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Author: John ONeill

A Wiscon Reading Report: The Best in Upcoming Fantasy – 2017 Edition

A Wiscon Reading Report: The Best in Upcoming Fantasy – 2017 Edition

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CSE Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar reading at Wiscon 2017-small CSE Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar reading at Wiscon 2017 2-small CSE Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar reading at Wiscon 2017 3-small

CSE Cooney and Guest of Honor Amal El-Mohtar perform Music & Miscellania at Wiscon 2017

Just a few days ago I wrote about Kay Kenyon’s upcoming novel At the Table of Wolves, the tale of a young woman forced to use her budding superpowers to spy on Nazi Germany and prevent the immanent invasion of England. It’s pretty clear to me that this is one of 2017’s breakout novels, and I was thrilled to get a sneak peek at it last year.

How did that happen? By attending a small, intimate reading at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio. In fact, convention readings have tipped me off to countless breakout books over the years, including works from Guy Gavriel Kay, N.K. Jemisin, Ian Tregillis, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Cory Doctorow, and many others. I even attended a reading by George R.R. Martin many years ago, in which he read from an unpublished novel titled A Game of Thrones — and then stuck around afterwards to chat to the small audience, and sign my advance copy of the book.

Any convention worth its salt will have a decent reading program. But the best conventions showcase a wide range of writers, and have multiple reading tracks. And after decades of attending cons, I can say without hesitation that the one with the best record for introducing me to stellar new talent — and tipping me off to fantastic new books — through its reading program is Wiscon, held every May in Madison, Wisconsin. And this year’s con was no exception.

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New Treasures: Shattered Minds: A Pacifica Novel by Laura Lam

New Treasures: Shattered Minds: A Pacifica Novel by Laura Lam

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Laura Lam False Hearts-small Laura Lam Shattered Minds-small Laura Lam Shattered Minds-back-small

Laura Lam is the author of the Micah Grey series (Pantomime, Shadowplay) from Pan, and the self-published Vestigial Tales (The Snake Charm, The Fisherman’s Net, The Tarot Reader, The Card Sharp). Last year Tor published her first Pacifica novel False Hearts, which A. M. Dellamonica called “A taut futuristic thriller, set in a San Francisco where everybody is beautiful… Two unusual sisters are caught in a war for control of a society that quietly suffocates its outsiders, rebels, and the damaged.” Last week Tor released the sequel in hardcover.

Carina used to be one of the best biohackers in Pacifica. But when she worked for Sudice and saw what the company’s experiments on brain recording were doing to their subjects, it disturbed her ― especially because she found herself enjoying giving pain and contemplating murder. She quit and soon grew addicted to the drug Zeal, spending most of her waking moments in a horror-filled dream world where she could act out her depraved fantasies without actually hurting anyone.

One of her trips is interrupted by strange flashing images and the brutal murder of a young girl. Even in her drug-addicted state, Carina knows it isn’t anything she created in the Zealscape. On her next trip, she discovers that an old coworker from Sudice, Max, sent her these images before he was killed by the company. Encrypted within the images are the clues to his murder, plus information strong enough to take down the international corporation.

Carina’s next choice will transform herself, San Francisco, and possibly the world itself.

My interest in the book was piqued by Liz Bourke’s Tor.com review, in which she called it “A tight, tense and nail-biting science fiction thriller, informed by cyberpunk influences like Nicola Griffith’s Slow River and Melissa Scott’s Trouble and Her Friends as much as by the near-future extrapolatory science fiction tradition. It’s damn good.” (David B. Coe reviewed Slow River for us earlier this year.)

Shattered Minds was published by Tor Books on June 20, 2017. It is 386 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Occult Detective Quarterly #2 Now Available

Occult Detective Quarterly #2 Now Available

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Occult Detective Quarterly 2-small Occult Detective Quarterly 2 contents-small

Stop the presses! The new issue of Occult Detective Quarterly is here.

This one looks even more impressive than the last issue, and that’s saying something. Here’s the description.

