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Year: 2016

Beneath the Shining Jewel by Balogun Ojetade

Beneath the Shining Jewel by Balogun Ojetade

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oie_242157WrHge7mkFor the most part I don’t review new fantasy novels. They get all the press they need, and I don’t read that many of them (though I am seriously looking forward to R. Scott Bakker’s The Great Ordeal). Once in a while, though, there’s something that intrigues me. This week, Balogun Ojetade’s sword & soul horror story, Beneath the Shining Jewel, caught my eye. And then chewed on it and swallowed it raw.

A few years back Ojetade and fellow sword & soul/steamfunk/cyberfunk impresario and author, Milton Davis, released an anthology called Ki Khanga (2013). I reviewed it at my site, Swords & Sorcery: A Blog. Ki Khanga is a world where sorcery and super science exist side by side, Godzilla-sized beasts endanger civilization, and flame thrower-equipped elephants battle monster beetles. It’s a wild setting painted with boldness and liveliness. While I found some of the stories too thin, reading like little more than character backgrounds, others punched hard and I found myself hoping there would be more tales from Ki Khanga in the future.

Last month I asked Davis, apropos of nothing at all, if there was anything planned for his and Ojetade’s shared world. He told me Ojetade had a horror novel set in the world due the very next week. That book is Beneath the Shining Jewel.

Ki Khanga is a large ocean-ringed continent split nearly in two by a gigantic inlet called the Cleave. Tradition holds that it was made when Daarila, the creator god, used his great axe to destroy two warring magical races who had dared to storm Heaven. The axe came down and cut a hole through which all sorts of dangerous creatures and magic now creep.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Nebulas and the College 7

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Nebulas and the College 7

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2016 Nebula Awards College Seven Tina Jens-small

Six of the College 7 with their instructor. From left to right, back row first: C. T. Booth,
Lexi Baisden, T. Daniel Frost, Sara King. Front: Rissa Martin, Tina Jens (instructor), Kali Rose.
(Not pictured, because she does not do pictures, Tazmania Hayward)

The fact that the Nebulas were held at the Palmer House this year, which is just a handful of blocks from Columbia College, meant that a select group of students and I could finish the last week of classes, deal with graduation, and still take part in the SFWA festivities.

Thanks to the kindness of event coordinator Steven Silver, and the SFWA Powers That Be, they agreed to allow seven students, mostly seniors, to do volunteer work before, during, and after the Nebulas, in exchange for memberships to the weekend of panels, signings, and awards galas.

I taught two classes at Columbia this semester, meeting on Thursday and Friday afternoons. On Thursday, I was able to twist the arm of Laura Anne Gilman, a former high-powered SF/F acquisitions editor and now full-time novelist and editorial freelancer, to come speak to my Fantasy Writing Workshop class for the first hour. (As she told one of my students, it’s not like she could say no, she was sleeping on my library futon for the weekend.)

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Read “Recalled to Service” by Alter S. Reiss at Tor.com

Read “Recalled to Service” by Alter S. Reiss at Tor.com

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Recalled to Service Alter S Reiss-small

Now that I’m home from the Nebula Awards and the Windy City Pulp and Paper show (and aaalmost finished unpacking all the great loot I brought back), I can start getting caught up. I’m way behind in my reading at Tor.com for example, and they do some darn fine stuff. The Fantasy/SF tale “Recalled to Service” by Alter S. Reiss looks like a splendid place to start.

Ao Laiei does not know what happened to the great revolutionary war hero Uroie Aei since she resurrected him, but she has long intended to find out. Finally, a clue from an unlikely information source – the confusing art of dream-diving – enables her to be present for a surprising strike against an academic aligned with the revolutionary government. Laiei quickly discovers that it is not the physical target she is concerned with, but his field of study, which may unlock the secret of what mysterious deeds the elusive Uroie Aei has been up to since his disappearance. This compelling tale from writer Alter Reiss is a rich look at the world of the Shoesi and the magic that drives Ao Laiei’s unique abilities.

Alter S. Reiss is the author of the Tor.com novella Sunset Mantle. “Recalled to Service” was posted at Tor.com on February 24. It was edited by Liz Gorinsky, and illustrated by Sung Choi. It’s available here.

We last covered Tor.com with Delia Sherman’s science fiction detective story “The Great Detective.” For more free fiction, see our recent online magazine coverage.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Gloria Scott – The Real Story

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Gloria Scott – The Real Story

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The only on screen Holmes to film The Gloria Scott- Eille Norwood
The only on screen Holmes to film The Gloria Scott- Eille Norwood

“The Adventure of the Gloria Scott” appeared in The Strand Magazine in April of 1893 and was included in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. In it, Holmes recounts a tale of his university days to Watson. It is one of two tales Doyle gives us before Holmes meets Watson – and the earliest of the pair.

