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Author: John ONeill

Future Treasures: Wraith by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Future Treasures: Wraith by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

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Wraith Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens-small Wraith Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens back-small

This looks like fun: a standalone supernatural thriller from The New York Times bestselling team of Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens. In Arlington, Virginia, a cop about to lose his career comforts a dying woman in the wreckage of her car. The next night, her ghost asks him for his help… a Russian general has infiltrated the US on a madman’s quest. His weapons are wraiths who cannot be killed. Ghosts have been weaponized.

In 1995, the CIA made a breakthrough that they hid from the world because it would change everything in modern science ― but some secrets can’t stay hidden. A rogue force has learned how to make disembodied minds capable of lethal action. Ghosts have been weaponized, and now a Russian general has infiltrated the U.S. with a squad of “berzerkers”―an army that can’t be killed because they’re already dead. Only one person knew the general’s plans, but she died in a car crash. The only person who can communicate with her is the cop who was at her side when she died ― and now he must race to stop a force that could end life as we know it.

Wraith will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on April 26, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Micharl Komarck.

Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s The Big Book of Science Fiction Will be One of the Largest Anthologies the Genre Has Seen

Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s The Big Book of Science Fiction Will be One of the Largest Anthologies the Genre Has Seen

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The Big Book of Science Fiction-smallI’ve covered a handful of truly massive anthologies at Black Gate over the years — Otto Penzler’s The Vampire Archives and The Big Book of Adventure Stories spring to mind, as well as Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s 1152-page The Weird — but I’m not sure I’ve ever come something as hugely ambitious as The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by the Vandermeers, and scheduled to be released by Vintage this July.

Weighing in at 1,216 pages in oversized trade paperback, this could be one of the largest anthologies the genre has seen. Here’s the description.

Quite possibly the greatest science fiction collection of all time — past, present, and future!

What if life was neverending? What if you could change your body to adapt to an alien ecology? What if the pope were a robot? Spanning galaxies and millennia, this must-have anthology showcases classic contributions from H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia E. Butler, and Kurt Vonnegut, alongside a century of the eccentrics, rebels, and visionaries who have inspired generations of readers. Within its pages, you’ll find beloved worlds of space opera, hard SF, cyberpunk, the New Wave, and more. Learn about the secret history of science fiction, from titans of literature who also wrote SF to less well-known authors from more than twenty-five countries, some never before translated into English. In The Big Book of Science Fiction, literary power couple Ann and Jeff VanderMeer transport readers from Mars to Mechanopolis, planet Earth to parts unknown. Immerse yourself in the genre that predicted electric cars, space tourism, and smartphones. Sit back, buckle up, and dial in the coordinates, as this stellar anthology has got worlds within worlds.

And here’s the complete Table of Contents — including a rich assortment of world SF.

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New Treasures: The Orphan Fleet by Brendan Detzner

New Treasures: The Orphan Fleet by Brendan Detzner

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The Orphan Fleet-smallI’ve been following Brendan Detzner’s work with keen interest for the past few years. He’s published a number of tight, razor-sharp horror stories in places like Podcastle, ChiZine, Pseudopod, One Buck Horror, and other fine venues.

When I heard he was turning his hand to adventure fantasy, I jumped at the chance to be an early reader, and I’m glad I did. Here’s my enthusiastic blurb, which ended up on the finished novella, The Orphan Fleet.

The Orphan Fleet is terrific adventure fantasy — a non-stop tale of action and strange magic on a wind-swept mountain top where abandoned children have forged a free community, servicing far-traveling airships on sturdy wooden platforms. Here masked heroes with names like Golden Sam and The Sparrow are the ultimate celebrities — and the mysterious Count leaves shivers of terror wherever he treads. When that community is threatened by an admiral who demands the return of his prized daughter, it triggers a terrible war fought in the air, on the ground, and in the old abandoned scaffolding circling the mountain … a war where Golden Sam may prove himself a true hero after all, and the Count has a terrible role to play.

Michael Penkas reviewed two of Brendan’s previous collections for Black Gate: Scarce Resources and Beasts.

The Orphan Fleet was published by Attack Rabbit Books on April 15, 2016. It is 83 pages, priced at $2.99. Order copies directly at Amazon.com.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Uncanny Magazine Issue 9 Now on Sale

Uncanny Magazine Issue 9 Now on Sale

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Uncanny magazine March April 2016-smallUncanny editors Lynn and Michael Thomas spill the beans on the March/April issue of Uncanny in their editorial.