Enter the dark world of the occult detective, where heroes and fools risk their lives facing strange, occult and supernatural phenomena. Occult Detective Quarterly‘s second issue offers you a wealth of new fiction from some of the best creators, with award-winning talent on both the writing and illustration sides. Horror, crime – and punishment. Meet a demon-marked girl, a native American cop, an occult adventurer between the wars, and a psychologist who already knows the Dark. Or explore Edwardian Paris, visit haunted Scotland, and have a worrying trip into the back-street markets of sixties Hong Kong. The classic occult detective Carnacki makes an appearance, as does a hoodoo PI in Harlem – nine original stories by Tim Waggoner, Steve Liskow, Tricia Owens, Edward M Erdelac, Brandon Barrows, Kelly A Harmon, Joshua M Reynolds, Mike Chinn, and Bruno Lombardi. Plus detailed reviews, and features on John Constantine and Occult Physicians.

If you didn’t pick up the first issue, you missed out on the launch of one of the most important new fantasy magazines of the decade. But don’t fret… it’s not too late to catch up.

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Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois

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The Year's Best Science Fiction Thirty Fourth Annual Collection Dozois-smallI look forward to Gardner’s Year’s Best volume every year. It was the first science fiction Year’s Best I read regularly — starting way back in 1989, with the Sixth Annual volume, while I was in grad school. And while I didn’t always make time to read every volume cover to cover, year after year, I always read Gardner’s summation, the indispensable annual report card that captures all the relevant news, industry trends, hot books, overlooked gems, and of course Gardner’s cranky observations and ruminations on the future of the field.

A few years ago I noticed that Gardner lists my name in the “Acknowledgements” section every year, and that he has every year since 2004. I’m not sure why. But I’m always surprised and delighted to see it.

Gadrner’s Year’s Best Science Fiction is by far the largest and most comprehensive of the annual Year’s Best volumes. The Thirty-Fourth — thirty-fourth! — arrives in hardcover and trade paperback from St. Martin’s Press in ten days. Here’s a taste of Gardner’s Summation, in which he comments on an unwelcome trend I’ve noticed myself: the gradual disappearance of the mass-market paperback.

Like last year, 2016 was another relatively quiet year in the SF publishing world, although there were some changes down deep… One such effect that may eventually become noticeable to the average reader is the dwindling of mass-market paperback titles, once the most common way (at one point, almost the only way) for SF books to be published, from bookstores shelves. The publishing industry has been trying to find the right balance between traditional print publishing and the publishing of titles as e-books for a number of years now, and one area where publishers seem to be switching away from print publication to e-book only publication is in the mass-market paperback market niche. At least in the science fiction/fantasy publishing world, the number of mass-market paperbacks published was down for the eighth year in a row, hitting a new record low, down 11 percent since 2015. I think this may be a mistake, myself.

The Thirty-fourth volume of The Year’s Best Science Fiction contains 39 stories — more than 300,000 words of fiction — from Alastair Reynolds, David Gerrold, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Paul McAuley, Aliette de Bodard, Rich Larson, Geoff Ryman, Sam J. Miller, Shariann Lewit, Gregory Benford, Nina Allan, James Patrick Kelly, Ken Liu, Eleanor Arnsason, Paolo Bacigalupi, Charlie Jane Anders, and many others. I was especially pleased to see contributions from Black Gate authors Derek Kȕsken and Bill Johnson.

Here’s the complete TOC.

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Angels, Demons, Necromancers and a Badass Heroine: The Hellhound Chronicles by Caitlin Kittredge

Angels, Demons, Necromancers and a Badass Heroine: The Hellhound Chronicles by Caitlin Kittredge

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Black Dog Caitlin Kittredge-small Grim Tidings Caitlin Kittredge-small

Just two weeks ago we were talking about the death of the paranormal romance. When it was 60% of what was on the shelves, I frankly didn’t have much time for it. But now that it’s virtually vanished, I admit I’m curious… at least about some of the quirky stuff that appeared at the edges of the genre.

What’s guiding my interest? Sometimes it’s the author, sometimes it’s recommendations from reviewers I trust. Sometimes it’s just the cool covers. And sometimes, like with Caitlin Kittredge’s Hellhound Chronicles, it’s the fact that brand new copies of the opening volume are available for just $1.45 at Amazon.com (and Bookoutlet is selling the second one for just $4.79.)