Take a few minutes and go read it. Then, come on back here to Black Gate. Below, I’ve got a very different account of that tale. A very plausible one. So,, come play The Game with me!

Mister Holmes,

Things were not exactly as they seemed when you visited Donnithorpe so many years ago. You are aware that my son, Victor, became a wealthy man in India, overseeing the largest tea plantation north of the Ganges. But he died a few years ago of the fever, so he is beyond suffering and my own time grows short. The consumption is about to take me.

I am pleased to see that you turned those fine talents of yours to professional detectin’. I would like to think I played a small part in that, if you remember my words to you that first time you came to stay with us.

The papers I left for Victor to read after my supposed death told a made-up story, Mister Holmes. You might ask what event from my past could be so bad that I would prefer people, even my own son, to believe that I was a mutineer, rather than know the truth? Let me tell you and maybe you’ll understand.

I’ll wager there’s not a man alive who hasn’t done somethin’ he’s ashamed of. If there is, I’d like to look him in the eye. It was many a year ago that I was a young man in Liverpool, full of fire and life. I was a rough sort without too much schoolin’.

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Future Treasures: A Green and Ancient Light by Frederic S. Durbin

Future Treasures: A Green and Ancient Light by Frederic S. Durbin

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A Green and Ancient Light-smallFred Durbin is one of the most gifted fantasists at work today, and a new Durbin novel is a major event. Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, A Green and Ancient Light is the tale of a boy sent to stay with his grandmother, until the crash of an enemy plane disrupts his idyllic summer and leads him to discover a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind his grandmother’s house.

As planes darken the sky and cities burn in the ravages of war, a boy is sent away to the safety of an idyllic fishing village far from the front, to stay with the grandmother he does not know. But their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane that brings the war — and someone else — to their doorstep. Grandmother’s mysterious friend, Mr. Girandole, who is far more than he seems, has appeared out of the night to ask Grandmother for help in doing the unthinkable.

In the forest near Grandmother’s cottage lies a long-abandoned garden of fantastic statues, a grove of monsters, where sunlight sets the leaves aglow and the movement at the corner of your eye may just be fairy magic. Hidden within is a riddle that has lain unsolved for centuries — a riddle that contains the only solution to their impossible problem. To solve it will require courage, sacrifice, and friendship with the most unlikely allies.

Fred is also the author of The Star Shard and Dragonfly. His story “World’s End” appeared in Black Gate 15. Patty Templeton interviewed Fred for us after the publication of The Star Shard, and Nick Ozment teamed with him to explore the magic of Halloween in Oz and Frederic S. Durbin Discuss Hallowe’en Monsters. We did a Cover Reveal for A Green and Ancient Light in November, including Fred’s thoughts on the art.

A Green and Ancient Light will be published by Saga Press on June 7, 2016. It is 300 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition.

A Weekend With the Greatest Talents in Science Fiction: Report on the 2016 Nebula Awards

A Weekend With the Greatest Talents in Science Fiction: Report on the 2016 Nebula Awards

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Carlos Hernandez CSE Cooney Alyx Dellamonica and Kelly Robson at the 2016 Nebula Awards banquet-small

Carlos Hernandez, CSE Cooney, Alyx Dellamonica, and Kelly Robson at the 2016 Nebula Awards banquet

I spent last weekend at the 2016 SFWA Nebula Conference in downtown Chicago. The Conference is the big annual gala for the Science Fiction Writers of America, and it culminated in the Nebula Awards ceremony Saturday night. It was a very special weekend for a lot of reasons, not least of which was the nomination for one of our own — C.S.E. Cooney, Black Gate‘s Website Editor emeritus, whose “The Bone Swans of Amandale,” from her breakout collection Bone Swans, was nominated for Best Novella of the year.

I started a new job in downtown Chicago last month, and was able to walk over to the Palmer House hotel after work on Thursday. I met up with Steven Silver, chair of the Conference (and author of the marvelous “The Cremator’s Tale,” published right here at Black Gate), and caught the last half of Mary Robinette Kowal and K. Tempest Bradford’s panel on How to Fail Gracefully, a thoughtful discussion on how to handle online criticism (hint: stay calm, learn to listen dispassionately, and avoid a kneejerk response.)

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 199 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 199 Now Available

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 199-smallAs it nears its landmark 200th issues, Beneath Ceaseless Skies has kicked off a subscription drive aimed at enabling the magazine to publish novellas for the first time (yeah!) The details are on the website, but here’s the basics.

