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Future Treasures: Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

Future Treasures: Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

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Wintersong-smallRemember the 80s fantasy classic Labyrinth? Of course you do. Directed by the brilliant Jim Henson and introducing a 15-year-old Jennifer Connelly, the film revolved around the efforts of Sarah to rescue her brother Toby from the clutches of the Goblin King (played with marvelous panache by David Bowie).

Labyrinth is chiefly remembered today for its terrific puppetry and Brian Froud’s ace conceptual designs. But the story it tells is a very old one, one which recurs often in fairy tales. Debut author S. Jae-Jones brings us a fresh new retelling in her novel Wintersong, coming in hardcover next month from Thomas Dunne. Roshani Chokshi (The Star-Touched Queen) says, “This was Labyrinth by way of Angela Carter. Deliciously romantic, with a nuanced Goblin King and a strong heroine, this story was rife with fairy tales, music, and enchantment.”

The last night of the year. Now the days of winter begin and the Goblin King rides abroad, searching for his bride…

All her life, Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, dangerous Goblin King. They’ve enraptured her mind, her spirit, and inspired her musical compositions. Now eighteen and helping to run her family’s inn, Liesl can’t help but feel that her musical dreams and childhood fantasies are slipping away.

But when her own sister is taken by the Goblin King, Liesl has no choice but to journey to the Underground to save her. Drawn to the strange, captivating world she finds ― and the mysterious man who rules it ― she soon faces an impossible decision. And with time and the old laws working against her, Liesl must discover who she truly is before her fate is sealed.

Rich with music and magic, S. Jae-Jones’s Wintersong will sweep you away into a world you won’t soon forget.

Wintersong will be published by Thomas Dunne Book on February 7, 2017. It is 448 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. Read a massive 44-page excerpt (in PDF format) at the Macmillan website.

January 2017 Apex Magazine Now Available

January 2017 Apex Magazine Now Available

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Apex Magazine January 2017-smallThe January 2017 Apex is a Special Double Issue, with brand new short stories by Lia Swope Mitchell, Iori Kusano, James Beamon, and J.J. Litke, a novelette by Ursula Vernon, and reprints from Rich Larson and Mike Allen. Mike’s contribution, “The Quiltmaker,” the sequel to his Nebula nominee “The Button Bin,” is a massive 20,000 word novella which Mike calls “easily my most gruesome published work to date” (and as the guy who edited and published his The Black Fire Concerto, easily the most gruesome novel I’ve ever read, I can tell you that means something). Here’s editor Jason Sizemore with his summation of the January issue.

Ursula Vernon returns to our pages with the powerful “The Dark Birds.” This dark fantasy (and dare we say…horror) allegory is my favorite Vernon piece thus far. James Beamon explores time travel and racism in “Soliloquy in a Cheap Diner Off Route 66.” “The Invisible Box” is a fun and quick little story of revenge. “Next Station, Shibuya” by Iori Kusano continues the conversation our magazine has ongoing with Japanase-influenced horror and SF. In “Mag, the Habitat and We” Lia Swope Mitchell’s little protagonists protect and fight for their home. Our two reprints are from Mike Allen and Rich Larson. “The Quiltmaker” is a terrifying dark fantasy/horror novella that will leave a mark. “Masked” by Rich Larson will have you thinking of Black Mirrors, but hey, his story came out before the third season of the show, so we’re giving Rich all the credit for the idea!

Our nonfiction includes interviews with cover artist Aaron Nakahara and author James Beamon. Dr. Amy H. Sturgis contributes a scholarly piece titled “The Once and Future Chief: Tecumseh in (Science) Fiction.” Be sure to check out our August, 2017 issue as Dr. Sturgis will be our guest editor and will focus on First Nations and Indigenous authors of North America.

Poetry contributors this month include Barton Paul Levenson, Laura Madeline Wiseman, Tracy May Adair, and Amanda Pekar.

