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Author: John ONeill

New Treasures: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?, the Third Shadow Police Novel by Paul Cornell

New Treasures: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?, the Third Shadow Police Novel by Paul Cornell

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London Falling Paul Cornell-small The Severed Streets-small Who Killed Sherlock Holmes-small

I bought a copy of Paul Cornell’s London Falling, the first novel in what was to become his Shadow Police series, shortly after it was released in 2013. It followed Detective Inspector James Quill and his team after they came into contact with a strange artifact and accidentally develop the Sight, enabling them to take on the otherworldly creatures secretly prowling London’s streets. I missed The Severed Streets, the second in the series, completely, so I was very grateful to receive a review copy of the third book, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?, released in trade paperback by PAN on May 19. This series looks like a lot of fun, and I’ve already started a search for the middle book to complete the set.

The ghost of Sherlock Holmes is dead, but who will solve his murder?

The Great Detective’s ghost has walked London’s streets for an age, given shape by people’s memories. Now someone’s put a ceremonial dagger through his chest. But what’s the motive? And who — or what — could kill a ghost?

When policing London’s supernatural underworld, eliminating the impossible is not an option. DI James Quill and his detectives have learnt this the hard way. Gifted with the Sight, they’ll pursue a criminal genius — who’ll lure them into a Sherlockian maze of clues and evidence. The team also have their own demons to fight. They’ve been to Hell and back (literally) but now the unit is falling apart…

Paul Cornell’s most recent publication here in the US was the acclaimed novella Witches of Lychford, published by Tor.com.

Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? was published by Pan Books on May 19, 2016. It is 358 pages, priced at £8.99 (around $12.76 in the US).

Future Treasures: Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay

Future Treasures: Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay

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Disappearance at Devil's Rock-smallPaul Tremblay wrote what is easily one of the most acclaimed horror novels of last year, A Head Full of Ghosts, about a hit reality TV show that captures a real exorcism, and the investigation into what really happened, 15 years later. Nathan Ballingrud called it “Outstanding. Creepy, surprising, occasionally funny, always compassionate… one of the best horror novels I’ve read in years.” Tremblay’s follow up novel, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, arrives in hardcover next week from William Morrow, and needless to say, expectations are sky-high.

Late one summer night, Elizabeth Sanderson receives the devastating news that every mother fears: her thirteen-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished without a trace in the woods of a local park.

The search isn’t yielding any answers, and Elizabeth and her young daughter, Kate, struggle to comprehend Tommy’s disappearance. Feeling helpless and alone, their sorrow is compounded by anger and frustration: the local and state police have uncovered no leads. Josh and Luis, the friends who were the last to see Tommy before he vanished, may not be telling the whole truth about that night in Borderland State Park, when they were supposedly hanging out a landmark the local teens have renamed Devil’s Rock.

Living in an all-too-real nightmare, riddled with worry, pain, and guilt, Elizabeth is wholly unprepared for the strange series of events that follow. She believes a ghostly shadow of Tommy materializes in her bedroom, while Kate and other local residents claim to see a shadow peering through their windows in the dead of night. Then, random pages torn from Tommy’s journal begin to mysteriously appear — entries that reveal an introverted teenager obsessed with the phantasmagoric; the loss of his father, killed in a drunk-driving accident a decade earlier; a folktale involving the devil and the woods of Borderland; and a horrific incident that Tommy believed connects them.

As the search grows more desperate, and the implications of what happened become more haunting and sinister, no one is prepared for the shocking truth about that night and Tommy’s disappearance at Devil’s Rock.

Disappearance at Devil’s Rock will be published by William Morrow on June 21, 2016. It is 336 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. Read an excerpt at (of all places) the Wall Street Journal.

Celebrate 200 issues of Excellence With Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Celebrate 200 issues of Excellence With Beneath Ceaseless Skies

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 200-smallBlack Gate would like to salute editor Scott H. Andrews and the entire team at Beneath Ceaseless Skies for achieving a remarkable milestone: publishing an amazing 200 issues over the last eight years. (To put that in perspective, that’s 185 more than Black Gate, every one of them on time! I get light headed just thinking about it.)

