John ONeill – Page 141

Old Empires and Armored Planets: Rich Horton on The Sun Smasher by Edmond Hamilton and Starhaven by Ivar Jorgenson

Sunday, December 10, 2017 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Rich Horton has been reading through the Ace Double library over at his blog Strange at Ecbatan. His last few selections have been duds, but I’m optimistic about Edmond Hamilton’s The Sun Smasher and Ivar Jorgenson’s Starhaven, Double #D351, published in 1959. Edmond Hamilton was my favorite pulp SF writer, and “Ivar Jorgenson” was a pen name for none other than Robert Silverberg. Here’s Rich.

Each of these novels was published earlier in a single issue of a magazine, possibly (especially in the case of the Jorgenson novel) in shorter versions. The Sun Smasher appeared as “Starman Come Home” in the September 1954 Universe Science Fiction, while Starhaven appeared as “Thunder Over Starhaven” in Science Fiction Adventures for October 1957. (I suspect the Hamilton novel, which is the shorter of the two at about 30,000 words, probably is the same version as appeared in the magazine, but the “Jorgenson” story, some 40,000 words long or more, is expanded, as Silverberg discusses below.)

The covers of the magazine editions of these stories are something of a real delight, so I’ve reproduced them here.

I always enjoy Rich’s reviews of classic SF. But when he starts throwing in vintage magazine covers, you know he’s really speaking my language.

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Vintage Treasures: Changing Fate by Elisabeth Waters

Saturday, December 9, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Elisabeth Waters Changing Fate-back-small

Elisabeth Waters’ first publication, “The Keeper’s Price,” was co-authored with Marion Zimmer Bradley and appeared in Bradley’s 1980 Darkover anthology The Keeper’s Price and Other Stories. That launched a lengthy writing career that includes over 40 short stories and a novel in the Trillium series, also co-authored with Bradley. Since 2007 Waters has been the driving force behind the Sword and Sorceress anthology series, taking over with Volume XXII at Norilana Books. The most recent, Volume 32, was released last month by the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust.

Waters published a single standalone novel, Changing Fate, in 1994, with a striking wraparound cover by Lord of the Rings artist John Howe. It grew out of the short story “A Woman’s Privilege” in Sword and Sorceress 3, published in 1986; it was nominated for the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and won Andre Norton’s Gryphon Award. A sequel, Mending Fate, finally appeared last year, 22 years after the first volume, from the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust.

Changing Fate was published by DAW Books in April 1994. It is 240 pages, priced at $4.99 in paperback. The cover is by John Howe. It was reprinted in trade paperback and digital formats in 2015. Read more at Elisabeth Waters’ website.

Read Black Gate in Italian!

Saturday, December 9, 2017 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

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

Friday, December 8, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault-back-small

All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault-small

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

Thursday, December 7, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

David 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

Wednesday, December 6, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

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

Tuesday, December 5, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

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

Monday, December 4, 2017 John ONeill Comments 13 comments

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

Monday, December 4, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

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

Sunday, December 3, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

“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.

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