The Hellhound Chronicles is more urban fantasy than paranormal romance (although the two are frequently indistinguishable.) It follows the adventures of the “hellhound” Ava, an indentured servant of an angel of death who tracks down errant souls and sends them to hell. When Ava meets up with a necromancer who tells her there’s a way out of her servitude, it leads to unforeseen consequences… and a series of misadventures involving the demon Lilith, the Walking Man, and zombie vampires. Melissa de la Cruz calls it “A riveting, fun and dangerous ride with angels, demons, necromancers and a badass heroine,” and Kirkus Reviews says it’s “A fast-paced read perfect for lovers of dark fantasy.” Here’s the back covers.

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A Tale of Two Covers: The Race and The Rift by Nina Allan

A Tale of Two Covers: The Race and The Rift by Nina Allan

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Last July Titan Books released Nina Allen’s debut novel The Race, which was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award and short-listed for both the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her second novel The Rift arrives from Titan next month, and I immediately assumed — based on the strikingly similar art, title font, and cover design — that it was a sequel.

Turns out looks are deceiving (maybe?) Nothing I can find points to any kind of connection between the two. The Race (which we covered here last year) is a loosely connected set of four stories set in a near future Britain ravaged by ecological collapse, and The Rift is about two sisters re-united after two decades, when one of them claims to have been abducted by aliens.

There’s nothing wrong with using similar cover designs for disconnected books. I suppose it’s more of a refection of the times, in which the default assumption for a second novel is automatically that it’s a sequel. Of course, if it turns out the two books are connected, then ignore everything I just said. In fact, here’s the description for The Rift. Make up your own mind.

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Vintage Treasures: Agents of Insight by Steven Klaper

Vintage Treasures: Agents of Insight by Steven Klaper

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These days blending genres is fairly routine. Like supernatural mob crime novels? Try Chuck Wendig’s The Blue Blazes. Enjoy human P.I’s in a fantasy setting? Try Glen Cook’s Garrett, P.I.. Vampire detectives? P.N. Elrod’s The Vampire Files. Zombie private eyes? There’s lots to enjoy! Check out Tim Waggoner’s The Nekropolis Archives or Stefan Petrucha’s Hessius Mann series.

Science fiction and spy thrillers… now that’s a slightly rarer breed. There are a few, but you have to look around. The earliest one I can think of is Agents of Insight, a mid-80s SF novel by Steven Klaper. Agents of the psi-spy agency Insight are being murdered around the world, and two agents have to expose the sinister nemesis behind the scenes, in a fast-paced race for the truth across a futuristic Earth — and beyond.

I don’t know much about this Steven Klaper fellow. Nuthin’, really. He published this single novel, and nothing else. No short stories, no articles, no reviews. Is Klaper a pseudonym for a more well-known writer? I have no idea. Anybody know?

Agents of Insight was published by Tor Books in October 1986. It is 224 pages. priced at $2.95. It has never been reprinted, and there is no digital edition. The cover is by Barclay Shaw. See all our recent Vintage Treasures here.

June 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

June 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

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Lightspeed June 2017-smallOver at Quick Sip Reviews, Charles Payseur takes at detailed look at the latest issue of John Joseph Adams’ Lightspeed.

“Marcel Proust, Incorporated” by Scott Dalrymple (4,130 words)

This is a fascinating story about education and about capitalism and about people being treated like property. This is a rather deeply dystopic story that follows a journalist in education who is brought into a story that is…well, rather huge. The story slowly reveals the scope of a project to make memory, to make education, property. And not just property, but property that doesn’t really belong to the person in whose mind the knowledge of education resides. Instead, this future world imagines what it would be like if there was a drug that would allow corporations and institutions to keep people in debt indefinitely with the looming threat that if people fail to pay, their memories will literally disappear, essentially repossessing the education that they can’t afford to pay for…. It’s a deeply unsettling piece that shows just how far and how bad things could go, and how in need we are of protections now more than ever to value human beings above profits and banks…

“Crossing the Threshold” by Pat Murphy (4,180 words)

This story speaks to me of bargains and loss and chaos. It features a woman whose father has died and who has to sort through his strange and varied estate. At the same time, it’s a story about her maybe-sorta helping the devil do some mischief, and trying to help undo some of that. It’s a bit of a weird contemporary fantasy story where the speculative elements are ones that “could maybe” be explained away, but as that never bothers me I do appreciate the way it moves, the way that it sets up this picture of the world that is only slightly off, where chaos and order seem to be more palpable forces in the world… Luckily there’s a helpful witch willing to work in exchange for some fertility idols. I like the strangeness of the piece… it’s a great read!