Simultaneous with their landmark 200th issue, the magazine wrapped up their subscription drive aimed at enabling the magazine to publish longer stories, and announced that they are now open to stories up to 11,000 words. Sweet!

But the big news is the big double issue. Issue #200 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is dated May 26 and features fiction by Catherynne M. Valente, Kameron Hurley, Yoon Ha Lee, and Seth Dickinson, podcasts by Yoon Ha Lee and Seth Dickinson, and a Gaunt and Bone reprint by BG author Chris Willrich. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

“The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery” by Catherynne M. Valente
So it came to pass that over the weeks remaining until the parturition of Perdita, I fashioned for her, out of crystal and ebony and chips of fine jade, twin organs of sight not the equal of mortal orbs but by far their superior, in clarity, in beauty, even in soulfulness. If you ask me how I accomplished it, I shall show you the door, for I am still a tradesman, however exalted, and tradesmen tell no tales.

“The Judgment of Gods and Monsters” by Kameron Hurley
She shouldn’t have gone to the trial, or talked to that stupid reporter, even for a second. Her father would know, now, that it was her who had his file. It was her who had been called upon to bring him in. She wouldn’t have shown up at the trial otherwise, and he knew it. “Two bits to the one whose family it isn’t,” she said to Merriz, and rolled up to get a look at the shooters.

…

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A Choose Your Own Adventure Board Game: Red Raven’s Above and Below

A Choose Your Own Adventure Board Game: Red Raven’s Above and Below

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Above and Below-smallWhen Kickstarter first became popular, it seemed every month I was getting deluged with updates for a dozen campaigns for new board games. Many failed, of course, and more than a few never delivered. But lots of those promising projects did deliver, and the result has been some fascinating products over the last few years.

Ryan Laukat’s Above and Below is a great example. It was a Kickstarter project with a $15,000 goal, and ended funding on March 25th, 2015 with $142,148 pledged. The last few copies shipped out to the 2,553 backers in October of last year, and the game has been available to the rest of us ever since.

Above and Below is a mashup of town-building and storytelling where you and up to three friends compete to build the best village above and below ground. The game’s premise should be warmly familiar to most fantasy readers.

Your last village was ransacked by barbarians. You barely had time to pick up the baby and your favorite fishing pole before they started the burning and pillaging. You wandered over a cruel desert, braved frozen peaks, and even paddled a log across a rough sea, kicking at the sharks whenever they got too close, the baby strapped tightly to your back.

Then you found it! The perfect place to make your new home. But as soon as you had the first hut built, you discovered a vast network of caverns underground, brimming with shiny treasures, rare resources, and untold adventure. How could you limit your new village to the surface? You immediately start organizing expeditions and building houses underground as well as on the surface.

With any luck, you’ll build a village even stronger than your last — strong enough, even, to turn away the barbarians the next time they come knocking.

Players explore a massive cavern, building a new village above and below ground in what more than one reviewer has called a Choose Your Own Adventure-style board game.

…

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New Treasures: The Wheel of Osheim, Volume Three of The Red Queen’s War by Mark Lawrence

New Treasures: The Wheel of Osheim, Volume Three of The Red Queen’s War by Mark Lawrence

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Prince of Fools-small The-Liars-Key-small The Wheel of Osheim-small

Mark Lawrence is the author of the bestselling Broken Empire trilogy (Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, and Emperor of Thorns), the final volume of which won the 2014 David Gemmell Legend Award. The trilogy told the story of Jorg Ancrath’s devastating rise to power, and Mark returned to the same world for his second trilogy, The Red Queen’s War, which began with Prince of Fools (2014) and The Liar’s Key (2015). The final volume, The Wheel of Osheim, was published in hardcover last week. Here’s the description.

