Gerry Conway

Remembering Gerry Conway

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A few of the many comics Gerry Conway wrote for Marvel over his long career: Amazing Spider-Man #129, first appearance of the Punisher, illustrated by Ross Andru, October 30, 1973; Tomb of Dracula #1, illustrated by Gene Colan, November 16, 1971; and Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #1, illustrated by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito, September 28, 1976. Cover art: Gil Kane & John Romita, Neal Adams & Sam Rosen; Sal Buscema

Having ‘come into’ comics as a child in the very early 80s, the Bronze Age of Marvel was probably the genre-defining era for me.

And given my dual penchant for Spider-Man and The X-Men, that meant that the two most defining voices of the Bronze Age were Gerry Conway and Chris Claremont.

I grew up reading a lot of Gerry’s writing some 8-10 years after he originally wrote it and I always found it more centered and engaging than most of what was on the newsstands in the mid-late 80s. He had an amazing sense of earnestness when it came to depicting the inner workings of his characters and his voice was seminal in the fragile humanization of many superheroes that went hand in hand with the decade of the Bronze Age.

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Forgotten Authors: Rog Phillips

Forgotten Authors: Rog Phillips

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Rog Phillips

Roger Phillip Graham was born in Spokane, Washington on February 20, 1909 to John Alfred Graham and Abbie Susan (née McCalmont). His family moved often, spending time in Oklahoma, among other places. He returned to Spokane to attend Gonzaga College, from which he graduated in 1931 and did some graduate work at the University of Washington. Most of his sf work appeared under the name Rog Phillips.

During the pre-war years, Phillips held a variety of jobs, including working as a farm worker,  plumber, construction worker, and carpenter. During World War II, he worked as a power plant engineer and a shipyard welder.

Graham married Eleanor Cora Smith on October 8, 1938 in Spokane, although they were divorced by 1950, when he married sf fan and author Mari Wolf. They divorced in 1955 and the following year, he married another fan, Honey Wood, to whom he remained married until his death. Wood and Phillip were members of the Outlanders, a subset of LASFS fans who lived just outside Los Angeles.

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Courtship Customs: Marrying Mr. Darcy by Erika Svanoe and Erik Evensen

Courtship Customs: Marrying Mr. Darcy by Erika Svanoe and Erik Evensen

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Marrying Mr. Darcy, designed by Erika Svanoe, art by Erik Evensen (Erika Svanoe Games, 2013)

One of my local gaming friends told me about Marrying Mr. Darcy, and brought his copy to a recent session, where we played it. I thought it was a lot of fun and have acquired a copy.

This is a game based on Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice. I think it could be played without having read that book, by anyone who has some familiarity with the courtship customs of the past. On the other hand, such players will miss some of the jokes that add to the pleasure of the game.

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Tales of Fantasy Rome: The Eternal City, edited by David Drake, Martin Greenberg, and Charles Waugh

Tales of Fantasy Rome: The Eternal City, edited by David Drake, Martin Greenberg, and Charles Waugh

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The Eternal City, edited by David Drake, Martin Greenberg, and Charles
G. Waugh (Baen Books, January 1990). Cover by John Rheaume

The main reason I bought this collection was for the Howard story, “Kings of the Night.” This was back when I was striving to be a Howard completist. All in all, an entertaining collection.

It was published by Baen in 1990, and Drake did a pretty good job of selecting the stories. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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The Horrifying Draw of Subnautica

The Horrifying Draw of Subnautica

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Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

Now that I’ve finished my play-thorugh of Far Cry 6, I have started playing a new game on my Friday night live streams. It is a survival exploration game that I am assured also has a story element (my livestreams are narrative games, largely). It is both fascinating and absolutely horrifying. I am, of course, talking about Subnautica. With the third game in the series out now in early access (oddly called Subnautica 2, even though the second game in the series was Subnautica: Below Zero), I figured I should take a stab at the original game. I knew precious little about it, save that it was a science fiction survival and exploration game, and that there was a thing in it called a reaper levaithan.

Now, I’m not very far into the game, so I haven’t experienced any of the promised story, save for the introduction, but I am already obsessed. Let’s talk about it!

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Elliot Gould’s Better Philip Marlowe

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Elliot Gould’s Better Philip Marlowe

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“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

Back in the Summer of 2020, A (Black) Gat in the Hand looked at some screen and radio productions for Raymond Chandler’s private eye, Philip Marlowe. Two months before, I had done a separate post on Powers Boothe’s terrific series for HBO. That series was really the impetus to move me from not liking Raymond Chandler, to being a fan.

There was a second thing which brought me all the way in to being a Chandler guy. Now, I cannot abide Elliott Gould’s The Long Goodbye. My attempts to ‘try again’ inevitably lead to me quitting the re-watch. I don’t like my Marlowe in 1973, and it’s my least favorite Marlowe on screen.

However, as with Powers Boothe, I wouldn’t be a fan of Raymond Chandler if not for Gould. He recorded all the Marlowe novels, as well as several of Chandler’s non-Marlowe short stories, as audiobooks. This was way back in cassette days, and I was smart enough to pick up several of the CDs, even though I wasn’t into Chandler then.

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Saved by the Panther: Jonathan Maberry on storytelling, books, and how the Black Panther changed his life, Part 1

Saved by the Panther: Jonathan Maberry on storytelling, books, and how the Black Panther changed his life, Part 1

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Jonathan Maberry

Since the publication of his first novel Ghost Road Blues, Jonathan Maberry has been a mainstay in genre fiction circles. Whether its for one of his multiple series, comic book writing, or the numerous anthologies he’s edited over the years, audiences have come to know and love his work.

With the completion of his 57th novel right around the corner, Maberry is still going strong. The five-time Stoker Award winner joined me for a chat about the past, present, and future. From his childhood in the rough Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia to being editor of Weird Tales, here’s what Maberry had to share with Black Gate magazine in an interview so big we had to split it in two.

You’ve been writing and editing for decades, how has the industry changed since you made your fiction debut?

My first novel came out in 2006 which is just around the time that digital was rising, so a couple years from then on we saw the end of CDs and cassettes for audio books and the rise of digital downloads.

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