Here’s the complete TOC, with links to all the free content.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: An Excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna

Black Gate Online Fiction: An Excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna

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Mad Shadows 2 cover by Erika M. Szabo-small MAD SHADOWS 2 BACK Cover-small

Joe Bonadonna’s Dorgo the Dowser novelette “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” part of Joe’s first swords and sorcery collection, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, is one of the most popular pieces of fiction ever posted at Black Gate. Joe’s other contributions to the Black Gate Online Fiction library include an exclusive excerpt from Waters of Darkness, his supernatural pirate dark fantasy novel co-written with David C. Smith, and his recent story “Queen of Toads,” an old-fashioned pulp horror tale.

Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Part Three of Mad Shadows II — Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent, published in trade paperback and digital formats this month.

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The Late January Fantasy Magazine Rack

The Late January Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Ares-4-rack Asimovs-SF-January-February-2017-rack Clarkesworld-124-rack Lightspeed-January-2017-rack
The-Ultimate-RPG-Handbook-rack Black-Static-56-rack Shimmer-35-rack Some-of-the-Best-from-Tor-2016-rack

This month the first issues of Analog and Asimov’s SF in their new bimonthly format arrived — with an extra 16 pages each — and I like the change already. We also welcome PC Gamer to our magazine checklist for the first time, courtesy of the irresistible Ultimate RPG Handbook special issue. But the big news for short fiction fans was the release of the massive annual compilation of Some of the Best From Tor.com, containing 25 recent stories from one of the most acclaimed digital magazines in the genre. I hope you managed to nab a free copy at Tor.com while they were available! If not, free copies are still available through Amazon.com and B&N.com for a limited time.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our early January Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

As we’ve mentioned before, all of these magazines are completely dependent on fans and readers to keep them alive. Many are marginal operations for whom a handful of subscriptions may mean the difference between life and death. Why not check one or two out, and try a sample issue? There are magazines here for every budget, from completely free to $35/issue. If you find something intriguing, I hope you’ll consider taking a chance on a subscription. I think you’ll find it’s money very well spent.

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Future Treasures: A Perfect Machine by Brett Savory

Future Treasures: A Perfect Machine by Brett Savory

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A Perfect Machine Brett Savory-smallBrett Savory is co-Publisher (with Sandra Kasturi) of the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Award-winning ChiZine Publications, one of the finest small press publishers out there. He’s also an accomplished writer, with over 50 short stories two novels (In and Down and The Distance Travelled) to his credit.

His newest novel is set in a future city where Runners and Hunters carry out a sacred ritual chase every night. Runners survive being shot and grow more and more metallic. But when two Runners transform into something much more (or less) than human, their worlds will change forever. Paul Tremblay calls it “A destabilizing gutshot of science fiction, crime, and existentialism that will leave your head spinning,” and Paul Goat Allen says it’s “An existential horror story featuring a monster robot — the illegitimate lovechild of David Cronenberg and Isaac Asimov.” Sounds edgy to me! It arrives in paperback from Angry Robot next month.

Henry Kyllo is a Runner, a member of a secret society called the Inferne Cutis. Every day he is chased through the city by Hunters whose goal is to fill him with bullets. It is a secret war steeped in history, tradition, and mutual fear.

Rumours abound about what happens when a Runner achieves ascension, but it has supposedly never happened before, so no one knows for sure. Except that it has happened before. And it is happening again.

This time, to Henry Kyllo.

A Perfect Machine will be published by Angry Robot on February 7, 2017. It is $7.99 in paperback, and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Erik Mohr. Read more details at Tor.com.

January 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

January 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

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Lightspeed January 2017-smallBlack Gate author Jeremiah Tolbert (“Groob’s Stupid Grubs”) has had a nice run of stories in Lightspeed recently, including “Taste the Singularity at the Food Truck Circus” (August 2016) and the Dungeonspace tale “The Cavern of the Screaming Eye” (October 2016). Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews speaks very highly of his new story in the January issue, “The West Topeka Triangle.”

The story unfolds at a time that many would point to as the golden days of modern America. Reagan’s America. And for Jason, growing up at that time means mostly absent parents and a neighborhood and world that seems poised to swallow him up. He’s not exactly popular, and as part of his social isolation he is obsessed with a theory that his town has a triangle like the Bermuda Triangle that explains a string of disappearances. And I like how the story builds this world… It’s also a world that’s full of danger, not just because people are disappearing though that comes to dominate the story, the mystery of what’s happening. For Jason it’s a diversion, a way to escape a stifling home life that seems to defy any attempt to change it… It’s a weird but also haunting story that lingers for me, that remains like a weight on my chest.

