This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world — James Brown One blustery Maine spring day, I blew off class to spend an hour hanging out with a friend in the math department’s student lounge.
Edwin K. Sloat was born on March 1, 1895 in Denmark, Iowa. The attended State Normal College in Edmond, Oklahoma (now University of Central Oklahoma), graduating in 1916. Following his graduation, he worked as a newspaperman, an employee of the post office, and as a band leader during World War I, in which he was a Musician 1st Class Petty Officer.
Learn the lore and allure of Black Gate! Building on our June 2026 coverage of The Legend of Top-Shelf Books Open Mic, the near-mythical, yet true, confluence of many Black Gate contributors and authors, this Dark Muse News post corners Chief Editor John O’Neill to detail the history of the magazine.
David C. Smith also wrote a trilogy of fantasy novels under the collective heading of The Fall of the First World. These were all released in 1983 from Pinnacle Books and are: 1. The Master of Evil, January 1983.
I have previously posted on the excellent juvenile series starring The Three Investigators. Created in 1964 by Robert Arthur Jr., a former pulp author, this series had Jupiter Jones, Peter Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews, all living in California near Hollywood.
Payback: Theatrical Cut and Straight Up (The Director’s Cut) 1999 theatrical release; recut, direct-to-home-video DVD in 2006. Written by Brian Helgeland (with Terry Hayes) and directed by Brian Helgeland (with Paul Abascal).
I have previously posted on the excellent Illustration magazine, published by Illustrated Press. It was published quarterly for several years and then ended with issue No. 84 in 2023. It featured articles on a variety of illustration artists who did advertising art, book and magazine covers, and interior artwork, including some pulp magazine artists.
H. Warner Munn (1903-81) was an author of horror and fantasy works, and a member of the Lovecraft circle of friends. He is probably best known for his early work for Weird Tales. His most well-known works are “Tales of the Werewolf Clan” and his unfinished “Merlin’s Godson” series.
“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.
John Crowley has died, at 83. He was my favorite living writer, and remains one of my favorite writers of all time. He was born in 1942 in Maine, and grew up in Vermont, Kentucky and Indiana. He went to the University of Indiana, then to New York, originally with a goal of working in film, and indeed he has written numerous scripts for documentary films.
The second issue of Weird Tales, on sale from March of 1923 through to April, looked much like the first: a pulp magazine 6 and a half inches by 9 and a half, with 192 pages. The black-white-and-red cover was more striking than the previous issue’s, with the main image contained in a thick red frame, and the date and price more easily visible under the title.
The Year’s Best Horror Stories XVI (DAW Books, October 1988). Cover by J.K. Potter The Year’s Best Horror Stories: XVI was the sixteenth in the lineup and the eighth volume edited by the great Karl Edward Wagner (d.
John T. Phillifent was born in Durham, England on November 10, 1916. As with last week’s entry, Henry J. Kostkos, Phillifent worked as an electrical engineer. Although Phillifent wrote some short fiction and three The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Lord of Light (Avon Books, January 1969). Cover by Ronald Walotsky His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.
This will be one of three postings on U.K. author John S. Glasby (1928-2011). Glasby, surprisingly, had two parallel careers. After graduating from college, he had a long career as a research chemist and mathematician.
Although David Smith’s work in the Robert E. Howard Universe is memorable, his best creations to me are his original stories of Attluma. Attluma is an island continent that evokes the spirit of Atlantis.
Good afterevenmorn Readers! This is going to be a personal post, brought on by the various, incredibly depression discussions around A.I. and artistic creation. As I’m primarily a writer, or, at least, I’m hoping to make a living as a writer.
I picked up A Clue to the Copper: The Complete Cases of Silver Skull by Richard Howells Watkins, published by Steeger Books as part of its Argosy Library series. This volume collects a short, three-story series featuring the adventures of the Silver Skull that ran in Detective Fiction Weekly in 1933.