BCS ebook subscriptions, available exclusively at WeightlessBooks.com, are only $15.99 for a full year/26 issues. (That’s less than 30 cents a story!) Subscribers can get issues delivered directly to their Kindle or smart phone, and they get new issues early, a week before the website. Forthcoming authors in BCS include Marie Brennan, Gregory Norman Bossert (whose first BCS story “The Telling” won the World Fantasy Award), Mishell Baker, KJ Kabza, Stephanie Burgis, Tony Pi, Catherynne M. Valente, Kameron Hurley, A.M. Dellamonica, Claude Lalumière, and more.

From now until June 3, if you buy a BCS ebook subscription or renew your existing subscription (you can renew at any time), you can help unlock our drive goals. Since BCS #1 in 2008 – 200 issues, 419 stories! – over a third of our fiction has been novelette-length or longer. Longer stories work great for awe-inspiring fantasy worlds, like you’ll find in every issue of BCS. Our word-count limit for submissions, 10,000 words, has always been among the longest if not the longest of pro-rate online magazines. With your help, we’d like to make it even longer!

  • At 25 new/renewing subscribers, BCS will raise our submissions word-count limit to 11,000 words.
  • At 50 new/renewing subscribers, we’ll raise our word-count limit to 12,000 words.
  • At 100 new/renewing subscribers, we’ll raise it to 13,000 words.
  • At 200 new/renewing subscribers, we’ll raise it to 15,000 words!

Every subscription makes a difference in helping us pay our authors, for their great stories of all lengths.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is one of the top markets for adventure fantasy, and I’d be thrilled to see it start buying longer stories. At only $15.99 for a full year, it’s a terrific bargain. I bought my first subscription today, and I challenge Black Gate readers to follow my example. Let’s see if we can add 10 new subscriptions to the total.

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Superheroes in Prose: A City-Smashing Interview with the Editors of the New Anthology Tesseracts Nineteen

Superheroes in Prose: A City-Smashing Interview with the Editors of the New Anthology Tesseracts Nineteen

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Tesseracts Nineteen Superhero Universe-smallGet a load of this: Superheroes! Supervillains! Superpowered antiheroes. Super scientists. Adventurers into the unknown. Costumed crimefighters. Mutant superterrorists. Far-future supergroups. Crusading aliens in a strange land. Secret histories of covert superspies… and more! All in a Canadian setting.

This is the call for stories that went out in 2014 for the anthology Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen by EDGE Publishing which is launching this month. Its editors are Claude Lalumière and Mark Shainblum.

Claude has edited thirteen previous anthologies, including Super Stories of Heroes & Villains, which was hailed in a starred review by Publishers Weekly as “by far the best superhero anthology.”

Mark Shainblum co-created the comic series Northguard and the bestselling humor book series Angloman, which later appeared as a weekly strip in The Montreal Gazette. Mark also collaborated on the Captain Canuck daily newspaper strip. I caught up with Claude and Mark for an e-interview.

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Table of Contents for Mysterion

Table of Contents for Mysterion

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Mysterion-smallI’ve talked about the anthology my wife and I are editing and publishing before (see here and here). Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith is a professional paying speculative fiction anthology of stories which engage with Christianity. It brings together twenty writers, both newcomers and established authors, including two Nebula nominees, in stories running the gamut from science fiction, to fantasy, to horror. We avoided preachy stories, instead looking for fiction with Christian characters, themes, or cosmology that deals with them in ways that feel authentic to our experience in the faith, neither sanitizing nor vilifying.

I haven’t had anything to say in the last few months, mostly because we’ve been busy — selecting the stories, editing the stories, getting contracts signed and paying authors. We’re still busy — right now we’re looking for well-known authors and editors to blurb the anthology, and preparing advance reader copies for them, and copy editing and formatting. It’s a ton of work, but we’re finally ready to make some announcements. Namely, our table of contents.

Here are the stories that will be appearing in our anthology.

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Star Trek After All: The New Trailer for Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek After All: The New Trailer for Star Trek Beyond

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I’ve enjoyed the first two films in the Star Trek reboot, despite the fact that they’ve veered pretty far from the kind of thoughtful storytelling that made the show great. But as flashy summer blockbusters without a lot of depth go, they’re better than most — and the writers certainly captured the humor of the show, at least.

But when I saw the first trailer for the third film, Star Trek Beyond, I thought new director Justin Lin (Fast & Furious) had pretty much abandoned all pretense of making a Star Trek film in favor of a two-fisted action-comedy in space. Co-screenwriter Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End), who also plays Scotty, has clearly put his comedy stamp on this one. Was there anything of Star Trek left?

The second trailer, released today, is a dramatic shift in tone from the first one, and seems to confirm that yes, this is a Star Trek film after all. Have a look and see what you think. Star Trek Beyond is being produced by Skydance and Bad Robot Productions, and will arrive in theaters on July 22, 2016.