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Author: John ONeill

A Tale of Two Covers: Richard Adams’ Watership Down

A Tale of Two Covers: Richard Adams’ Watership Down

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Watership-Down-Poster by Raid71-small Watership-Down-Poster by Raid71 blue-small

Richard Adams’ Watership Down is perhaps my favorite fantasy novel. It’s been reprinted countless times since it was first published in 1972, on the way to selling over 50 million copies worldwide. I’ve collected multiple editions over the years, since I’m a sucker for a good cover.

But I’ve never seen anything like the poster series for the novel created by Raid71, which I fell in love with immediately. These aren’t covers for the novel, but full size wall posters suitable — very suitable, in my opinion — for framing. Click the images above for bigger versions.

I learned about the posters from John Freeman’s British comics blog Down the Tubes last year. Here’s what he said at the time.

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Interstellar Empires, Alien Warrior-Priests, and a Rebel Runner: R.M. Meluch’s Jerusalem Fire

Interstellar Empires, Alien Warrior-Priests, and a Rebel Runner: R.M. Meluch’s Jerusalem Fire

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Jerusalem Fire-small Jerusalem Fire-back-small

I’ve been trying to pay attention to mass market paperbacks lately (since it’s easy for new releases to slip past you if you’re not paying attention.) In my last trip to the bookstore I found R.M. Meluch’s Jerusalem Fire tucked between Jack McDevitt and China Miéville on the shelves, and it had me at “A planet out of myth.” Religion, space empires, and rebel captains — always a good mix in my book.

Meluch is the author of the ongoing Tour of the Merrimack military space opera series, and this seemed like a promising new direction for her. Except it’s not a new direction at all… turns out Jerusalem Fire is her second novel, originally published in paperback by Signet in 1985. It’s been reprinted several times since.

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4,976 Pages of Asimov’s Science Fiction (and a Cat)

4,976 Pages of Asimov’s Science Fiction (and a Cat)

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When cats read science fiction

When Cats Read Science Fiction

Okay, my cat doesn’t really read science fiction. But she does wander over to see what’s going on when I’m photographing eBay purchases. She even knocked over part of my collection as I was prepping a piece on Robert E. Howard a while back (yeah, that’s her white paw on the far right). Cats. They don’t care.

But if Jazz did read science fiction, I’d tell her the early 90s was probably my favorite era of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. Not because the fiction was necessarily better — although there was some really great stuff! — but because it was before I started producing publications of my own, and thus it was the last time I had enough free time to read the magazine even semi-regularly. I have a (complete?) run of the magazine from 1977, but most of my copies are in storage. So when I saw the set above (minus the cat) for sale on eBay, I put in a low bid, and won the entire lot for around ten bucks. Most of them are in terrific shape, and only a few have mailing labels, so overall I’m thrilled with the purchase. (Although the February 1994 issue now has a pair of cat prints on the cover.)

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Invasions, Space Combat, and a Human Bomb: Margaret Fortune’s Spectre War

Invasions, Space Combat, and a Human Bomb: Margaret Fortune’s Spectre War

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Nova Spectre War Margaret Fortune Archangel Spectre War Margaret Fortune-small

Margaret Fortune’s Spectre War looks like my kind of YA series — the kind with space combat. The first volume, Nova, was published in hardcover in 2015 by DAW, and Booklist called it “A super start to what looks like a fine series.” Here’s the description.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode.

But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up.

If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time — literally — runs out.

The second installment, Archangel, arrived in hardcover last week. Nova is now available in paperback — and the digital version is just $1.99!

