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Author: John ONeill

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 198 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 198 Now Available

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 198-smallIssue #198 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies features fiction by Thomas M. Waldroon and Sylvia V. Linsteadt, a podcast by Sylvia V. Linsteadt, and a reprint by Noreen Doyle. Nicky Magas at Tangent Online offers us a fine summary of both tales:

Brothers Henry and James have crossed an entire ocean to escape the religious persecution of their native England in “Or I Wil Harrie Them Out of This Land” by Thomas W. Waldroon. At first their new home is a paradise: wide, open spaces, the thrill of adventure and the freedom to explore any dream or ambition they might have. Before long, however, disease and conflicts with the natives begin to take their toll on the small community, and the Puritan settlement discovers that just because they’ve escaped from one evil, doesn’t mean they’re free from another…

The streets of 1880s San Francisco are lit with the oil of marine mammals in Sylvia V. Linsteadt’s “Whale-Oil.” Sixteen year-old Altair has a talent for seeing the sorts of other world things that no one else can. Call it a remnant of childhood imagination, but one night in the fog-thick streets, Altair looks up to find the tethered souls of hundreds of slaughtered whales and seals, bound to the lamps that burn their oil. Meanwhile, in a marsh out by the ocean, Old Iris stands on her heron’s legs for a long-awaited visitor to follow her blue lamp light to her hut. The world has grown too hungry, she knows, and all too soon it will end… Lovers of magical realism and the environmentally conscious will be charmed.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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SF Signal Goes Dark

SF Signal Goes Dark

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SF Signal logoWhen I declined our 2016 Hugo Award nomination last week, I wrote:

A great many publications I deeply respect were completely swept aside by the Rabid Puppy ballot, including John DeNardo’s SF Signal… By giving up our very slim chance at winning, we can give another deserving publication a shot. That seems like a fair exchange to me.

SF Signal has been one of my favorite sites for years. So you can imagine my distress when I read John DeNardo’s last post yesterday, announcing the long-running site was shutting down.

When we started SF Signal in 2003, it was because we loved speculative fiction. Having a blog allowed us to share that love with other fans. We never dreamed it would have grown like it has… It’s been quite a ride.

But all good things come to an end.

It was a very hard decision to make, but we have decided to close down SF Signal. The reason is boringly simple: time. As the blog has grown, so has its demands for our attention. That is time we would rather spend with our families. We considered scaling back posts, but it felt like SF Signal would only be a shadow of its former self. So yes, it feels sudden, but a “cold turkey” exit seems like the right thing to do.

The site has been a fabulous resource for SF and fantasy fans for 13 years, and will be very much missed. John and his staff are looking for a good place to archive the site after the first week of June. If you have any suggestion, let them know.

New Treasures: Exile by Martin Owton

New Treasures: Exile by Martin Owton

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Exile Martin Owton-smallMartin Owton’s stories for Black Gate include the funny and suspenseful contemporary fantasy “A Touch of Crystal” (co-written with Gaie Sebold), in BG 9, and “The Mist Beyond the Circle,” in which a band of desperate men pursue the slave traders who stole their families, across cold barrows where a dread thing sleeps (BG 14).

So I was very inrigued to see his debut novel Exile arrive last month. Exile is described as a fast-moving tightly-plotted fantasy adventure story with a strong thread of romance, and it’s the first volume of The Nandor Tales. Here’s the full description.

Aron of Darien, raised in exile after his homeland is conquered by a treacherous warlord, makes his way in the world on the strength of his wits and skill with a sword. Both are sorely tested when he is impressed into the service of the Earl of Nandor to rescue his heir from captivity in the fortress of Sarazan. The rescue goes awry. Aron and his companions are betrayed and must flee for their lives. Pursued by steel and magic, they find new friends and old enemies on the road that leads, after many turns, to the city of the High King. There Aron must face his father’s murderer before risking everything in a fight to the death with the deadliest swordsman in the kingdom.

