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Author: John ONeill

Read Black Gate in Italian!

Read Black Gate in Italian!

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Black Gate in Italian

Black Gate has partnered with Heroic Fantasy Italia (HFT) to translate and post some of our most popular articles in Italian. Here’s Editor Alessandro Iascy, from his original e-mail.

I’m Alessandro Iascy and I am the publisher and editor of the Heroic Fantasy Italia portal, heroicfantasyitalia.altervista.org. I’m contacting you because I always read Black Gate with great pleasure and I would like to start a sort of joint venture with you. Heroic Fantasy Italia is the most important heroic fantasy divulgation portal in Italy, and I would like to be authorized to translate and publish some of your articles on our pages… I am writing to you on my friend Mark Lawrence’s suggestion.

Although BG articles have frequently been reprinted (sometimes without our permission), this is the first time we’ve partnered to present some of our content in a foreign language. The first article to get the multi-lingual treatment was Steven Silver’s November 24th post “Elric and Me.”

Alessandro and his team did top-notch work reformatting and presenting Steven’s article; check it out here. Thanks to Alessandro, we look forward to offering more BG articles to our Italian readers.

New Treasures: All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault by James Alan Gardner

New Treasures: All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault by James Alan Gardner

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Canadian SF writer James Alan Gardner published seven novels between 1997 and 2002, including Expendable, Commitment Hour, and Radiant. Then he switched almost entirely to short fiction, producing 17 short stories and one collection between 2005 and 2017 (with the exception of one media tie-in novel, Tomb Raider: The Man of Bronze).

There’s nothing wrong with short fiction, of course. But when you stop writing novels for a dozen years, people think you’ve vanished. So I was both pleased and surprised to tear open an envelope from Tor this week and find a review copy of Gardner’s first new novel since 2005. It’s good to have him back — especially with something that looks as fun as All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault. It’s the tale of Kim Lam and her three housemates who are transformed from ordinary college students into superheroes by “a freak scientific accident (what else?),” and find themselves caught up in a war between super-powered humans and sinister darkling creatures (vampires, ghosts, and worse things.) The sequel, They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded, arrives next year.

All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault was published by Tor Books on November 7, 2017. It is 382 pages, priced at $17.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover art is by Getty images. Read an excerpt here.

Future Treasures: The Midnight Front by David Mack

Future Treasures: The Midnight Front by David Mack

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The Midnight Front-smallDavid Mack has built his rep chiefly on Star Trek novels, such as the Star Trek: Vanguard series, and the new Star Trek Discovery tie-in novel Desperate Hours (which Derek Kunsken reviewed for us here).

His latest is a World War II-era adventure in which an American soldier finds himself up against Nazi sorcerers. Kirkus Reviews calls it “Propulsive… Equal parts brimstone and gunpowder… an entertaining scenario that wouldn’t be out of place in a video game or a spirited match of Dungeons & Dragons.”

The Midnight Front is the opening novel in the Dark Arts series; it arrives simultaneously in hardcover and trade paperback from Tor in January. It will be followed by The Iron Codex, set in the 1950s; and Shadow Commission, set in the ’60s.

On the eve of World War Two, Nazi sorcerers come gunning for Cade but kill his family instead. His one path of vengeance is to become an apprentice of The Midnight Front ― the Allies’ top-secret magickal warfare program ― and become a sorcerer himself.

Unsure who will kill him first ― his allies, his enemies, or the demons he has to use to wield magick ― Cade fights his way through occupied Europe and enemy lines. But he learns too late the true price of revenge will be more terrible than just the loss of his soul ― and there’s no task harder than doing good with a power born of ultimate evil.

The Midnight Front will be published by Tor Books on January 30, 2018. It is 464 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover, $15.99 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Larry Rostant. Read an excerpt at Tor.com.

See all of our coverage of the best upcoming fantasy here.

Vintage Treasures: Neverness by David Zindell

Vintage Treasures: Neverness by David Zindell

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David Zindell was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986. His space opera trilogy A Requiem for Homo Sapiens (The Broken God, The Wild, and War in Heaven) received plenty of attention in the mid-90s, including a Clarke Award nomination for the opening novel. He also produced a six-book fantasy series, the EA Cycle, but it was not as well received, and only three volumes were ever released in the US.

