My Kind of Fantasy

Every now and then a site comes along which - while it may not be the next Yahoo online - has a worthy off-site presence which merits the web site a mention.

Blackgate - John O'Neill editing - is one such occasion, forming the online presence for one of the few decent independent fantasy magazines in print.

Unlike many other smaller magazines which bandy about the term 'fantasy' in their subtitle, Blackgate actually has focus on adventure-oriented stories (our own taste of fiction) … rather than slipstream, edgestream, slash and whatever other labels are floating around for the various deviancies of current experimental literature.

For those not in the know, the latter is informed by much the same instinct that drives an artist to pile bricks in the Tate Modern and expect to be much admired for it. If you can't write genre material and get it published, churn out plotless, characterless drivel and label it art. Ah, the heady scent of 'Art' masks many a foul odour from the rotting word-games flytipped across the small-press.

Blackgate ... make them your first alternative.

Luckily for us, with Blackgate you get a wholesome whiff of dear old mom's meat and two veg wafting from the kitchen.

You get cracking courses like 'The Mourning Trees' by Peadar Ó Guilín - "The deadly mourning trees were a remnant of a sorcerous war, and now one clutched Moya’s only son".

Then there's 'The Dead Man ...' by S.C. Smith - "The Dead Man awoke on the shores of the Styx, only to find Hell ain’t what it used to be". Or 'La Desterrada' by Jennifer Busick - "It’s a dangerous thing, to be a Fire Magus at sea - and far more so when the ancient art is forbidden to your sex."

Bucking the trend by the corporate houses to make their short-fiction magazines barren wastelands devoid of cover art, Blackgate actually carries interior art by the likes of Chris Pepper, Bernie Mireault, Denis Rodier, Greg Faillace, Chuck Lukacs, and Gregory Price.

Admittedly, you don't get much of the print edition online … but then if pony up $9.95 you can get 208(ish) pages of 'Adventures in Fantasy Literature' regularly plopping through your letterbox.

Trust us, if short fiction is going to remain a medium able to attract young readers into the ageing SF&F genre, fighting off the web, mobile texting, AOL chat, TV, PC gaming and every other call on a teenager's time, magazines like Blackgate will play its part in winning the war.

Visit them at:

http://www.blackgate.com/

Stephen Hunt