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Author: John ONeill

A Secret Conflict During the Civil War: The House Divided Series by Sean McLachlan

A Secret Conflict During the Civil War: The House Divided Series by Sean McLachlan

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Sean McLachlan, our Wednesday afternoon blogger, is primarily known around our offices as the guy with the enviable travel budget. His recent travelogues have taken him to Roman ruins in Spain, Wallingord Castle in England, a volcanic island in the Canary Islands, the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, a writing retreat in Tangier, Morocco, and even more exotic places.

But Sean is also a prolific author. A former archaeologist, he is now a full-time writer who specializes in history, travel, and fiction. He won the 2013 Society of American Travel Writers Award for his Iraq reportage, and his historical fantasy novella “The Quintessence of Absence” appeared in Black Gate. He currently has several series on the go, including Toxic World, a post-apocalyptic science fiction adventure, and the Trench Raiders action series set in World War One. And his contemporary thriller, The Last Hotel Room, will be released later this month.

But my current favorite is his Civil War horror series House Divided, which so far consists of two novels: A Fine Likeness and The River of Desperation. Here’s what Sean told me when I asked him about the origin of the series.

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The September Fantasy Magazine Rack

The September Fantasy Magazine Rack

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I’ve been relying more and more on Charles Payseur’s Quick Sip Reviews to point me towards the fiction that will interest me each month. Charles doesn’t just tell me why he enjoys each story… he gives me enough detail to let me know which stories will grab my attention right out of the gate. Here he is on Rich Larson’s 12,000-word novelette “The Green Man Cometh” in the latest issue of Clarkesworld, for example.

This is a rather thrilling story about technology and damage, about ideology and fanaticism… [it] shows a nicely cyberpunk vision of Earth post-Calamity (which sounds familiar and I can’t remember if I’ve read a story or stories set in this world before), where most of the population has concentrated into one megacity. And in that megacity Eris is a cab driver with prosthetic arms and a bit of a chip on her shoulder because she was born on a neoprimitive colony and then sent away because of her disability… The action is fierce and the characters are fun. I quite liked the play between Eris and Kit, the government agent that gets assigned to her. The tech and the setting are richly explored and it’s a fun story with some nice points… Eris has to grapple with her own frustrations with the system against the terror that is what the cult plans. And yeah, it’s fun and it’s fast and it hits a lot of nice beats with its twists and turns. For an edge-of-your-seat thrilling science fiction, look no further. Very fun and very worth checking out!

Read his complete review of the issue here.

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New Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois

New Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois

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When my copy of The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection arrived last week, I was pleased (and a little flattered) to see this quote on the back.

There are roughly ten Year’s Best volumes currently being published in the speculative fiction market, but they all bow before Gardner Dozois’ The Year’s Best Science Fiction… To read Gardner’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction every year is to get the pulse of the entire industry. All the new writers, literary movements, shake­ups, and happenings in the field ― it’s all there at your fingertips. ― Black Gate

That’s taken from my article on last year’s volume, The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection.

I’ve covered eight Best of the Year anthologies so far this year, from editors like Rich Horton, Jonathan Strahan, Neil Clarke, and John Joseph Adams. But the gold standard remains Gardner Dozois’ massive The Year’s Best Science Fiction, now in its 33rd annual volume.

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It’s Not Too Late to Sample Theresa DeLucci’s 5 Horror Reads for Summer

It’s Not Too Late to Sample Theresa DeLucci’s 5 Horror Reads for Summer

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The last day of summer is September 22. Which means I have four days left to keep the promise to myself I made when I read Theresa DeLucci’s Tor.com article Bright Days, Dark Fiction: 5 Horror Reads for Summer, and read at least two of her tantalizing selections. Top of my list right now are Michael Wehunt’s Greener Pastures and I Am Providence by Nick Mamatas. But I’m also considering Daniel Braum’s debut collection The Night Marchers.

