Search Results for: Mage

Science Fiction History Considered As a Series of Images of Newsstand Displays

Science Fiction magazines likely displayed on the stands at ten year intervals, 1933 to 2013 Many readers here no doubt lack the experience of having personally cruised news stands, tobacco shops and underground hole-in-the-wall used book stores, through no fault of their own. Unless you can fault someone for not having been born in a particular year, which I think would be a silly thing to do. I, on the other hand, managed to arrive on this planet at a…

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A Pilgrimmage to DreamHaven Books

Greg Ketter in front of DreamHaven Books and Comics in downtown Minneapolis. Photo taken Wednesday, May 3, 2023 Science fiction collector Denny Lien died in Minneapolis a few weeks ago, and word started going out that the folks handling his estate were looking for help. Rich Horton let me know that they were searching for a home for his legendary collection of vintage science fiction magazines. I didn’t need to be told twice, and on Wednesday I rented a minivan,…

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Future Treasures: Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore

Battle of the Linguist Mages (Tor.com, January 11, 2022) If there’s a more exciting publisher in SF and fantasy at the moment than Tor.com, I don’t know what it is. They’ve dominated both award lists and bestseller lists with their recent powerhouse releases, including Martha Wells’ hugely popular Murderbot chronicles, Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series, and Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth. Just in the last few months they’ve released brand new books by Tochi Onyebuchi, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Catherynne M. Valente,…

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Gorgeous Celtic Imagery in a Haunting Fairy Tale: The Warrior Bards Novels by Juliet Marillier

The Harp of Kings and A Dance With Fate. Ace Books, September 2019 and September 2020. Covers by Mélanie Delon and unknown. I discovered Juliet Marillier’s Blackthorn & Grim Celtic fantasy trilogy last year. How I missed the whole series for years I dunno, but was very glad to find them when I did. So I was excited to see a sequel series featuring a new generation arrive in 2020, opening with The Harp of Kings, which Andrew Liptak at Polygon selected…

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Pervert and Unnatural: Two Books from Image Comics Exploring Sex

** Explicit Sexual Language and Stuff (Obviously!) If you’d prefer something less sexual, check out my interview with Plaid Klaus of Image Comics’ Void Trip right here ** I often dive into the first issues and first trades at Image to taste test new series, new voices, new art styles, new genres. I also find it interesting to look at pairs of series as foils to one another. It isn’t that one series is created in response to another, or that they’re…

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In 500 Words or Less: The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda

The Gossamer Mage By Julie E. Czerneda DAW Books (416 pages, $27.00 hardcover/$12.99 eBook, August 6, 2019) In the words of the great Mr. Spock, Julie Czerneda’s forthcoming novel The Gossamer Mage is fascinating. To be fair, everything I’ve ever read from Julie is fascinating in some way. But Gossamer is a different brand of cool than either The Clan Chronicles or Web Shifters. Not only is it a jump from science fiction to fantasy, but it brings along the intricate detail…

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L. E. Modesitt Jr. wraps up The Imager Portfolio with Endgames

Cover art for all 12 volumes by Donato Giancola Every time a trilogy wraps up, we bake a cake at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters. Strangely, we don’t have a protocol for when a 12-book cycle completes, but we’re working on it. L. E. Modesitt Jr.’s Imager Portfolio series opened with Imager in 2009, and around about book 8, Rex Regis, Tor started referring to it as “The New York Times Bestselling Imager Portfolio.” Modesitt has hit those rarefied heights…

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Mage: The Hero Denied 14

So we’re down to the penultimate issue of the entire Mage trilogy. Obviously, I’m not expecting any big reveals until the very last issue, so this one is just going to let things simmer just a little bit further until the boil. We begin with the reveal that Magda and Hugo did NOT kill a Gracklethorn last issue, instead just knocking her out. When two of her sisters find her, they set her free, then start squabbling about what to…

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Mage: The Hero Denied #13

“Remember, Kevin, in the world of magic … things aren’t always as they seem!” That’s a line from Mirth in this latest issue. This time, I’ll talk about what we see in this issue (spoilers), as well as what I think is really going on (double spoilers). So, it opens with Mirth appearing before Kevin and Miranda, telling them that his power has been greatly reduced as Kevin’s power has grown. All he can do at this point is guide…

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Future Treasures: Mage Against the Machine by Shaun Barger

In his feature at The Verge earlier this month, 9 new sci-fi and fantasy books to check out this October, Andrew Liptak describes Mage Against the Machine as “Harry Potter meets The Terminator,” which certainly got my attention. I don’t quite know what to make of it, though. It’s the debut novel by Shaun Barger, so I can’t look to his previous books for any clue. There aren’t a lot of early reviews. It’s got a mage army, vast machine…

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