Our cover is by the designer of the universally famous Space Unicorn logo, the fantastic Katy Shuttleworth, and is called “Strange Companions.” Our new fiction this month features a gorgeous and intricate examination of love and obsession by Rachel Swirsky, “Love Is Never Still,” a haunting and passionate story by Shveta Thakrar, “The Shadow Collector,” Max Gladstone’s fantastic and fun yarn “Big Thrull and the Askin’ Man,” Kelly Sandoval’s heart–wrenching and beautiful “The Wolf and the Tower Unwoven,” and finally Simon Guerrier’s cheeky and bittersweet “The Artificial Bees.” As we write this, David Bowie passed away only a few weeks ago. In memory of Bowie and how his work affected many of us, our reprint this month is Daryl Gregory’s surreal Bowie examination “Just Another Future Song,” originally published in Glitter & Mayhem, the SF/F nightlife/roller derby anthology we co–edited with John Klima.

Our essays this month feature Jim C. Hines poking holes in a tired defense of racism by historical figures, Kyell Gold introducing us to the fabulous world of furry fandom, an examination of the “Phildickian” existence of author George R. R. Martin by Javier Grillo–Marxuach, and finally a fascinating discussion about the increasingly blurred lines between “fan” and “pro” by Mark Oshiro.

All of the content became available for purchase as an eBook (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) on March 1, 2016.

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Future Treasures: The People in the Castle by Joan Aiken

Future Treasures: The People in the Castle by Joan Aiken

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The People in the Castle-smallMy introduction to Joan Aiken was her marvelous novel The Cuckoo Tree, which I had pressed on me by my friend Alex Lambert more than 30 years ago. That led me to Black Hearts in Battersea, Midnight is a Place, and The Whispering Mountain.

Small Beer Press, which has brought us many delightful volumes over the years, will be publishing a collection of Joan Aiken’s “Selected Strange Stories” next week, and I’m looking forward to it. Kirkus Reviews calls it:

A welcome anthology of fantasy stories by a 20th-century master. The author of the beloved classic gothic for children The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Aiken (1924-2004) also wrote hundreds of works of popular fiction that spanned the genres, from fantasy to horror to historical fiction, including several Jane Austen sequels. Naturally the tone of her books and short stories varies with their content, but its main notes include sophisticated, spritely satire and the darker moods of literary fairy tales. Fans of Wolves will recognize the honorable orphans and cruel guardians who populate these tales. Typically the wicked meet with fitting fates and the innocent triumph, though for Aiken, a good death counts as a happy ending. She plays with the contrast between the eldritch and modern culture and technology: ghosts and dead kings out of legend who contact the living by telephone, a doctor who writes prescriptions for fairies, a fairy princess who’s fond of Westerns.

The People in the Castle will be published by Small Beer Press on April 26, 2016. It is 256 pages, priced at $24 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital edition. The cover, “The Castle in the Air” (1939) is by Joan Aikman. Kelly Link provides an introduction, and you can read a complete sample story, “The Cold Flame,” at Tor.com.

The Dark Magazine Becomes Monthly, Launches Patreon Account

The Dark Magazine Becomes Monthly, Launches Patreon Account

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The Dark August 2014-smallThere are big changes afoot for Sean Wallace’s The Dark Magazine, one of the finest dark fantasy magazines on the market — including switching from quarterly to monthly, relaunch their podcast series, and much more. Here’s the complete scoop from the magazine’s new Patreon page:

For almost three years, The Dark Magazine has brought readers a quality selection of original dark fantasy and horror from both new and established authors. Published by Prime Books and edited by Sean Wallace, the magazine has also received critical reception and recognition in the field with recent stories reprinted in year’s best anthologies and several listed on the Locus Recommended Reading List.

And now it is time for the next step in our evolution:

* adding more original fiction to every monthly issue
* adding podcasts, all done by an awesome team of narrators
* increasing the pay rate to our authors, up to the SFWA qualifying rate
* adding a monthly print edition, to be available worldwide

Read the complete announcement, and sign up to support the magazine here.

