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Summary: Black Gate, 2004
Black Gate published one issue in this its fourth year of publication -- its seventh issue. It remains a beautiful thick magazine, with a strong and successful focus on adventure fantasy. (A focus that is met in spirit all the time, but loose enough to allow the occasional SF piece.) This issue, Fall 2004, included 6 stories for a total of about 91000 words. One was a reprint novelette from 1941, Charles R. Tanner's "Tumithak of the Towers of Fire". The new stories include 1 long novella, 3 substantial novelettes, and a short story, totaling about 76000 words. (Average novella: 32K, average novelette: 12800 words, average short story: 6000 words.)
Ob-disclosure -- I had an article, on the wonderful old pulp Planet Stories, in this issue, and I hope to have further articles in future issues.
The novella is Todd McAulty's "Amnesty". McAulty is Black Gate's great discovery -- his only published stories have appeared there, and they've all been long and quite fun. This story is still quite fun, with lots of nice action and cool ideas, but it didn't fully work. It's set in a version of Hell, called here Tartarus, where pretty much everybody ends up. The main action concerns Kevin Guilder, who has over the centuries assembled a group of friends, and who plans to take his friends to a rumored exit from Tartarus. But first they must destroy a vicious old demon who has long been penned underground. There is a subplot concerning a mathematician who has just entered Tartarus and who is being tortured (mentally) by the archdemon. The main story is good action-oriented fun, with some nice colorful ideas. It could have used another cleanup draft, though -- it's a bit disordered at places. I don't think the subplot was necessary. Clearly this story is the work of a talented writer (as his previous BG works make clear) -- but while still enjoyable reading it could have been better.
The best of the novelettes is actually SF: Mark Sumner's creepy "Leather Doll". On a colony planet, the relatively few humans struggle to scratch out an existence. Meyer is a ranch hand on an isolated ranch. He falls in love, of a sort, with one of his herd -- as it quickly becomes clear, the herd is also of humans. This seems to be a (not terribly believable) solution to a problem of maintaining a limited population on a harsh world. He saves the girl from the slaughterhouse, meanwhile having constant use of her "services" -- but inevitably the authorities find him out. The end is a bit convenient, but still effective. I also quite liked Judith Berman's "The Poison Well", in which a former aristocrat, with magical abilities, comes to a holding to investigate some apparently magical murders. He must overcome his own impatience and prejudices before helping to solve the case -- which leads to a somewhat sad conclusion, based in the dark history of the family concerned. Good stuff. Don Bassingthwaite's "Point of the Knife" is an extract from a forthcoming novel set in the Kingdoms of Kalamar gaming milieu. A hobgoblin half-breed and a human holy warrior are trapped under the Earth in another "plane", among some unusual beings, and they must cooperate to find an escape. It's OK, but it does read a lot like an excerpt (though the main problem posed in this story is solved). Nothing special.
The short story is Holly Phillips's "Luck of the Gods". Onyx is a "trover", who finds ways to isolate the curse on a family caused when a plea for "luck" from a certain god goes bad. She is also the only survivor of a formerly powerful family that itself suffered under such a curse. In this story she must deal with the curse of a particularly powerful god -- which turns out to have personal meaning for her. A nice piece.