This updated essay, a comprehensive chronology, and a Q&A which Steve Hockensmith kindly did with me, represent the deepest dive anyone has done on the terrific Holmes on the Range series. It incorporates all the novels and short stories featuring Otto and Gustav Amlingmeyer, as well as the two novels and one short story for the spin-off Double-A Western Detective Agency.
This news, which is called true, is so like an old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Second Gentleman, Act V Scene ii Over the past several years, I’ve written about three of Shakespeare’s plays; The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Macbeth.
This post is the second in a series reflecting on the world of 1923 as a background to early issues of Weird Tales. Imagine that you’re an American in February of 1923, and you’re taking a walk to the newsstand to buy the first issue of a new pulp fiction magazine.
Steel Beach (Ace Books, August 1993). Cover by Todd Cameron Hamilton My hot take for 2026: books are ephemeral. Old news, perhaps, but did any spec-fic writer know this better than John Varley? In 1992’s Steel Beach, he positively revels in his own unimportance while offering blistering, adroit editorials on everything from indolence to anatomy.
This week starts a brief period where these explorations are going to be shorter, for many of these authors have little biographical information available. In the 1972 anthology Clarion II, Damon Knight included an essay entitled “Goodbye, Henry J.
In August 2025, we hailed the emergence of a second Chain Story project championed by Michael A. Stackpole. This is a Sword & Sorcery-focused, contagious set of connected (“chained”) stories. Each is: A standalone tale Readable in any order Free to read! (for at least three months from its posting date) Interconnected via a theme involving a Crown We round up groups every several weeks, but check the Chain Story website for the latest.
In early 2026, Charles F. Millhouse, creator of New Pulp character Captain Stephen Hawklin, came out with a new collection of short stories set in the 1930s: The Classic Adventures of Captain Hawklin, one for each year from 1930 to 1939.
This wasn’t my original plan for this guest post. The day before writing this, I was interviewed for the Functional Nerds podcast. During the interview, cohost Tracy Townsend brought up my recent Uncanny Magazine editorial where I said, “Nobody would call a yearly referendum about whether or not your business should exist a stress-free process.” Tracy wanted to know why I kept doing this if that’s the case.
Parker’s first appearance: The Hunter (Pocket Books, 1962) What is it? Parker begins! He’s angry. He’s determined. He’s out for blood. And he’s got big hands! He’s walking across the George Washington Bridge into New York, scaring motorists who glimpse him out the window as they drive by.
Earlier this year, the revised third edition of Bookery’s Guide to Pulps & Related Magazines by Tim Cottrill came out from Murania Press. The first edition came out in 2005, which was actually an update of The Ultimate Guide to the Pulps from 2001, and the second edition came out in 2020 from Ivy Press […]
I haven’t shared what I’ve been watching, since February. Nothing earth shattering, but I’m sure you occasionally wonder. So… Back in January, I canceled all my subs except for Prime (keeping BritBox within that one).
Weird Tales volume 1 number 1 boasts 26 separate pieces of fiction, one of which is continued in the next issue. As you’d expect from an anthology, some stories are better than others. None reach the heights of the fiction the magazine would publish later.
The Year’s Best Horror Stories XV (DAW Books, October 1987). Cover by Michael Whelan It’s been awhile, but given a nudge from John O’Neill I’m back with the ongoing perusal of DAW’s Year’s Best Horror series.
Well, it’s nearing the end of July 2026, and coming up, we have this year’s PulpFest along with a new issue of The Pulpster, the convention book, now up to #35. This year, it runs 72 pages, many in color.
Harry Stephen Keeler was born in Chicago on November 3, 1890. His father died when he was two and his mother subsequently remarried. After her new husband, who was a gambler, lost Keeler’s mother’s savings and mortgaged the family home that was left to her by Keeler’s father, he killed himself.
