My 2023 essays at Black Gate

My 2023 essays at Black Gate

This post links to some of my best (in my opinion) pieces from Black Gate in 2023. In that sense it's sort of a Hugo eligibility post -- I'm eligible in one category, Best Fan Writer, but it's also intended as a summary, and in hopes people are interested in checking these out. (I should add that I think I've done some pretty cool fan writing elsewhere -- certainly at this blog, and at Journey Planet, and I had a piece in Bruce Gillespie's SF Commentary this year. Plus I had a short look at Rose Macaulay's What Not published in the Curiosities column in the November-December F&SF.)

But a lot of my best work, in my opinion, appears in Black Gate, John O'Neill's excellent online 'zine. Here's a list of some of these.

First, I contributed a piece on The Tolkien Reader to Bob Byrne's series of posts called Talking Tolkien. 

Talking Tolkien: On The Tolkien Reader;

Secondly, here's a summary of an ongoing series of essays I've been doing taking very close looks at some short fiction. The most recent two of these are from 2023, but I'm really proud of all of them.

"The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye", by A. S. Byatt; and Three Thousand Years of Longing;

"The Second Inquisition" (and "My Boat"), by Joanna Russ;

"Scanners Live in Vain", by Cordwainer Smith;

"The Last Flight of Dr. Ain", by James Tiptree, Jr.;

"Winter's King", by Ursula K. Le Guin;

"It Opens the Sky", by Theodore Sturgeon;

"Winter Solstice, Camelot Station", by John M. Ford;

Three Stories by Idris Seabright;

"The Star Pit", by Samuel R. Delany;

Thirdly, I have been doing a set of looks at obscure SF from the '70s and '80s:

The Shores of Kansas, by Rob Chilson;

Alien Island, by T. L. Sherred;

Murder on Usher's Planet, by Atanielle Annyn Noel;

The Song of Phaid the Gambler, by Mick Farren;

And here are some other Black Gate posts -- a couple of obituaries (Michael Bishop, D. G. Compton, Joseph Ross), some reviews, a look at Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies, and some "retro reviews" of old magazines.

Obituary: D. G. Compton;

Obituary: Michael Bishop;

Obituary: Joseph Wrzos (Joseph Ross);

Review: Being Michael Swanwick, by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro;

Retro Review: F&SF, November 1958, May 1961;

The Flashing Swords! Original Anthologies, edited by Lin Carter;

Retro Review: Infinity, June 1956;

Retro Review: If, December 1957;

Retro Review: F&SF, June 1955;

Retro Review: Universe, September 1953;