All the horrors of Hell stand between Snorri Ver Snagason and the rescue of his family, if indeed the dead can be rescued. For Jalan Kendeth, getting back out alive and with Loki’s key is all that matters. Loki’s creation can open any lock, any door, and it may also be the key to Jalan’s fortune back in the living world.

Jalan plans to return to the three w’s that have been the core of his idle and debauched life: wine, women, and wagering. Fate however has other plans, larger plans. The Wheel of Osheim is turning ever faster, and it will crack the world unless it’s stopped. When the end of all things looms, and there’s nowhere to run, even the worst coward must find new answers. Jalan and Snorri face many dangers, from the corpse hordes of the Dead King to the many mirrors of the Lady Blue, but in the end, fast or slow, the Wheel of Osheim always pulls you back. In the end it’s win or die.

We published the first chapter of Prince of Thorns, with a brand new introduction by Mark, here, and Howard Andrew Jones’s interview with him is here. Mark’s long article on writing and selling The Prince of Thorns (and the early rejection letters he got from Black Gate) is here.

The Wheel of Osheim was published by Ace on June 7, 2016. It is 432 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover and $13.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Jason Chan.

John DeNardo on How to Start Reading Science Fiction: Short Stories

John DeNardo on How to Start Reading Science Fiction: Short Stories

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Year's Best Science Fiction 8 Dozois-smallSF Signal editor John DeNardo has been writing some fine articles for Kirkus Reviews recently — like February’s Speculative Fiction Books You Can’t Miss, and The Best of the Best of 2015. I’ve been browsing through some of his earlier articles, and particularly enjoying his 6-part series on How to Start Reading Science Fiction from 2011. Here’s a snippet from Part 4: Short Stories, which packs in some terrific recommendations for SF readers old and new.

Just like snacks, SF/F anthologies — collections of stories by a variety of authors — come in an assortment of flavors.

Some great anthologies for folks starting down the road of science fiction include Science Fiction 101 edited by Robert Silverberg; The Science Fiction Hall of Fame series, edited by various editors; The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction edited by Arthur B. Evans, et. al.; and The Secret History of Science Fiction edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel — all these offer fantastic, well-rounded selections of stories.

A handful of retrospective anthologies offer editors’ picks for best stories. Popular ones include Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction series, the longest-running retrospective series in print… The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year series edited by Jonathan Strahan; [and] The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Year’s Best Fantasy series edited by Rich Horton…

Sometimes anthologies are centered on a common theme… Anthologies don’t necessarily need a theme to be good. Some notable unthemed anthologies include Lou Anders’ Fast Forward series; George Mann’s The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction series; Sharyn November’s Firebirds series; and Jonathan Strahan offers Engineering Infinity, Life on Mars, as well as the Eclipse series of sf/f. Top-notch fiction abounds!

Read the complete article here.

Vintage Treasures: The Sky Children by Donald Olson

Vintage Treasures: The Sky Children by Donald Olson

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The-Sky-Children-Donald-Olson-small The-Sky-Children-Donald-Olson-back-small

I don’t know a lot about Donald Olson, but IMDB tells me The Sky Children was his only novel. He did publish three short stories, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and The Twilight Zone Magazine, between 1973 and 1981, but that’s about it.

But Mr. Olson isn’t really the most intriguing thing about The Sky Children. That would be the moody and effective cover, by an uncredited artist who also produced many covers for Avon in the mid-70s, including several anthologies like Roger Elwood’s Demon Kind, and others. A little investigation has not produced an immediate answer to this riddle, so I thought I’d post it here and see if anyone can help.

The Sky Children was published by Avon Books in 1975. It is 144 pages, priced at $1.25. The cover artist is uncredited. I bought an unread copy online last month for under $1.

Tor.com is Buying Science Fiction Novellas

Tor.com is Buying Science Fiction Novellas

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Tor.com bannerTor.com is on a roll. Their new line of novellas has been a commercial and critical hit — the $2.99 digital price pretty much makes them irresistible, and Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti just won a Nebula Award. Plenty of others in their catalog are getting award attention, too. And in addition to their premium publishing line, they continue to publish fine novellas for free on their website.

