Black Gate
Entry updated 20 May 2022. Tagged: Publication.
US Small Press Fantasy magazine that began as a Semiprozine but now pays professional rates. It is published by New Epoch Press, St Charles, Illinois on a bi-annual basis and edited by John O'Neill. It was printed in standard size in emulation of the Pulp magazines, though is not pulp itself being printed on quality lightly coated stock, but each issue runs to over 200 pages giving it the thickness of the old pulps. The print editions, which proved prohibitively expensive, ceased with issue #15 (Spring 2011) and, after a hiatus, O'Neill shifted to developing the website to incorporate fiction, but not as a continuing magazine.
Its first issue, launched at the World Fantasy Convention in October 2000 was dated Spring 2001. Although its primary content was for secondary-world fantasy, it published occasional stories that qualified as science fiction, such as Richard Bowes's Time Ranger story in issue #2 (Summer 2001), "Straight to My Lover's Heart", about the outcasts of Time. Black Gate included a "Classic Reprint" section which also featured some science fiction, notably the entire Tumithak series by Charles R Tanner, the first three of which had run in Amazing Stories and Super Science Stories between 1932 and 1941 and including the fourth, episode, "Tumithak and the Ancient Word" (Summer 2008 #12) hitherto only available in Tumithak of the Corridors (coll of linked stories 2005). Its nonfiction columns have included coverage of science-fiction books and magazines. Its website has additional features including (until his death in 2016) Bud Webster's column "Who?" on forgotten sf and fantasy writers. [MA]
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