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Author: John ONeill

Get an Inside Look at the Hottest Boardgames with Meeple Monthly

Get an Inside Look at the Hottest Boardgames with Meeple Monthly

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Meeple Monthly May 2016-smallIf you hang out in game stores (and who doesn’t?) you’ve doubtless seen copies of GTM, Game Trade Magazine, a monthly industry mag for the Adventure Hobby industry that also doubles as a handy catalog for Alliance Game Distributors. GTM is always a pleasant read, with fun articles and full color pics of upcoming RPGs and card games. While I was browsing the magazine rack at my local game store last month, I came across something called Meeple Monthly, and at first couldn’t believe my eyes. It looked like GTM, except for board games… a full color magazine devoted to the very latest releases, with full color throughout, chatty articles, a nice assortment of ads, and enthusiasm for the industry dripping off every page. And that’s exactly what it was.

Ah, what a marvelous world we live in. An inexpensive color magazine devoted to new board games? Yes please! I snatched up that issue and brought it home, and I’ve bought every one I could find since. The May issue, featuring a cover feature on Fireside Games and USAopoly’s Star Trek Panic, covers games shipping in July. It also contains:

  • An inside look at Happy Salmon from North Star Games
  • A sneak peak at 400 new monsters for Dungeons and Dragons Ancient Bestiaries in Tome of Beasts, from Kobold Press
  • Wade Rockett’s preview of the excellent artwork in Tome of Beasts
  • Robin Laws’ inside look at Gumshoe going One-2-One in Cthulhu Confidential, from Pelgrane Press
  • The Battle for Hill 218 comes to the Ogre Universe in Ogre: Objective 218, the newest from Steve Jackson Games

All that plus over a dozen pages cataloging every upcoming board game, from all the major publishers, all in full color. What’s not to love?

Meeple Monthly is edited by Jenna Piller and published by ACD Distribution. It is 48 pages, full color, priced at just $3.95. See more details — including news on the upcoming June issue — at their Facebook page.

The Return of Dabir and Asim

The Return of Dabir and Asim

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the-desert-of-souls UK-smallHoward Andrew Jones sent me a letter in the very early days of Black Gate. It was articulate and delightful, and I remember it well. He welcomed the magazine to the fold, speaking enthusiastically about our focus on classic adventure fantasy. He also included a story featuring two characters of his own creation, Dabir and Asim, sleuths and adventurers who strode the crowded streets and dark ways of ninth century Arabia, facing dark sorcery and ancient evils, armed only with their wits and cold steel.

Dabir and Asim had many adventures together. I bought two of those tales for Black Gate — “Sight of Vengeance” (BG 10), and “Whispers from the Stone,” (BG 12) — and they became some of the most popular stories we ever published. Dabir and Asim appeared in two novels, The Desert of Souls and Bones of the Old Ones, one collection, The Waters of Eternity, and many other places (such as the awesome Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters anthology), before Howard turned his talents to other worthy endeavors. But you can’t keep great characters down for long, and on his blog yesterday Howard announced the return of Dabir and Asim in a brand new tale — and hinted at further adventures in the works.

For the first time this year I’ve sold a short story. I’m delighted to relay that the upcoming Skelos magazine will be carrying a never-before-published Dabir and Asim story in its second issue! You can see magazine details here and there is, briefly, still time to get in on its kickstarter.

I still fully plan to finish writing at least one more Dabir and Asim novel. If I can actually maintain the pace with this current set of drafts, I hope to find time to create a new Dabir and Asim every other year or so and market it as an e-book.

Welcome back, lads! You were missed.

Read our own coverage of the exciting launch of Skelos here, and Howard’s complete announcement on his blog.

The June Fantasy Magazine Rack

The June Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Lots of great reading for fantasy fans in June, and the month is just getting started.

In addition to all the new magazine releases, our intrepid reviewers kept you posted on classic fiction — including the latest installment from Matthew Wuertz of his long-running re-read of Galaxy magazine from the early 50s, and our look at the first two volumes of The Best of Amazing Stories, The 1926 and 1927 Anthologies, edited by Steve Davidson and Jean Marie Stine.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our May 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: Dreams of Distant Shores, by Patricia A. McKillip

Future Treasures: Dreams of Distant Shores, by Patricia A. McKillip

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A new collection by Patricia A. McKillip is a major event. In the first four decades of her very accomplished career she released a scant two short story collections: The Throme of the Erril of Sherill (1984) and Harrowing the Dragon (2005). Taychon Publications has doubled that number just in the last four years, starting with Wonders of the Invisible World (2012), and now Dreams of Distant Shores, on sale in trade paperback next week.

Dreams of Distant Shores includes four short stories, a novella, and a short (121 page) novel, Something Rich and Strange, set in Brian Froud’s Faerielands, which won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature in 1994. It also includes “Writing High Fantasy,” a 6-page essay by Patricia A. McKillip, and “Dear Pat: Afterword,” a new 6-page essay by Peter S. Beagle. See the back cover above for the complete description (click for a more legible version.)