This month’s Lightspeed offers original fantasy by Shweta Narayan and Pat Murphy, and fantasy reprints by Carlos Hernandez and Ben Hoffman, as well as original science fiction by Scott Dalrymple and Matthew Kressel, along with SF reprints by Vandana Singh and Elizabeth Bear. The non-fiction includes author spotlights, Book Reviews by Amal El-Mohtar, Movie Reviews by Carrie Vaughn, and an interview with Yoon Ha Lee by Christian A. Coleman.

The exclusive content in the ebook version of Lightspeed this month includes a reprint of Yoon Ha Lee’s “Iseul’s Lexicon” and an excerpt from Seanan McGuire new novel Down Among the Sticks and Bones, plus a bonus excerpt from Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich.

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New Treasures: Want by Cindy Pon

New Treasures: Want by Cindy Pon

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One thing I look for in modern SF is exotic locales. When I read science fiction, I want intrepid explorers in strange landscapes… and what could be more exotic than a near-future Taipei plagued by viruses and strange pollutants? Cindy Pon’s new novel Want features a group of teens who take on a corrupt society to save their city, and soon discover that their enemies may be even more dangerous than they thought. It was published in hardcover this month by Simon Pulse.

Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives. The rich wear special suits, protecting them from the pollution and viruses that plague the city, while those without suffer illness and early deaths. Frustrated by his city’s corruption and still grieving the loss of his mother who died as a result of it, Zhou is determined to change things, no matter the cost.

With the help of his friends, Zhou infiltrates the lives of the wealthy in hopes of destroying the international Jin Corporation from within. Jin Corp not only manufactures the special suits the rich rely on, but they may also be manufacturing the pollution that makes them necessary.

Yet the deeper Zhou delves into this new world of excess and wealth, the more muddled his plans become. And against his better judgment, Zhou finds himself falling for Daiyu, the daughter of Jin Corp’s CEO. Can Zhou save his city without compromising who he is, or destroying his own heart?

Want was published by Simon Pulse on June 13, 2017. It is 327 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $10.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Jason Chan. Get more details at cindypon.com.

Tournaments, Isolated Outposts, and Strange Magic: The Wall of Night Trilogy by Helen Lowe

Tournaments, Isolated Outposts, and Strange Magic: The Wall of Night Trilogy by Helen Lowe

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The Heir of Night-small The Gathering of the Lost-small Daughter of Blood-small

There are times when I want a quick read. And there are times when I want something edgy and new. And then there are times when I just want to sink back into my chair with a comforting 2,000-page fantasy trilogy, featuring squabbling royal houses, dark forces, river cities, tournaments, honor guards, wind-swept bastions, strange magic, wild lands, isolated outposts, black treachery — and a towering mountain wall that’s the last defense against the ravening hordes.

Helen Lowe’s The Wall of Night trilogy fits the bill nicely. The opening novel, The Heir of Night, won the Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer, and The Gathering Of The Lost was nominated for the Gemmell Legend Award for the Best Novel. The series wrapped up last year with Daughter of Blood. Here’s the complete publishing deets.

The Heir of Night (466 pages, $7.99 paperback/$2.99 digital, September 28, 2010) — cover by Gregory Bridges
The Gathering of the Lost (672 pages pages, $7.99 paperback/$3.99 digital, March 27, 2012)
Daughter of Blood (768 pages, $7.99 paperback/$4.99 digital, January 26, 2016) — cover by Don Sipley

All three are paperback originals from Harper Voyager; all three are still in print. Here’s the back covers.

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