Much of his reputation today, in fact, comes from his debut novel Neverness, which won instant and wide acclaim. Edward Bryant called it a “Feat of universe crafting [that] propels him instantly into the big leagues with the likes of Frank Herbert and Ursula K. Le Guin.” Kirkus Reviews said “Zindell succeeds brilliantly… in his convincing portrayal of what a super-intelligent being might be like…. Vastly promising work.” And on the basis of this single novel, Gene Wolfe proclaimed Zindell “One of the finest talents to appear since Kim Stanley Robinson and William Gibson — perhaps the finest.”

Zindell has not published a book in the US since The Silver Sword in 2007. His literary career has prospered far better in the UK, however, and his most recent novel, The Idiot Gods, was released across the pond by HarperVoyager in July 2017. It does not yet have a US release date.

Neverness was published by Bantam Spectra in July 1989. It is 552 pages, priced at $4.95. It was reprinted multiple times in the UK by Grafton and HarperCollins, but only once in the US, in a self-published edition in 2015. The wraparound cover of the Spectra version is by Don Dixon.

New Treasures: Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren

New Treasures: Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren

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We’re hurtling towards the end of the year, that time when Best of the Year lists are upon us. I try to cram in as many recommended reads as I can before the calendar turns over, at which time I inevitably give up in defeat, clear off my To Be Read pile, and start the year off with a fresh slate. Needless to say, I’m forced to be a lot more selective in my reading choices in the hectic weeks of December than I am the rest of the year. New releases usually suffer the most as I try to get caught up on the books everyone has been talking about.

But Kari Maaren’s Weave a Circle Round, published last week by Tor, has bucked that trend, and currently rests atop my To Be Read pile. Publishers Weekly calls it “Dazzling… an ambitious, intricate, joyful coming-of-age tale,” and Elizabeth Haydon says ” It rings many of the same chimes as The Phantom Tollbooth and A Wrinkle in Time, with a few notes charmingly reminiscent of Monty Python.” That’s exactly what I need right now.

Kari Maaren is a webcomic artist and writer; her previous publication was West of Bathurst, a complete 710-page collection of the webcomic which ran between 2006 and 2014. Weave a Circle Round is her debut novel. It was published by Tor Books on November 28, 2017. It is 367 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The striking cover was designed by Jamie Stafford-Hill. Read the complete first chapter here., and see all of our recent New Treasures here.

Relive Gary Gygax’s Classic Tale of Giant Mayhem in Assault of the Giants

Relive Gary Gygax’s Classic Tale of Giant Mayhem in Assault of the Giants

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I’m pretty predictable when I shop for board games. I think I’m just trying to recreate the experience of playing Risk with my friends on lazy summer afternoons in the camping trailer in our backyard. I want to move giant armies around a board and shout “I’m attacking Kamchatka!” at the top of my lungs. The only reason I even know there’s a chunk of land on this planet called “Kamchatka” is because of Hasbro.

Anyway, in practice this means I’m drawn to pretty much any fantasy wargame with colorful components and a huge map, which looks like it could take six hours to finish. (It’s precisely because I don’t have the time to play these games any more that I lust after them so much.)

WotC’s Assault of the Giants fits the bill perfectly. It’s an ambitious game of fantasy warfare played out across a map of Faerûn, with some intriguing strategy flourishes. And best of all, it’s a game of (literally!) giant armies… how cool is that?

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Exploring the Subterranean

Exploring the Subterranean

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I founded Black Gate in 2000, and we published the first issue at the World Fantasy Convention in Corpus Christi, Texas in October of that year. We produced the print magazine for 11 years (the last issue, #15, was published in May 2011), and during that decade-plus I was keenly observant of other print magazines, especially new ones. A handful of new zines popped up during that period, but I think my favorite was William Schafer’s Subterranean magazine, which produced eight print issues between 2005-2011 before transitioning online.

I only managed to come across a handful of issues during the print era, but that’s okay. I keep an eye out for back issues at conventions, and occasionally snag one or two (as I did with Subterranean #2 at the 2015 Windy City Pulp & Paper convention). They’re hard to come by, but they’re generally not expensive. I have an eBay saved search that alerts me when new lots are listed, and a few months ago I got a ping about the set of three issues above.

Subterranean #4 – 2006
Subterranean #6 – January 2007
Subterranean #8 – October 2011 — the last print issue

They were in pristine, unread condition, and offered for $16 total. I was the only bidder, and took the whole set home for less than the original cover price. It’s lonely being an obsessive magazine collector, but sometimes it has its benefits.