Dreams of Distant Shores will be published by Tachyon Publications on June 14, 2016. It is 274 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Thomas Canty.

New Treasures: Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

New Treasures: Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

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Lavie Tidhar is a fast-rising superstar. His novel Osama won the World Fantasy Award in 2012, and his “Guns & Sorcery” novella Gorel & The Pot Bellied God won the British Fantasy Award. The Violent Century, his most recent novel, was called “A masterpiece” by both the Independent and Library Journal, and his second short story collection Black Gods Kiss was nominated for the British Fantasy Award.

His latest is Central Station, a fix-up novel composed of nearly a dozen stories published in places like Analog, Interzone, and Clarkesworld, plus two new tales. NPR Books calls it “just this side of a masterpiece — short, restrained, lush — and the truest joy of it is in the way Tidhar scatters brilliant ideas like pennies on the sidewalk.” Tor.com said it is “without question the best assemblage of short stories I’ve read in recent memory,” and Starburst Magazine gives it 10 out of 10 stars, calling it “profound, incredibly moving and, quite simply, stunning.”

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June Analog Now on Sale

June Analog Now on Sale

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Analog Science Fiction June 2016-smallI know I said last time that I’d limit myself to covering issues of Analog that have dinosaurs on the cover. But Bob Eggleton’s cover for the June issue is so good I made an exception (click the image at right for a super-big version. You’re welcome.)

To be honest, I kinda gave up on Analog during the Stanley Schmidt era. The science was great, but the fiction just didn’t cut it for me. And since he was the longest-serving editor in the magazine’s history (34 long years, from 1978 to 2012), that’s virtually all of my adult life. I want to like Analog, I really do, but at this point it’s kinda like trying to date the girl who kissed you on the playground in Junior High… the memories are magical, but there’s been a lot of years, and a whole lotta great kisses, between then and now.

But I hear good things about the new editor, Trevor Quachri. Promising things. And Quachri sure knows how to pique my interest with his issue summaries. Here’s his enticing words for the June issue.

It’s rare that we’ll pick a later installment in a series to be the lead in an issue, but when the story is as good as Michael F. Flynn’s “The Journeyman: In the Great North Wood,” we make an exception. As the title suggests, we find Teodorq sunna Nagarajan in the Great North Woods, where he and his compatriots are roped into protecting a team of proto-archeologists, but of course, there’s more going on than anyone expects or understands. (And as ever, the story rewards close reading.)

We also have part two of Edward M. Lerner’s time travel fact piece, “Here we go Loopedy Loop,” as well as a story about time travel, Bill Johnson’s “When the Stone Eagle Flies”; and a story about, well, the opposite of time travel, in Marie Vibbert’s “Hold the Moment”; as well as Christopher L. Bennett’s tale of “Murder on the CisLunar Railroad”; Jay Werkheiser’s “The Anthropic War”; J.T. Sharrah’s tongue-in-cheek (but not entirely unrealistic) “The Nult Factor”; and Brandon Ghislain’s take on the dangers of taking some proverbs too literally in “That Which Grows on Trees.”

There’s a Bill Johnson story? I love Bill Johnson! We shared an office at Motorola about a hundred years ago, around the time he won a Hugo for his magnificent tale “We Will Drink a Fish Together.” I even bought a novella from him, “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” which I published in Black Gate 4. Okay, if Bill Johnson is back in Analog, things are definitely looking up.

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Read the Best of Matthew David Surridge in Once Only Imagined: Collected Reviews, Vol II

Read the Best of Matthew David Surridge in Once Only Imagined: Collected Reviews, Vol II

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Once Only Imagined Matthew David Surridge-smallMatthew David Surridge is Black Gate‘s most successful blogger, both in terms of critical and popular success (his post “A Detailed Explanation,” on why he declined a Hugo nomination last year, is the most popular article in our history). He’s also one of our most prolific, with 270 articles to his credit, and he’s had more reprinted than anyone else on our staff. Of course, that’s mostly due to last year’s Reading Strange Matters, which collected 24 of his posts, chiefly focusing on 21st Century writers.

Reading Strange Matters was successful enough to encourage his publishers to produce a second volume, Once Only Imagined, released last week. It collects another 30 articles, with a slightly different focus than last year’s book. Matthew is our sure-footed guide to the true origins of modern fantasy, tracing them through the twisted maze of late 20th Century publishing to the nearly-forgotten fantasy masters of the era. Here’s Matthew, from his introduction.

My first collection of essays about fantasy fiction, Reading Strange Matters, looked at books from the twenty-first century. This second one moves back in time, to the second half of the twentieth… There was a revival of sword-and-sorcery adventure fiction at about this time, relatively short novels focused on plot, action, and violence. And Ballantine Books reprinted several pre-Tolkien fantasies under the editorship of writer and fan Lin Carter. But many of the fantasy novels published in the 1960s and 1970s had a veneer of science fiction about them — their setting explained as another planet (as in the case of Andre Norton’s Witch World and Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series), or their magic explained as pseudo-scientific psionic powers (as in Katherine Kurtz’ Deryni series).