The High Crusade (Berkley Books, October 1983). Cover by Tom Kidd The High Crusade is one of the earlier novels in Poul Anderson’s long career: serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in the summer of 1960 (just as it was changing its title to Analog), published in book form that same year, and nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1961, though it lost to A Canticle for Leibowitz.
In addition to his Black Vulmea and Bran Mak Morn stories, David C. Smith collaborated with Richard L. Tierney (1936 –2022) on six novels in a series about Red Sonja. Though often described as Robert E.
So with this posting, I have caught up with the excellent Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective series from Airship 27. This time I go over volumes 19 and 20, which are the most recent volumes. As I don’t know when the next volume will come out, I didn’t want to delay covering these two too long; […]
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! This one is for the writers out there. Also, I’d like to remind all the writers out there that any writing advice should be taken with a large grain of salt, and while the title does make it seem like I’m commanding thee to read non-fiction, you don’t have to.
Finally, after too long, we get the next in the George Chance: The Ghost Archives series from Steeger Books, which reprints the Ghost/Green Ghost series from Thrilling, written by G.T. Fleming-Roberts.
I’m always happy when my Pulp buddy Will Murray writes an A (Black) Gat in the Hand essay. He tackles cool stuff that never even occurs to me. And often which I knew nothing about. Will is the leading authority on Lester Dent’s Travis McGee predecessor (and you KNOW I love me some John D.
The first issue of Weird Tales went on sale in late February of 1923. It was cover-dated March, but that was a sell-by date. The issue would have arrived in stores on or about February 18, roughly a week before the first issue of Time magazine.
There’s nothing I love more than a good murder… but, before you summon the authorities, let me qualify that a bit. I love a fake murder, a fictional murder. I’ll follow Perry Mason, Lieutenant Columbo, and Jessica Fletcher anywhere.
Chauncey Thomas was born in Maxfield, Maine to Prince and Mary (Née Webb) Thomas on May 1, 1822. Both of his parents claimed descent from the early Plymouth Colony settlers. Spending his early life helping out on his father’s farm, he only attended school intermittently and, when he was 15 years old was apprenticed to Whiton & Badger, a chaise carriage maker in Bangor, Maine.
One of the most fun, unique aspects of Goodman Games’ Tales from the Magician’s Skull was the blending of Sword & Sorcery with Dungeon Crawl Classics statistics for the stories. That’s a wonderful recipe that has not been reproduced, despite many super-cool S&S periodicals being available (Dark Moon Quarterly, Battleborn, New Edge S&S, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Savage Realms, Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy, etc.
I consider David C. Smith (1952) a friend. We’ve never met face to face but we’ve corresponded and have spoken on the phone. As with writers such as Karl Edward Wagner and Andy Offutt, I first became aware of David as an author through a connection to Robert E.
Paladins: The Blue Death is a New Pulp team-up novella by Bobby Nash, published by Moonstone Books. It’s available in three editions: a regular paperback, a deluxe paperback with illustrations, and a hardcover with illustrations.
In the first two installments of this series, we looked at the master criminal known as Parker, and at his creator, Richard Stark, the pseudonym Donald E. Westlake used when writing spare and stark but hard-hitting prose.
The Barry Chase series was a short one from Detective Fiction Weekly that ran three stories in 1937 and 1938. It was written by B.B. Fowler (1893-1981), who had several other stories and series in the 1930s and ’40s.
I am in the midst of my annual re-listen to Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee Navajo Tribal Police mysteries. I have yet to tire of those (I do NOT include his daughter Anne’s continuations. Because they’re terrible and I quit reading them.
The first issue of Weird Tales landed on newsstands in late February of 1923. 192 pages long, it measured about 6 inches by 9, a standard size for a pulp fiction magazine. There were two different versions of the cover, perhaps due to a printing error; the illustration’s the same, a man with knife and gun fighting a shadowy tentacled monster which has grabbed a nearby young lady, but the colouring’s different.
It all started because I wanted to draw a kid bowling with corpses Mike Mignola Maybe it was John Fultz who mentioned them on Facebook. He’s always mentioning things that lead me to acquiring more books.