The cover boasts a terrific quote from no less an illustrious personage than BG author and occasional blogger Peadar Ó Guilín, author of The Inferior and the upcoming The Call:

A wonderful story of intrigue, romance and duels, brushed, here and there, by the fingers of a goddess.

Exile was published by Phantasia/Tickety Boo Press on April 15, 2016. It is 303 pages, priced at just $2.99 for the digital version. Black Gate says check it out.

Future Treasures: Roses and Rot by Kat Howard

Future Treasures: Roses and Rot by Kat Howard

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Roses and Rot-smallI enjoy a good fairy-tale retelling, especially those written with a modern sensibility — and a dark edge. Kat Howard’s debut novel, selected by Publishers Weekly as a Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Novel of Summer 2016, looks like it fits my criteria nicely.

The marketing for Roses & Rot includes an enviable blurb from Neil Gaiman (“Kat Howard is a remarkable young writer”), and the promise that its main characters, Imogen and her sister Marin, find themselves living in a fairy tale as the story unfolds. But which fairy tale? Ah, that’s part of the mystery.

A prestigious artists’ retreat holds dark secrets as desire for art and love are within grasp for Imogen and her sister, Marin, but at a terrible price.

What would you sacrifice for everything you ever dreamed of?

Imogen has grown up reading fairy tales about mothers who die and make way for cruel stepmothers. As a child, she used to lie in bed wishing that her life would become one of these tragic fairy tales because she couldn’t imagine how a stepmother could be worse than her mother now. As adults, Imogen and her sister Marin are accepted to an elite post-grad arts program — Imogen as a writer and Marin as a dancer. Soon enough, though, they realize that there’s more to the school than meets the eye. Imogen might be living in the fairy tale she’s dreamed about as a child, but it’s one that will pit her against Marin if she decides to escape her past to find her heart’s desire.

Roses and Rot will be published by Saga Press on May 17, 2016. It is 307 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover, and $7.99 for the digital version.

April 2016 Apex Magazine Now Available

April 2016 Apex Magazine Now Available

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Apex Magazine April 2016-smallI love Sarah Zar’s cover to Apex #83 (at right; click for bigger version); and the contents look pretty good, too. Jason Sizemore gives us the complete scoop in his editorial.

This month we’re publishing only two works of original fiction, because both are lengthy pieces, totaling nearly 14,000 words combined, and our goal is to publish around 12,000 words of original fiction each month. In Andrew Neil Gray’s “The Laura Ingalls Experience,” a mech takes a simulated adventure to the American frontier of the 1800s. A search for self in a hollow world makes for poignant story. “The Teratologist’s Brother” by Brandon H. Bell is a prime example of the type of world/unsettling SF Apex Magazine strives to publish. Part dystopia, part Lovecraftian, you will be piecing the puzzles of this story together long after you finish reading it.

Former Apex Magazine editor and frequent contributor Catherynne M. Valente returns to our pages (after a too-lengthy absence) with “The Quidnunx.” This novelette reprint is a masterful example of world building and creating something that is both entirely alien and entirely beautiful. Geoffrey Girard, author of the upcoming Apex Publications collection, first communions, gives us a taste of his collection by sharing the story “Collecting James” with the Apex Magazine readers. Having the story fresh in my mind, I can honestly say if this one doesn’t make you squirm, then you’re a tougher person than I.

For our nonfiction selections, we have two interviews. Russell Dickerson talks with our cover artist Sarah Zar. Andrea Johnson questions author Andrew Neil Grey. Finally, rounding out the issue are poems by John Yu Branscum, Michael VanCalbergh, Jeremy Paden, and Craig Finlay. Our podcast this month is “The Teratologist’s Brother” by Brandon H. Bell.

