2019 – Page 83 – Black Gate

The Omnibus Volumes of Sean Russell: Moontide and Magic Rise

Tuesday, January 1, 2019 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Art by Braldt Bralds and Shutterstock

Canadian fantasy writer Sean Russell produced three popular paperback series with his publisher DAW in the 90s, each exactly two books long:

Initiate Brother (The Initiate Brother, 1991, Gatherer of Clouds, 1992)
Moontide and Magic Rise (World Without End, 1995, Sea Without a Shore, 1996)
The River into Darkness (Beneath the Vaulted Hills, 1997, The Compass of the Soul, 1998)

These were all handsome volumes, and I collected them enthusiastically. By the early 2000s Russell had switched publishers, to Avon Eos (where he produced the Swan’s War trilogy), and after that he exited the fantasy genre entirely. He’s currently writing an ongoing series of novels about the HMS Themis, a Royal Navy frigate at the time of the French Revolution, under the name Sean Thomas Russell.

Over the last few years DAW has been collecting Russell’s 90s fantasy in large-size omnibus editions. The first, The Initiate Brother Duology, appeared in 2013, and The River Into Darkness was released just three months ago (and we covered it here as part of our look at the Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of October 2018). And just a few weeks ago I stumbled on Moontide and Magic Rise at Barnes & Noble, a hefty 820-page tome released in May, collecting World Without End and Sea Without a Shore.

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Guilds, Glasses, and Galaxies: Joshua Palmatier’s 2018 Kickstarter Anthologies

Tuesday, January 1, 2019 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Second Round A Return to the Ur-Bar-small

There’s a lot of different ways to have a career in SF and fantasy. Don’t believe me? Just look at the fascinating case of Joshua Palmatier.

Over the last decade Joshua has built a formidable reputation as an author, producing both an acclaimed fantasy trilogy (The Throne of Amenkor) and a popular science fiction trilogy (Erenthrall) with DAW books. Not content with merely being an author, he partnered with Patricia Bray to co-edit a pair of DAW anthologies, After Hours: Tales from the Ur-Bar (2011), and The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity (2012). Shortly after that DAW ended their monthly anthology program. Undaunted, Joshua launched his own small press, Zombies Need Brains, and over the next three years produced half a dozen additional anthologies with editors Bray and S.C. Butler. As author, editor, and now publisher, Joshua has moved steadily from success to success.

2018 was perhaps his most ambitious and successful year yet. He delivered three complete anthologies funded with a simultaneous Kickstarter campaign, and successfully funded three more in October. I’m not much of a Kickstarter nut, but I backed the first project. Not simply due to my admiration for Joshua (which was considerable), but because one of the books, Guilds & Glaives, contained stories from no less than four Black Gate authors: David B. Coe, James Enge, Howard Andrew Jones, and Violette Malan. The others, Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar and The Razor’s Edge, were almost as appealing for different reasons, and I consider the set to be one of the best-kept secrets of genre publishing in 2018. Here’s a closer look at all three.

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Birthday Reviews: December Index

Tuesday, January 1, 2019 Steven H Silver Comments 1 comment

Cover by John Picacio — **Cove by John Picacio**

The final Birthday Review Index.

And so the journey begun on January 1 with a review of E.M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops” has come to an end, 367 reviews and approximately 166,183 words later, plus a few extra guest reviews and words by Rich Horton and Bob Byrne. There was one date I couldn’t find someone to review (we need authors born on March 8) and I goofed on a couple of authors and wound up writing replacement reviews. Edward Page Mitchell holds the joint distinction of the earliest birth among the reviewed authors, on March 24, 1852, and the earliest published work, with his “The Clock That Went Backward” published in 1881. Rachel Swirsky in the most recently born author reviewed with Steve Perry’s “A Few Minutes in the Plantation Bar and Grill Outside Woodville, Mississippi” published in January 2018 being the most recently published story. I reviewed two stories entitled “Cat” and two stories entitled “Little Red in the Hood.”

January index
February index
March index
April index
May index
June index
July index
August index
September index
October index
November index

December 1, Jo Walton: “Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction”
December 2, Jerry Sohl: “Death in Transit”
December 3, John Dalmas: “In the Bosom of His Family”
December 4, Kurt R.A. Giambasitani: “Intaglio”
December 5, John Decles: “The Power of Kings”
December 6, Roger Dees: “Worlds Within WorldsEchoes of Pride”

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Black Gate

Adventures in Fantasy Literature

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Year: 2019