Read Charles’ complete review of the January issue here.

This month’s Lightspeed offers original fantasy by Kat Howard and Jeremiah Tolbert, and fantasy reprints by Jeffrey Ford and Kima Jones. It also has original science fiction by Adam-Troy Castro and Molly Tanzer, along with SF reprints by James S.A. Corey and Mary Rosenblum. The non-fiction includes an editorial from John Joseph Adams, author spotlights, movie reviews by Carrie Vaughn, Book Reviews by Andrew Liptak, and an interview with Kij Johnson.

The exclusive content in the ebook version this month includes Judith Berman’s Nebula-nominated novella “Awakening,” which originally appeared in Black Gate 10. Along with the story by Jeremy Tolbert, and the reprint from BG author Jeffrey Ford (who wrote the brilliant “Exo-Skeleton Town“), it’s making me positively nostalgic.

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io9 on January’s Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy

io9 on January’s Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy

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The Last Sacrifice-small Windwitch by Susan Dennard-small The Hanging Tree Ben Aaronovitch-small

After we completed our round up of the most interesting Best of 2016 lists, I kinda got a little list happy. I started investigating all these other lists. Best Books of January! Best of 2017! Turns out there’s a lot of interesting books coming your way in the next 12 months. Like, a lot.

I can’t be expected to keep all this knowledge to myself. So here we are with another book list, in this case io9′s nicely comprehensive summary of January’s Must-Read Sci-Fi and Fantasy, written by Cheryl Eddy. It covers no less than 25 dynamite new releases, including new books from Terry Pratchett, L.E. Modesitt, Seanan McGuire, Adam Nevill, Charles Stross, Kim Newman, Ellen Klages, David Brin and Stephen W. Potts, and many others. Here’s Eddy’s take on The Last Sacrifice by James A. Moore (Angry Robot, January 3, 2017).

The prolific fantasy author’s latest is about a warrior who becomes a hunted man when he challenges the gods who have targeted his family as their next human sacrifice.

The Last Sacrifice is the opening volume in a new epic fantasy series, Tides of War.

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Take a Crash Course in the History of Computer Role Playing in The Ultimate RPG Handbook

Take a Crash Course in the History of Computer Role Playing in The Ultimate RPG Handbook

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The Ultimate RPG Handbook-smallI’ve been a subscriber to PC Gamer magazine for over 22 years, since it launched as a British “Euro mag” in November 1993 (back in the days when computer hobby shops here in the US would carry British gaming magazines for the Amiga and the PC, and the magazines had disks taped to the cover. And there was such a thing as computer hobby shops.) The magazine has long had a terrific stable of writers — including Editor-in-Chief Gary Whitta, who famously left the magazine to become a screen writer. And he did, too, writing The Book of Eli and Rogue One, among others.

The artifact at right is PC Gamer Presents: The Ultimate RPG Handbook; I found it in the magazine section at Barnes & Noble on Saturday. It sorta looks like a regular issue of PC Gamer, except it has no ads, and is totally devoted to my favorite video game genre. Sweet!

Much of it is composed of reprints from the magazine, but there’s new stuff too — like Richard Cobbett’s massive 28-page full-color history of computer RPGs, starting with Temple of Apshai and Beneath Apple Manor, through Wizardry, Bard’s Tale, the SSI Gold Box Games, Star Control 2, Deus Ex, Witcher 3, and half a zillion titles in between. Cobbett lingers on several of the major series, like Ultima, and particularly influential games like Elder Scrolls:Arena, Baldur’s Gate, and Fallout 3. He doesn’t cover everything, of course, but his breezy style makes the whole thing entertaining and highly readable.

There’s plenty more crammed into the issue, including a feature on the future of RPGs, a long article on Witcher 3, and reviews of major new RPG releases like Fallout 4, Dark Souls III, and Tyranny (maybe they didn’t fit in the regular magazine?) There’s also a few production glitches, like the invitation on the cover to “Flip For More,” and an arrow pointing to the inside cover… which is totally blank. Nonetheless, whether you’re new to the genre or an obsessive collector who (like me) has every single game they mention, this is a terrific way to spend a few hours. Recommended.