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

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GreyDogTales on Equation Thrillers

GreyDogTales on Equation Thrillers

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Stories in the Dark-small Dracula's Brood-small Bone to His Bone-small

Yesterday my friend Neil Baker, publisher at April Moon Books, introduced me to blogger John Linwood Grant, who blogs at GreyDogTales. I wandered over to his corner of the internet, and was delighted to find a fascinating discussion of the Equation Chillers, a line of British horror anthologies I’d never heard of.

Right, let’s go back a few years. Nearly three decades, in fact. One of our finds of the late eighties was the short-lived Equation Chillers series. Sadly, only eight books were ever produced directly under the imprint. We have battered copies of all of them which we bought at the time, thank goodness.

They were, in a way, the precursor of the Wordsworth Editions, where lost, rare or unusual stories of the supernatural suddenly became available at an affordable price. Equation revived a whole haunted house full of Victorian and Edwardian short stories, and it’s worth noting all eight volumes here, with the occasional comment from us.

Anything in the spirit of the delightful Wordsworth Editions Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural (or, as we prefer to call them, TOMAToS) has my immediate attention. Check out John’s full article — with plenty of marvelous cover scans — here. And it looks like I’ll be spending some quality time at his website.

New Treasures: The Chimes by Anna Smaill

New Treasures: The Chimes by Anna Smaill

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The Chimes Anna Smaill-smallAnna Smaill is the author of one book of poetry, The Violinist in Spring, but beyond that I don’t know much about her. Except that her debut fantasy novel is being called “What might be the most distinctive debut of the decade” by Tor.com, and “A melodic, immersive dystopian tale set in a London where writing is lost and song has replaced story” by Kirkus Reviews. And Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks calls it “”A highly original dystopian masterpiece, an intricately imagined, exquisitely invoked world in which music instills order and ravages individuality.”

Sounds like I need to check it out. It goes on sale in hardcover this week from Quercus Books.

After the end of a brutal civil war, London is divided, with slums standing next to a walled city of elites. Monk-like masters are selected for special schooling and shut away for decades, learning to write beautiful compositions for the chimes, played citywide morning and night, to mute memory and keep the citizens trapped in ignorance.

A young orphan named Simon arrives in London with nothing but the vague sense of a half-forgotten promise, to locate someone. What he finds is a new family — a gang of scavengers that patrols the underbelly of the city looking for valuable metal to sell. Drawn in by an enigmatic and charismatic leader, a blind young man named Lucien with a gift for song, Simon forgets entirely what originally brought him to the place he has now made his home.

In this alternate London, the past is a mystery, each new day feels the same as the last, and before is considered “blasphony.” But Simon has a unique gift — the gift of retaining memories — that will lead him to discover a great injustice and take him far beyond the meager life as a member of Lucien’s gang. Before long he will be engaged in an epic struggle for justice, love, and freedom.

The Chimes will be published by Quercus on May 3, 2016. It is 287 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover artist is uncredited.

Black Gate Declines Hugo Nomination

Black Gate Declines Hugo Nomination

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2011 Hugo Award-smallEarly last week, Black Gate was nominated for a Hugo Award in the category of Best Fanzine. On Friday, we contacted the Awards Committee at MidAmeriCon II, the World Science Fiction Convention, to inform them that we have declined the nomination.

Why did we decline? While we won’t know the exact number of nominating ballots until the stats are released (after the Hugos are awarded), it’s clear that Black Gate largely benefited from Vox Day’s Rabid Puppy Hugo slate. As we reported Wednesday, roughly 80% of this year’s Hugo ballot was dictated by that slate — it swept six categories, including Short Story, Graphic Story, and Fanzine. Our choice to withdraw was informed by many of the same factors that led us to make the same decision last year.