A bit more than 103 years ago, the first issue of Weird Tales reached newsstands across North America. The magazine would be published consistently for over three decades, with the title revived sporadically ever since.
As 2025 ended, I thought about the reading I would do in the new year ahead and decided that in 2026, I would place an emphasis on rereading. In fact, I vowed that I wouldn’t read a new book without first rereading an old one.
Bert Shurtleff was born on August 3, 1897 to Eugene Kassuth Shurtleff and Hattie Elma (née Cook) in Adamsville, Rhode Island. He was the seventh of ten children. When he was fourteen, he left home to try to support himself, returning to school when he was 18 and attending East Greenwich Academy for High School.
Murder Must Advertise (Pocket Books, 1940) Mr. Tallboy’s eyes, roving negligently round, had fallen on Bredon’s index-card… Neatly printed on the card stood one word. DEATH In Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy Sayers takes murder mysteries in another new direction: not, this time, exploring an established subgenre, but hybridizing the mystery genre with what we would now call workplace drama, or sometimes workplace comedy.
The Sowers of the Thunder, a collection by Robert E. Howard (Zebra Books, March 1975, and Ace Books, July 1979). Covers by Jeff Jones and Esteban Maroto A personal rant this morning on the issue of: Purple Prose.
The fifth volume of D.C. Jones and Adventure Command International is out, and it gives us a new foe as the timeline moves into 1977, when the original G.I. Joe toys ended, to be replaced with a new group.
Good afterevenmore, Readers! First, my apologies for getting this to you late, instead of my usual morning post (also, please spare a thought for the editor, whose forbearance is bordering on legendary.
Dr. Skull is a serialized thriller from Lewis Clay that ran in 10 issues of Detective Fiction Weekly from Sept. 17, 1938, through Nov. 11, 1938. It was cover-featured with the first installment, and this cover is used by Steeger Books for this addition to its Argosy Library.
“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.
Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1955. Cover by Ed Emshwiller Who’s ready for another retro-review of Galaxy Science Fiction? (You are!) And here it is — the April, 1955 issue. The intense cover is “Hostile Reception on Aldebaran” by Ed Emshwiller.
It was six years ago. Six years. Do you remember? Do you remember the lockdown summer of 2020? Things may have been easing up by then where you were, but here in California the ball was just getting rolling.
Leah Bodine Drake was born on December 22, 1904 in Chanute, Kansas to Thomas and Cornelia (née Bodine) Drake. Her father worked in the oil industry. Drake was sent to the Oakhurst School for Girls in Cincinnati and later attended Hamilton College, a junior college operated by Transylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky as well as Sayre College in the same city.
In February 2025, Black Gate covered Molly Tanzer’s release of “Jirel Meets Death” (published with permission from Moore’s estate); and in March 2026 Black Gate’s Dark Muse News covered Tanzer’s next story, “Jirel in the Forest of Night.” These were brought to us by Brackenbury Books, the same outfit that champions New Edge Sword & Sorcery magazine.
They slice. They dice. They bash their way through hordes of foes. They are the heroes of fantasy and just below is a list of some of the greatest. Can you pick out the hero on the right who goes with the author on the left? Twelve to fifteen correct means you know your bloodthirsty authors like Conan knows ale.
Author and pulp historian Will Murray has paused his activities as the new Grant Stockbridge to tackle a different pair of pulp characters. In the first “Wild Adventures” of Secret Agent X, we get Secret Agent X vs.
Last time we discussed the character of Parker, Donald E. Westlake’s master thief and heist planner. This time, we’ll look at why we’re talking about Parker at all, here in the hallowed spaces of this fine magazine.
I had recently reviewed Ken Faig Jr.’s collection Lovecraftian People and Places (2022) from Hippocampus Press. In 2025, he came out with a sequel, More Lovecraftian People and Places. For those not aware, Ken Faig Jr.