The Ultimate RPG Handbook was published by Future Publishing in December 2016. It is 98 pages, priced at $9.99 (US edition), and 148 pages for £9.99 (UK edition). There is no digital edition, though one is promised. Get more details at the website.

Future Treasures: With Blood Upon the Sand, Volume II of The Song of the Shattered Sands, by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Future Treasures: With Blood Upon the Sand, Volume II of The Song of the Shattered Sands, by Bradley P. Beaulieu

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Twelve-Kings-in-Sharakhai-small With Blood Upon the Sand-small

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, the opening novel in Bradley P. Beaulieu’s epic fantasy series The Song of the Shattered Sands, was picked as one of the Best Books of the Year by Amazon, BuzzFeed, and the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi Blog.. And in her BG review, Kelly Swails called it “epic… a complex novel with crisp prose that is a joy to read.” Of Sand and Malice Made, a volume of linked novellas set in the same world, was released in September. And now the long anticipated second novel in the series, With Blood Upon the Sand, arrives in hardcover from DAW next month.

Çeda, now a Blade Maiden in service to the kings of Sharakhai, trains as one of their elite warriors, gleaning secrets even as they send her on covert missions to further their rule. She knows the dark history of the asirim — that hundreds of years ago they were enslaved to the kings against their will — but when she bonds with them as a Maiden, chaining them to her, she feels their pain as if her own. They hunger for release, they demand it, but with the power of the gods compelling them, they find their chains unbreakable.

Çeda could become the champion they’ve been waiting for, but the need to tread carefully has never been greater. After their recent defeat at the hands of the rebel Moonless Host, the kings are hungry for blood, scouring the city in their ruthless quest for revenge. Çeda’s friend Emre and his new allies in the Moonless Host hope to take advantage of the unrest in Sharakhai, despite the danger of opposing the kings and their god-given powers, and the Maidens and their deadly ebon blades.

When Çeda and Emre are drawn into a plot of the blood mage Hamzakiir, they learn a devastating secret that may very well shatter the power of the hated kings. But it may all be undone if Çeda cannot learn to navigate the shifting tides of power in Sharakhai and control the growing anger of the asirim that threatens to overwhelm her…

With Blood Upon the Sand will be published by DAW on February 7, 2017. It is 672 pages, priced at $26 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Donato Giancola, who painted the cover of Black Gate 15. Read more in the exclusive cover reveal at the B&N Sci-Fi Blog.

Black Static #56 Now on Sale

Black Static #56 Now on Sale

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Black Static 56-smallBritish horror magazine Black Static #56, cover-dated January-February 2017, is now available. Kevin P Hallett at Tangent Online has particular praise for “What We Are Moulded After” by Eugenia M. Triantafyllou:

Eleni’s harsh husband, Andreas, is dead and she has used her witch powers to recreate him from clay in this short fantasy…. However, Eleni’s cousin sees him. The cousin thinks her secret lover is still alive.

Eleni is furious that her dead husband’s mistress has seen the clay copy. Now she must destroy her creation. But as she does, she holds back from the final killing cut and leaves the clay Andreas with no legs or arms, but still with its mind. She hides the clay lump in the shed.

Days later, the real Andreas returns, alive and just as cruel as before. Can the remains of the clay version somehow protect Eleni? …an interesting and nicely written fantasy.

And “Stanislav in Foxtown” by Ian Steadman.

Stan works for mean Mr. Sharples, in this short horror/mystery. In a dying town, Mr. Sharples runs the fried chicken shop, treating Stan contemptuously. Just as long as he has money to send back to his family, Stan continues to tolerate the abusive treatment.

When he spies a fox near his home, lonely Stan decides to befriend it, giving it leftover chicken bones. Soon, there are tens of foxes coming to his old house. The leader of the foxes seems to offer a pact with Stan. Could they help him with Mr. Sharples? …a nicely written story. The mystery pulled the reader through to the end.

Read the complete review here.

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