Braum has a knack for describing the indescribable in extraordinarily accessible language. No mean feat when one is relating stories of extra-dimensional creatures and ancient, pissed-off gods. The plight of the underrepresented features prominently in a number of stories, like the title story (conquered gods of Hawaii,) “The Ghost Dance” (Native American spirits,) and “The Green Man of Punta Cabre” (ancient gods of Guatemala.) The latter story in particular was full of pathos as a missionary struggles to understand the true gods of his flock, and the ugly exploitation they suffer at the hands of civil war and invading corporation’s greed… My favorites were the desert horror of “The Moon and the Mesa” and the final story, one original to this collection, “The Sphinx of Cropsey Avenue.” A melancholy surrealist piece about riddles, misfortune, and familial duty finds a man, his fortune-telling girlfriend, and her son all linked as a found family, inextricably connected to a larger universal mystery steeped in ambivalence.

Read Theresa’s complete article here.

Arin Komins on the September 2016 Locus

Arin Komins on the September 2016 Locus

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locus-september-2016-smallLocus magazine publishes a quarterly Forthcoming Books wrap-up, and have been doing so for at least the last 25 years, and the latest one appears in the new September issue. In years gone past I spent a lot of time pouring over those lists, making shopping lists and then calling Mark Zeising Books in California to make an order (or two). So reading the following brief post by my friend and follow book collector Arin Komins brought back a wave of nostalgia.

Spent the evening with the quarterly Locus Mag forthcoming books list in hand, highlighting happily (books to buy for the next 6 months or so.)

This will be followed by the quarterly pre-ordering frenzy, I suspect.

This says something sad about me, I am sure 🙁

It’s funny how publishers catch and lose my interest, too. Finding less and less on the Tor list (with a few notable exceptions), and more and more on the Titan one. Still have a few holdouts with Ace, Roc, Del Rey, etc, but Pocket is all but dead to me anymore.

Still, well pleased to see a new Norman Spinrad coming… and 2 new Kim Newman books. A couple of new Ken MacLeod. The expected 2 new L.E. Modesitt Jr books (of which Recluce Tales is what I am most waiting on.). No new non-Star Wars Alan Dean Foster (sad!). A handful of fun looking anthologies. Jared’s new book! New non-YA by Rachel. New Simon R. Green (Moonbreaker). Misc various others, including guilty pleasure reading (latest Cal Leandros book, newest Valdemar, Butcher anthology, new Chris Golden anthology, some Ari Marmell,etc.). Latest pretty thing from Charnel House that I won’t be able to afford.

Ah the exciting life of a book fiend. Don’t you envy me? (Hah!)

As a matter of fact I do, Arin! These days I spend all my time writing blog posts, and not nearly enough reading magazines. But I did recently renew my subscription to Locus. So that’s a step in the right direction.

See all the details on the September 2016 issue of Locus here. We last covered Locus with the July 2016 issue.

Future Treasures: The Ferryman Institute by Colin Gigl

Future Treasures: The Ferryman Institute by Colin Gigl

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Here’s another debut fantasy with an original and intriguing premise: ferryman Charlie Dawson, condemned to transport souls to the underworld for all eternity, finds his existence unraveling after he prevents a young woman from committing suicide. And his life — such as it is — rapidly gets very complicated. In her review, Jaclyn Fulwood at Shelf Awareness writes,

Since the moment of his near-death more than two centuries ago, Charlie has been in the employ of the shadowy Ferryman Institute, guiding newly deceased souls through the departure process. When a Ferryman fails to convince a spirit to cross over, it becomes a vengeful ghost; Charlie Dawson, star of the Institute’s stable, never fails… In an age when the Institute competes with comparable organizations like the Sisters of Valhalla, Charlie is simply too good to let go. Supported by his refined mentor Cartwright, but stalked by internal affairs liaison Inspector Javrouche (the only person who actively despises him), Charlie limps through his malaise until he receives a special assignment from the president of the Institute — to see to the soul of one Alice Spiegel, a soon-to-be suicide — and is surprised with options: “Be a Ferryman or save the girl. Your choice.”

Gigl pays homage to Greco-Roman mythology while poking fun at corporate structure, but this fast-paced fantasy has its serious side, taking the real-life problem of getting stuck in a dead-end job to a more mystical but still weighty extreme. Gigl seems to realize his concept treads familiar ground; readers will find easy laughs here, but more introspection than in novels with similar premises.