“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.
The High Crusade (Berkley Medallion, March 1978). Cover artist unknown Two other good novels by Anderson are The High Crusade (SF), a humorous look at 14th Century humans getting loose in the universe with a captured spaceship, and Three Hearts and Three Lions (Fantasy), which follows a modern (1950s) Earthman who is cast onto a parallel Earth where fantasy and magic are real.
If I say “comic book superhero” who do you think of? Superman? Iron Man? Batman? Wonder Woman? Spiderman? Captain Marvel? (The real one please, and don’t give me any of this “Shazam” crap.) Those and many others are all perfectly legitimate choices, of course, only they’re not really heroes — super or otherwise — are they? They’re adolescent daydreams, and no matter how dark or gritty they have gotten in the years since their shiny Golden or Silver Age peaks,...
Read More Read More
George Griffith was born George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones on August 20, 1857 in Plymouth, England to George Alfred Jones and Jeanette Henry Capinster Jones. The family did not have roots to any specific place as his father’s role as a clergyman kept him moving from parish to parish.
I heard her say, faint as the breath of nightflowers under the stars, “The fabled land of Zimiamvia. Is it true, will you think, which poets tell us of that fortunate land: that no mortal foot may tread it, but the blessed souls do inhabit it of the dead that be departed: of them that were great upon earth and did great deeds while they were living, that scorned not earth and the delights and the glories of earth, and...
Read More Read More
The Broken Sword (Ballantine Adult Fantasy #24, January 1971). Cover by George Barr Read Part One and Part Two of this article here at Black Gate. The Broken Sword is arguably the best book Anderson ever wrote, and it was the “first” novel length fantasy he published.
Good afterevenmorn, Readers! I’m here to do something angsty, teenage me would be horrified by – defending “bad” entertainment. You know the ones – bad movies that are just a fun time to sit through, even if the only thing they have going for them is epic fight choreography, pulpy books with lead characters whose names are alliterations, and who rock their way through the pages with naught but their wry grins and cheesy one-liners.
Just prior to the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, we got the annual issue of Blood ‘n’ Thunder: the Blood ‘n’ Thunder 2026 Special Edition, from Ed Hulse’s Murania Press. This is the sixth such annual edition, going back to 2021, but this fanzine goes back 24 years.
“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 1990 was quite the year for hardboiled and Noir on the big screen.
Co-owner of the distinguished British publishing house Tartarus Press, editor, author and music composer RB Russell has collected in one hefty volume most of his short stories. The book includes tales of very different type and content, which have in common one feature: good quality.
When I began reading science fiction in the early 70’s, a handful of writers stood taller than any others, at least judging by the bookshelves at the thrift store around the corner from my middle school, where I spent my lunch money every day on used sf paperbacks.
Roman Frederick Starzl, who wrote as R.F. Starzl was born in Le Mars, Iowa on December 10, 1899 to John V.N. Starzl and Margaret (née Theisen). His grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Austria in 1895, along with their five children, including Starzl’s father. While the family settled in Le Mars, Iowa, John moved to Chicago, where he owned a pharmacy.
Ever hear of the legend of Top Shelf Books? Gene Wolfe did! I first heard about the legendary Top Shelf Books from four people who had frequented that mythical venue. However, they were not together when they mentioned the place, and the interval between tellings was years and across many locations.
The Ace Flandry editions by Poul Anderson: Ensign Flandry, Agent of the Terran Empire, and Flandry of Terra (Ace Books, February 1979, January 1980, July 1979). Covers by Michael Whelan Read Part One of this article here.
I have posted before on William Preston’s series of stories featuring his pastiche/homage to Doc Savage: The Old Man. This series is made up of five short stories that appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction from 2010 to 2024.
This week we kick off an occasional new series of reviews of the Parker crime novels by Richard Stark. If you know Parker, you understand. If you aren’t familiar with him, trust me: You are in for a treat.