1977 is usually cited as the year when everything changed, with the publication of Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara and Stephen R. Donaldson’s Lord Foul’s Bane ushering in a new age of commercial fantasy fiction. This ignores several important predecessors, I feel, not only Norton, McCaffrey, and Kurtz, but also Patricia McKillip, whose The Riddle-Master of Hed came out in 1976. I think the form that eventually developed for commercial fantasy was shaped in part by these books… Writers like Raymond Feist and David and Leigh Eddings (the first few of whose books were published under David Eddings’ name alone) soon had popular series as well…

Still, it’d be wrong to think of the fantasy genre of the 1980s as populated entirely by Tolkien knock-offs. Some writers were trying to do new things, and some idiosyncratic books were published as the genre developed. Writers like Glen Cook, with his Black Company series, challenged the new conventions with gritty stories set in a pseudo-medieval world but told in a very modern tone.

Matthew’s knowledge of fantasy is breathtaking, and his deep insights into the evolution of the genre — and many of its greatest and most neglected works — are profoundly illuminating. At $3 for the digital edition, it’s the best purchase you’ll make all year.

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Future Treasures: Steeplejack by A. J. Hartley

Future Treasures: Steeplejack by A. J. Hartley

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Steeplejack Hartley-smallIn his author bio, A. J. Hartley says he writes “fantasy adventures of the swords and sorcery variety (albeit from the slightly unusual perspective of a smart-mouthed young actor called Will Hawthorne).” That includes Act of Will (2009) and Will Power (2010), both available in paperback from Dystel & Goderich.

His latest is the first installment of a new young adult fantasy series set in an industrial city in a country reminiscent of Victorian South Africa. It arrives in hardcover from Tor next week.

Seventeen-year-old Anglet Sutonga lives repairing the chimneys, towers, and spires of the city of Bar-Selehm. Dramatically different communities live and work alongside each other. The white Feldish command the nation’s higher echelons of society. The native Mahweni are divided between city life and the savannah. And then there’s Ang, part of the Lani community who immigrated over generations ago as servants and now mostly live in poverty on Bar-Selehm’s edges.

When Ang is supposed to meet her new apprentice Berrit, she instead finds him dead. That same night, the Beacon, an invaluable historical icon, is stolen. The Beacon’s theft commands the headlines, yet no one seems to care about Berrit’s murder―except for Josiah Willinghouse, an enigmatic young politician. When he offers her a job investigating his death, she plunges headlong into new and unexpected dangers.

Meanwhile, crowds gather in protests over the city’s mounting troubles. Rumors surrounding the Beacon’s theft grow. More suspicious deaths occur. With no one to help Ang except Josiah’s haughty younger sister, a savvy newspaper girl, and a kindhearted herder, Ang must rely on her intellect and strength to resolve the mysterious link between Berrit and the missing Beacon before the city descends into chaos.

Steeplejack will be published by Tor Books on June 14, 2016. It is 336 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Mike Heath.

Build Your Very Own Fantasy Empire With Asmodee’s Hyperborea

Build Your Very Own Fantasy Empire With Asmodee’s Hyperborea

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Hyperborea board game-small

I have a certain fondness for epic fantasy games. You know the ones I’m talking about. The kind where you build vast armies, dress them up in matching clothes, and scooch them around, crushing civilizations.

I also have a fondness for saving money. And where these two interests intersect, I find a lot of personal joy. So recently I’ve been hunting up game bargains online, especially on Amazon, which has deep discounts on a number of fantasy boardgames. Why they do, I dunno. I don’t question it. I just give them my money, and get fabulous shinkwrapped treasures in return.

My most recent acquisition is Asmodee’s game of epic fantasy conquest, Hyperborea, which multiple online sellers are offering for about 60% off. It’s a 2–6 player board game that challenges players to build their mythical nation into the greatest empire in history. You do that by capturing land, defeating imposing monsters, exploiting strange technologies and magics, and building mighty armies. That you scooch around the map, crushing civilizations.

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New Treasures: Xenowealth by Tobias S. Buckell

New Treasures: Xenowealth by Tobias S. Buckell

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I wasn’t actually aware that so many of Tobias S. Buckell’s acclaimed novels took place in the same universe until I stumbled on a copy of his collection Xenowealth. That kind of put it all together for me. His Locus-Award nominated first novel Crystal Rain (2006), his Nebula nominee Ragamuffin (2007), Sly Mongoose (2008), and his self-published The Apocalypse Ocean (2012) are all part of a series called The Benevolent Satrapy Universe… also know as the Xenowealth novels.

The Xenowealth novels have been widely acclaimed as high concept space opera, and this collection gathers tales featuring the same setting and characters… including “Manumission,” the origin story of Pepper, the dread-locked baddass from Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, “Placa del Fuego,” an extended excerpt from the last novel, Apocalypse Ocean, two new stories written just for this collection, and many others.

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