The Ferryman Institute will be published by Gallery Books on September 27, 2016. It is 432 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. Click the images above for bigger versions, or read an excerpt at the Simon & Schuster website.

New Treasures: Dead Boys by Gabriel Squailia

New Treasures: Dead Boys by Gabriel Squailia

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Sometimes I want to settle down with a straightforward adventure fantasy novel. And sometimes… sometimes I want something a bit more off the wall. Something like Gabriel Squailia’s debut novel Dead Boys, in which Jacob Campbell sets off across the Land of the Dead, accompanied by a boy with strange powers over bones, and the hanged man Leopold l’Eclair, searching for the Living Man, the only adventurer to cross the underworld while still alive.

Author Brendan Mathews calls it “A macabre, madcap picaresque full of fast-talking corpses and philosophical skeletons,” and Publishers Weekly praises it for its “Exquisite worldbuilding alongside a mix of humor and philosophy… This underworld is a fascinating city.” Sounds like just the thing I’m in the mood for.

Dead Boys was published by Talos on March 10, 2015. It is 278 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Brian Peterson. Click the images above for bigger versions.

Exploring the Leonaur Science Fiction and Fantasy Catalog

Exploring the Leonaur Science Fiction and Fantasy Catalog

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I first discovered Leonaur Books when I went looking for in-print editions of Stanley G. Weinbaum, the pulp author who died in 1935. Leonaur has virtually his entire science fiction output in print in four handsome and affordable paperbacks. How cool is that? Shortly thereafter, I found Leonaur has a back catalog with enormous appeal to pulp fans, including the complete Arcot, Morey & Wade space opera stories of John W. Campbell, Jr, Guy Boothby’s Dr. Nikola tales, and collections by Homer Eon Flint, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard, Arthur Sellings, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, and many others.

These guys are clearly serious about vintage fantasy and SF. But they don’t just do single-author collections. Over the past few years they’ve also assembled some top-notch original anthologies as part of their extensive Supernatural Fiction Series, like the two volume Leonaur Book of Supernatural Detectives, edited by Morgan Tyler, which contains “The Door Into Infinity” by Edmond Hamilton, a Carnacki tale by William Hope Hodgson, and stories by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Richard Marsh, Gordon McCreagh, Enoch F. Gerrish, and two dozen more.

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September 2016 Clarkesworld Now Available

September 2016 Clarkesworld Now Available

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clarkesworld-september-2016-smallThe September Clarkesworld, issue #120, is packed with new fiction by Jack Skillingstead, Rich Larson, Bogi Takács, and others, plus reprints by Tom Crosshill and Nick Wolven.

Here’s the complete list of stories.

“The Despoilers” by Jack Skillingstead
“Aphrodite’s Blood, Decanted” by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
“The Green Man Cometh” by Rich Larson
“The Opposite and the Adjacent” by Liu Yang
“Toward the Luminous Towers” by Bogi Takács
“The House of Half Mirrors” by Thoraiya Dyer
“The Dark City Luminous” by Tom Crosshill (from The Baltic Atlas, 2016)
“No Placeholder for You My Love” by Nick Wolven (from Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2015.)

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Future Treasures: Crooked Kingdom, the Sequel to Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Future Treasures: Crooked Kingdom, the Sequel to Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows, published in hardcover last September by Henry Holt and Co, became a #1 New York Times bestseller. Which hardly seems fair, since she already had a bestselling young adult series in The Grisha Trilogy (Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising), but some people just hog all the attention, I guess.

Six of Crows is a caper novel set in the same world as The Grisha Trilogy, in which criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker dreams of a brazen heist in the bustling hub of Ketterdam, and manages to assemble a talented team of geniuses and misfits to pull it off. Author Holly Black called it “A twisty and elegantly crafted masterpiece,” and the Los Angeles Times says it’s “Harry Potter meets Game of Thrones… with a caper twist.” How can you resist a description like that?

The sequel, Crooked Kingdom, arrives in hardcover at the end of the month, and sees Kaz Brekker and his crew thrown right back into the thick of things. Here’s the description.

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