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Future Treasures: The Horror on the Links: The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, Volume One by Seabury Quinn

Future Treasures: The Horror on the Links: The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, Volume One by Seabury Quinn

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The Horror on the Links The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin Volume One-smallToday Weird Tales is chiefly remembered as the magazine that launched the careers of the great pulp fantasy writers of the 20th Century. But as most fans of the Grand old Lady of the pulps know, the most popular Weird Tales author wasn’t Robert E. Howard, or H.P. Lovecraft, but Seabury Quinn, someone whom is almost completely forgotten today. Quinn’s supernatural detective Jules De Grandin — a top-seller in the 20s and 30s, appearing in over ninety stories and a single novel between 1925 and 1951 — has been out of print for decades. Night Shade rectifies that injustice with the first volume of The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, arriving in hardcover next week.

Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.

Quinn’s short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales’s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin’s knack for solving mysteries — and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!) — captivated readers for nearly three decades.

Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero.

The first volume, The Horror on the Links, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from “The Horror on the Links” (1925) to “The Chapel of Mystic Horror” (1928), as well as an introduction by Robert Weinberg.

The Horror on the Links: The Complete Tales of Jules De Grandin, Volume One will be published by Night Shade Books on April 4, 2017. It is 512 pages, priced at $34.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. Not sure who did the cover, but I’m working on it.

March Issue of The Dark Now on Sale

March Issue of The Dark Now on Sale

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The Dark March 2017-smallThere’s a delicious Weird Western cover on The Dark this month, and that’s enough reason to check it out in my book. (Click the image at right for a supersized version.)

The magazine became a monthly last year, and so far in 2017 it’s published original fiction by Sara Saab, Lisa L. Hannett, Emily B. Cataneo, and Suyi Davies Okungbowa, plus reprints from Ray Cluley, E. Catherine Tobler, Michael Wehunt, and Michael Harris Cohen. At $1.99 per issue, it remains one of the best bargains in the field.

The Dark is co-edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Sean Wallace, with assistance by Jack Fisher. It is published online and in digital formats, and includes two original stories and two reprints each issue. Here’s the Table of Contents for issue #22, cover-dated March 2017.

“If We Survive the Night,” by Carlie St. George
“Caro in Carno,” by Helen Marshall (from The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu, 2016)
“The Thinker,” by George Salis
“The Mysteries,” by Livia Llewellyn (from Nightmare Carnival, 2014)

You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by buying the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets — or subscribe for just $1.99 per issue. If you enjoy the magazine you can contribute to their new Patreon account here. You can also support The Dark by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments.

Read the March issue here, and see their complete back issue catalog here. The March cover is by breakermaximus. We last covered The Dark with the December issue.

See our March Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

New Treasures: Dr Potter’s Medicine Show by Eric Scott Fischl

New Treasures: Dr Potter’s Medicine Show by Eric Scott Fischl

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Dr Potter's Medicine Show-small Dr Potter's Medicine Show-back-small

The mass market original seems almost like a dying art form these days. But not for Angry Robot, for whom it’s their bread and butter. They find talented writers and package their works in attractive, sharply-designed, inexpensive paperbacks. I heartily approve.

Dr Potter’s Medicine Show, by Eric Scott Fischl, is the latest Angry Robot paperback to grab my attention. It’s an historical dark fantasy that John Shirley calls “A powerful alchemical elixir concocted of post Civil War historical fiction, dark fantasy, and Felliniesque flavoring.” On his website, Fischl recently announced that the next book in the series, The Trials of Solomon Parker, will be released in November 2017, also from Angry Robot.

Dr Potter’s Medicine Show was published by Angry Robot on February 2, 2017. It is 346 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Steven Meyer-Rassow. Read the first three chapters at the Angry Robot website.

Assassins, Mad Robots, and an Alien Hunt: Rich Horton on The Man With Nine Lives and A Touch of Infinity by Harlan Ellison

Assassins, Mad Robots, and an Alien Hunt: Rich Horton on The Man With Nine Lives and A Touch of Infinity by Harlan Ellison

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Back in the early days of the print version of Black Gate, our first Managing Editor, Dave Truesdale, wanted to bring in some big names to the magazine. So I paid a fortune to get a big novella from Michael Moorcock in our first issue, and I got a phone call from Harlan Ellison, whom Dave had contacted to commission a story.