Recently, Bold Venture Press put out David Goudsward’s work Adventurous Liberation: H.P. Lovecraft in Florida, which focuses on the several trips of H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) to Florida. I have been looking forward to this work since it was mentioned in L’Affaire Barlow.
“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 I don’t think I’ve done a Ten Things I Think I Think, for A (Black) Gat in the Hand.
As a teenager reading SF and Fantasy, I had two go-to authors whose work never let me down. One was Andre Norton, who I’ve talked about a lot. The other was Poul Anderson (1926-2001), who I’ve barely mentioned so far.
Has any writer of science fiction or fantasy ever had a more fertile imagination than Edgar Rice Burroughs? Anyone acquainted with his work will have no trouble reeling off the names of exotic and outlandish planets, continents, oceans, cities, animals, plants, races, gods, kings, princesses, heroes, and villains, ad infinitum. Perhaps his most fecund setting was the first one he created — Barsoom (or Mars, as it’s even now called by the unenlightened), the site of eleven books written between...
Read More Read More
Thomas L. Sherred was born on August 27, 1915 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He wrote as T.L. Sherred. Sherred had a limited career as a science fiction author, publishing his first short story in 1947 with additional stories appearing in 1953, 1954, and 1972, for a total of six stories, four of which were collected in the 1972 collection First Person, Peculiar.
The Pride of Chanur (DAW Books, January 1982). Cover by Michael Whelan C.J. Cherryh has just lately announced the end of her writing career: For medical reasons, she can no longer manage a writing project.
In a Lonely Place (Warner Books, March 1983). Cover by Barclay Shaw Read Part One of this article, focused chiefly on Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane tales, here. Karl Edward Wagner and I shared certain similarities, which I’m sure meant nothing to him but which do mean something to me.
Paperback Fantastic is a three-book series by Justin Marriott, creator of the fanzine Paperback Fanatic, which came out in 2022. Bill Cunningham of Pulp 2.0 did the covers. Each of the three volumes focuses on paperbacks and comic books tied to the theme, and many of the paperbacks reprint pulp fiction, hence their inclusion here.
Goodafterevenmorn, Readers! I’m still in the world of video games. I’d rather not be. I’m gearing up for a book release right now. I’d much rather be talking about that. But the gaming news is slamming itself into my algorithm at the moment, and I need to talk about it.
At the end of 2025, we got the second collection of the Lady From Hell series: The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon: The Complete Cases of the Lady From Hell, Vol. 2. This series ran 25 stories, all in Detective Fiction Weekly from 1935 to 1936.
“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 I just finished the intro for Volume 4 of Steeger Books’ The Continental Op series.
I write scary thrillers for kids because I have the imagination of a ten-year old. The center of my books is always the childhood of which I seem to have a nearly total recall. John Bellairs It’s perhaps fitting I follow up a years worth of writing about JRR Tolkien with something about John Bellairs‘ young adult stories.
Sue Granquist, Black Gate’s own incomparable Goth Chick, died not quite seven months ago, and the hole she left here is impossible to fill. I don’t know about you, but my Thursdays just haven’t been the same.
Philip Francis Nowlan’s name may not be remembered by many, but he may be the most influential science author I’ll discuss in this series. Born on November 13, 1888 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nowlan earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1910.
Black Gate has covered the inception of Battleborn magazine as it spawned from an August 2025 crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Columnist and author Mark Rigney interviewed the champion and chief editor Sean CW Korsgaard over three segments: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Read Part One of this interview here. Our wide-ranging interview with the legend Jonathan Maberry continues as the award-winning author discusses how Black Panther not only changed his life, but led to one of the most rewarding opportunities any writer could ask for.
In early 2026, we got a double issue of The Bronze Gazette: No. 98/99. Or maybe I should call it a flip issue. The same was done with No. 96/97, which I missed posting on. The Bronze Gazette is the premier Doc Savage fanzine, which was offered as a subscription for these “two” issues.