It also seems fairly obvious that we cannot win. Of the 61 nominees the Puppy ballots placed on the Hugo ballot last year, only one, Guardians of the Galaxy, received an award. The Rabid Puppy brand, which BG is now unwillingly associated with, is so toxic that it’s virtually impossible to overcome that association without the equivalent of a $100 million advertising campaign. Those nominees who stubbornly argued otherwise last year, and attended the Hugo ceremony with high hopes, learned that the hard way, unceremoniously losing out to No Award in a painful rout across virtually every category. (Incidentally, I also voted No Award for most of the ballot.)

Several folks I admire, including George R.R. Martin and John Scalzi, are urging nominees not to withdraw, and for excellent reasons. However, the reason that’s paramount to me, my desire to step aside in favor of a worthy publication not on the slate, outweighs those considerations. A great many publications I deeply respect were completely swept aside by the Rabid Puppy ballot, including John DeNardo’s SF Signal, Rich Horton’s Strange at Ecbatan, Coming Attractions, and even last year’s winner — Journey Planet. By giving up our very slim chance at winning, we can give another deserving publication a shot. That seems like a fair exchange to me.

Good luck to all the nominees — I mean that. As usual, we’ll be covering the Awards, and the events leading up to them, here on the blog.

Future Treasures: War Factory by Neal Asher

Future Treasures: War Factory by Neal Asher

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War Factory Neal Asher US-small War Factory Neal Asher UK-small

I’ve been in the mood for fast-paced space opera recently. Something with big guns, bigger ships, and nasty aliens. I’m thinking Neal Asher.

The first book in his Transformation trilogy, Dark Intelligence, was published in February 2015. It introduced us to Thorvald Spear, dead for a hundred years after being betrayed by Penny Royal, the rogue AI sent to rescue his team on a hostile world. When Spear wakes up in a hospital, returned to life by strange technology, he finds the war versus the alien Prador has been over for a century. But Penny Royal is still on the loose, and Spear vows revenge at any cost.

Publishers Weekly called Dark Intelligence “Beautifully paced… space opera at a high peak of craftsmanship.” War Factory is the second volume in the trilogy, and the newest title set in Asher’s Polity universe (Prador Moon, The Line of Polity, Brass Man, The Skinner, and many others).

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The Late April Magazine Rack

The Late April Magazine Rack

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Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-197-rack Cirsova-rack Uncanny-magazine-March-April-2016-rack Pulp Literature 10-rack
Locus-April-2016-rack The-Great-Detective-Delia-Sherman-rack Lightspeed-April-2016-rack Interzone-263-rack

Fletcher Vredenburgh kicks off our coverage of two very promising new publications this month in his regular magazine column: Cirsova, a magazine of sword and sorcery and science fiction, and Pulp Literature, which attempts to re-capture the high adventure spirit of the great pulp mags — and largely succeeds. Here’s Fletcher.

Two incredibly impressive magazines crossed my desk this past month: the very first issue of the brand new Cirsova, edited by P. Alexander, and Pulp Literature #10, edited by the triumvirate of Mel Anastasiou, Jennifer Landels, and Susan Pieters. Both are hefty collections (Cirsova is 95 pages and Pulp Literature is 229) and are available as e-books as well as real live paper versions.

P. Anderson may say that what ties the various stories in Cirsova together is a love for the glorious pulp adventures of the past. While that is clearly true, their truest similarity lies in the authors’ love of storytelling… Cirsova has built a stage for writers to tell stories with narrative force, audacious adventure, and outlandishly magnificent settings. If this is what the first issue looks like, I expect future ones will blow me away…

Pulp Literature has been around for several years now, having published ten thick issues… While it has only a few swords & sorcery stories, I was blown away by PL’s quality and richness… Pulp Literature is filled with a wide variety of genres. Senior citizen detectives, Jewish monsters in contemporary Ontario, poetry, all sorts of good things. Don’t let that literature tag scare you off. The editors’ love of pulp in so many varieties means they have a love of storytelling and don’t neglect it. How such a magazine has escaped wider notice eludes me.

In other news, we also reported that dark fantasy magazine The Dark is switching to monthly. Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our Mid-April Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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