All in all, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Tor.com has helped usher in a new era for the novella in SF & Fantasy publishing. They certainly haven’t done it alone — Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and other top sites have all recently announced that they’re starting to publish longer work — but they’ve definitely led the way in making the novella sexy again.

So I was delighted to see Tor.com recently open a new reading period for unsolicited novellas. Here’s the announcement.

Starting June 5th, Lee Harris and Carl Engle-Laird will be reading and evaluating original novellas submitted by hopeful authors to http://submissions.tor.com/tornovellas/. You can find full guidelines here, and we highly recommend you read the guidelines, because we’re doing things a little differently this time. Until the end of June, Tor.com will only be considering novellas of between 20,000 and 40,000 words that fit one of the following science fiction subgenres:

  • Time Travel
  • Space Opera
  • Near Future Thriller
  • Cyberpunk

…As always, both Lee Harris and Carl Engle-Laird actively request submissions from writers from underrepresented populations. This includes, but is not limited to, writers of any race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class and physical or mental ability.

If you’ve had that unfinished space opera/cyberpunk thriller gathering dust on your hard drive, now is definitely time to polish it off an submit it! Read complete details here.

Future Treasures: Icon by Genevieve Valentine, Book II of The Persona Sequence

Future Treasures: Icon by Genevieve Valentine, Book II of The Persona Sequence

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Persona Genevieve Valentine-small Icon Genevieve Valentine-small

Genevieve Valentine’s first novel Mechanique received a Nebula nomination and placed #2 on the Locus Award list for Best First Novel. Her second was the highly acclaimed The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. Her third, Persona, was the first installment in The Persona Sequence; it was released last year as part of the freshman class of Saga Press releases, and very warmly received.

The sequel, Icon, arrives at the end of the month. Here’s the description.

Suyana Sapaki survived an assassination attempt and has risen far higher than her opponents ever expected. Now she has to keep her friends close and her enemies closer as she walks a deadly tightrope — and one misstep could mean death, or worse — in this smart, fast-paced sequel to the critically acclaimed Persona.

A year ago, International Assembly delegate Suyana Sapaki barely survived an attempt on her life. Now she’s climbing the social ranks, dating the American Face, and poised for greatness. She has everything she wants, but the secret that drives her can’t stay hidden forever. When she quickly saves herself from a life-threatening political scandal, she gains a new enemy: the public eye.

Daniel Park was hoping for the story of a lifetime. And he got her. He’s been following Suyana for a year. But what do you do when this person you thought you knew has vanished inside the shell, and dangers are building all around you? How much will Daniel risk when his job is to break the story? And how far will he go for a cause that isn’t his?

Icon will be published by Saga Press on June 28, 2016. It is 322 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover, and $7.99 for the digital edition

New Treasures: Alive by Scott Sigler

New Treasures: Alive by Scott Sigler

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Alive Scott Sigler-small Alive-Scott Sigler-back-small

New York Times best-selling writer Scott Sigler is the author of fifteen novels, included Infected and Pandemic. His popular Generations Trilogy began with Alive, published in hardcover in July of last year, followed by Alight, released on April 5 of 2016. The final novel, Alone, is scheduled to be released in March of next year.

Alive follows the story of a band of young teens who awaken in a coffin-strewn underground chamber, and the disturbing discoveries that await them when they finally escape. Led by a girl who has no memory of her identity, they explore a labyrinth of corridors filled with bones and dust… and much worse. Cherie Priest (Boneshaker) calls it “A tense, unsettling page-turner of a story — both deeply strange and wildly compelling,” and Entertainment Weekly say it “lives up to its hype, packing plenty of thrills.” It was an Amazon Best Book for July 2015. Del Rey released a trade paperback edition earlier this year, at the bargain price of $10. Well worth checking out.

Alive was published by Del Rey on February 2, 2016. It is 369 pages, priced at $10 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by David G. Stevenson.