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Witches, Privateers, and Enchanted Blades: Tales of the Thieftaker by D. B. Jackson

Witches, Privateers, and Enchanted Blades: Tales of the Thieftaker by D. B. Jackson

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“Night of Two Moons,” the most popular story in Black Gate 4, was my introduction to the work of David B. Coe. Over the past two decades he’s produced eight novels in the same setting, the Forelands Universe (five in the Winds of the Forelands series, plus the Blood of the Southlands trilogy), and I’ve followed them avidly. His prior work included the LonTobyn Chronicle trilogy; more recently he’s turned his attention to contemporary fantasy with the Case Files of Justis Fearsson (Spell Blind, His Father’s Eyes, and Shadow’s Blade), featuring a magic-using private detective who faces off against dark sorcerers in Phoenix, Arizona. Starting in 2015 David became a semi-regular blogger for us; the most recent article in his Books and Craft series was World Building and the Importance of Setting.

In addition to that prodigious output, under the name ‘D. B. Jackson’ David’s also written four novels in the popular Thieftaker Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy series set in pre-Revolutionary Boston. The books have been widely acclaimed, and Kirkus Reviews calls them “Splendid… with [a] contemporary gumshoe-noir tone… An unusual series of great promise.” I’m very excited to see the next release, Tales of the Thieftaker, is a collection of new and previously published short stories — featuring a pre-dawn fire in colonial Boston, a young witch who harbors a terrible secret, a magick-laden blade, and the true story of the bloody mutiny aboard the privateering ship Ruby Blade.

Tales of the Thieftaker will be published by Lore Seekers Press on December 18, 2017. It is 275 pages, priced at $17.95 in trade paperback and $4.99 for he digital edition. The cover is by Chris McGrath. Read David’s interview (as D.B. Jackson) with his main character Ethan Kaille, the Thieftaker, in a funny and very insightful post here at Black Gate.

Vintage Treasures: The American Fantasy Tradition edited by Brian M. Thomsen

Vintage Treasures: The American Fantasy Tradition edited by Brian M. Thomsen

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Brian Thomsen’s first anthology was Halflings, Hobbits, Warrows & Weefolk: A Collection of Tales of Heroes Short in Stature, a 1991 Questar paperback co-edited with Baird Searles. He followed that with more than a dozen more over the next 20 years — including The Reel Stuff (1998), Oceans of Magic (2001), and Masters of Fantasy (2004) — most co-edited with Martin H. Greenberg. He was the Senior Editor of SF and Fantasy at Warner Books and then Director of Books and Periodicals at TSR, where he wrote several Forgotten Realms novels, including Once Around the Realms (1995) and The Mage in the Iron Mask (1996).

He eventually became a Consulting Editor at Tor, where he produced in my opinion the most significant book of his career, and indeed one of the most important fantasy anthologies of the 90s: The American Fantasy Tradition, a massive 600-page hardcover surveying two centuries of American fantasy, containing stories by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Ambrose Bierce, Kate Chopin, Stephen Vincent Benét, Edith Wharton, Robert W. Chambers, H. P. Lovecraft, Manly Wade Wellman, Charles Beaumont, Henry Kuttner, Theodore Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, Fredric Brown, Ray Bradbury, R. A. Lafferty, Alan Dean Foster, Shirley Jackson, Avram Davidson, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Gene Wolfe, Karl Edward Wagner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Bishop, and many others.

The American Fantasy Tradition is one of the finest survey anthologies of Western fantasy ever assembled, and it would serve as a splendid textbook for any introductory course to modern fantasy. It stands with David Hartwell’s The Dark Descent, Gardner Dozois’s Modern Classics of Fantasy, and Jeff and Ann VanderMeer’s The Weird as one of the essential texts of the fantasy canon.

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Remembering Frank M. Robinson’s Legendary Pulp Collection

Remembering Frank M. Robinson’s Legendary Pulp Collection

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William F. Nolan pointing at the Hammett Black Mask

Frank M. Robinson lived an incredible life. He was drafted into the navy in World War II, wrote his first novel The Power in 1956, and saw three of his books transformed into major motion pictures, including The Power (1968),  The Towering Inferno (1974), and The Fifth Missile (1986). His other novels include Blow-Out! (1987, with Thomas N. Scortia) and The Dark Beyond the Stars (1991). He wrote the Playboy Advisor column from 1969 to 1973, and played himself in the 2008 film Milk, as one of Harvey Milk’s political inner circle.

But for science fiction and fantasy collectors, Frank is chiefly known for an entirely different reason: he had one of the most valuable and complete pulp collections ever assembled. His collection was legendary for the incredible condition of most of the magazines, including some of the rarest pulps in existence. Last week Jason V. Brock posted several unseen photos of Frank’s collection on Facebook, and was kind enough to offer us high-resolution versions we could share with Black Gate readers.

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