We were paying six cents a word for fiction at the time, but Dave had coached me that Harlan expected to get paid more than that. “His rate is 13 cents a word,” Dave told me.

I was trying to launch a nationally-distributed magazine with my own money (and money I’d begged from friends and family), and paying that kind of money was not in my meager budget. But I grit my teeth and told Dave to go ahead and make the offer. I’d make up the difference with cuts elsewhere, I figured. Harlan agreed, and we were in business.

It’s a long way between an agreement and a completed story, however. Shortly after we made Harlan the offer, he sold a story to Hemispheres, the inflight magazine of United Airlines. They paid Harlan more than 13 cents a word — a lot more. When Harlan called it was to tell me, in considerable detail, just how much he’d been paid for that story.

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Where The Road meets Mad Max: Peter Newman’s The Vagrant Trilogy

Where The Road meets Mad Max: Peter Newman’s The Vagrant Trilogy

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The Vagrant Peter Newman-small The Malice Peter Newman-small The Seven Peter Newman-small

In his SF Signal review Nick Sharps called Peter Newman’s The Vagrant “Dark Dystopian Fantasy at Its Very Best,” saying:

The premise of The Vagrant is simple enough. Accompanied by a baby and a goat, a nameless mute must cross demon-infested wastelands to deliver a magical sword to the Shining City, last bastion of hope. The mute is hunted by multiple factions and it is difficult to distinguish friend from foe in the ruins of a world tainted by evil… Beneath the grit and grime of The Vagrant there is no shortage of beauty. It’s part fantasy and part science fiction. There are demons and knights but the demons enhance their followers with necrotech and the knights ride floating castles and caterpillar tanks. All of the shiny technology of the past has fallen to rust and disuse in the wake of the demonic incursion. The taint of the demons brings mutation and famine. The Vagrant has a sort of The Road meets Mad Max meets The Children of Men vibe…

It wouldn’t feel appropriate to classify The Vagrant as grimdark fantasy. The elements of the subgenre are all present: the setting is dystopian, life is harsh and brief, the bad guys are bad and the good guys are few and far between. Newman’s demons and the change they affect on the world and its inhabitants remind me of the forces of Chaos from Warhammer 40,000 — the very property that inspired the term grimdark. The Vagrant is bleak, depressive, and violent and yet… The Vagrant surpassed all my expectations.

The sequel, The Malice, finally arrived in trade paperback from Harper Voyager this week, and the third and final book, The Seven, is scheduled to appear in October.

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Modern Mythology: A Conversation with Author Scott Oden

Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Modern Mythology: A Conversation with Author Scott Oden

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I really enjoyed the last audio show from Dream Tower Media, a lively conversation with Black Gate blogger Ryan Harvey on Edgar Rice Burroughs and his enduring works. So I was very pleased to see Robert Zoltan and his co-host Edgar the Raven return last month with a brand new episode of their Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast, a conversation with author Scott Oden (Memnon, The Lion of Cairo) that delves deep into the history and writing of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Once again, calling this a podcast doesn’t do it justice, as it’s really a professionally-produced radio show set in the dimension-hopping Dream Tower (with a talking raven). It opens with a trip to Middle Earth, a visit from a lost Nazgûl, and mis-dialing Sauron on a palantir. But the show eventually settles into a fascinating discussion on the life and work of Tolkien, with some lengthy asides to delve into Robert’s theories on the origins of the creative drive (and the evils of world-building).

Scott makes a terrific subject, sharing his story of hammering out three chapters of a Conan novel before turning to history as a source. And his tale of how writing — producing his first novel, Men of Bronze, with a razor-blade sitting next to him — literally saved his life, is riveting stuff. His new novel, A Gathering of Ravens, is coming from Thomas Dunne Books in June.

Check out J.R.R. Tolkien, Master of Modern Mythology: A Conversation with Author Scott Oden, and all the episodes of the Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast, here.