The Dark is a monthly magazine edited by Sean Wallace, with assistance from Jack Fisher. You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by subscribing to the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets. A one-year sub (12 issues) is just $23.99 – subscribe today.

We last covered The Dark with Issue 11. See our Mid-April Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

Vintage Treasures: Inter Ice Age 4 by Kōbō Abe

Vintage Treasures: Inter Ice Age 4 by Kōbō Abe

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Inter Ice Age 4-small Inter Ice Age 4-back-small

The recent success of foreign SF writers in translation in the US — including Cixin Liu (The Three-Body Problem) and Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Hex), among others — seems like a modern phenomenon. But truthfully, our genre has been open to talented writers from around the world for decades. As far back as the days of Jules Verne, Americans have been warmly receptive to foreign SF writers, and over the decades that’s included authors like Stanislaw Lem (Solaris), Italo Calvino (Invisible Cities), Jorge Luis Borges (Labyrinths), Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky (Roadside Picnic), Pierre Boulle (The Planet of the Apes) and Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher).

Japanese writer Kōbō Abe (the pseudonym of Kimifusa Abe, who died in 1993) isn’t as well remembered here as some others, but he had a considerable impact in Japan. In 1951 he received Japan’s most important literary award, the Akutagawa, for his novel The Crime of Mr. S. Karuma, and in 1960 his novel The Woman in the Dunes won the Yomiuri Prize. His 1959 novel Inter Ice Age 4 imagines a world slowly being submerged by melting polar ice, and the desperate race to genetically modify children so they can survive the coming underwater age — and the strange prophetic computer that attempts to guide mankind into a very uncertain future.

Inter Ice Age 4 was written in 1959, and published in paperback in the US by Berkely in March 1972. It is 223 pages, priced at 95 cents. The cover is by Richard Powers. I acquired the unread copy above for about 60 cents last month, as part of a collection of 42 vintage SF paperbacks on eBay I bought for $27. Click the images for bigger versions.

Kelly Link Collection Get in Trouble is a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Kelly Link Collection Get in Trouble is a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

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Get in Trouble Kelly Link-smallKelly Link’s sixth collection, Get In Trouble, was listed as one of two finalists for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.

The 2016 Pulitzer Prize winners were announced yesterday by the Pulitzer Prize Board, including the award for fiction, “for distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.”

The winner was Viet Thanh Nguyen, for his novel The Sympathizer. The Board also recognized two finalists, the novel Maud’s Line by Margaret Verble, and Kelly Link’s short story collection Get in Trouble. In their commendation on the website, the Board described Get in Trouble like this:

A collection of short stories in which a writer with a fertile and often fabulist imagination explores inner lies and odd corners of reality.

Get in Trouble was published in hardcover by Random House February 3, 2015, and reprinted in paperback on February 9, 2016. It is 368 pages, priced at $16 for the trade paperback, and $11.99 for the digital version.

New Treasures: Something Rich and Strange by Ron Rash

New Treasures: Something Rich and Strange by Ron Rash

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Something Rich and Strange-small Something Rich and Strange-back-small

Ron Rash is the author of Serena, a New York Times bestseller which was made into a Jennifer Lawrence/Bradley Cooper film with the same title in 2014. He’s also the author of The Cove and Above the Waterfall, and is a two-time winner of the O. Henry Prize.

I was tipped off to his short story collection Something Rich and Strange by Nathan Ballingrud. Although the stories within are not genre fiction, there’s plenty here to reward readers of weird fiction. Entertainment Weekly said “This anthology of Rash’s earthy, often eerie short stories is like a forest you can get lost in for hours, small but affecting tales of poverty, addiction, pride, love, and despair threaded with life-altering acts of violence.” And NPR said “Rich and strange are two words that aptly apply to this book. I have two other words to continue with: Simply beautiful… some of the stories are so searing, it’s as if someone has taken a stick from a blazing fire and pressed it into your hand.”

Something Rich and Strange was published by Ecco on August 11, 2015. It is 448 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback, and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover art is by Jamie Heiden. Click the covers above for bigger versions.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 197 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 197 Now Available

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 197-smallIssue #197 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies features a sword & sorcery tale by Tony Pi and a fanciful animal fantasy by Kelly Stewart, two podcasts by Tony Pi, and a reprint by Tina Connolly. Nicky Magas at Tangent Online liked the Stewart, and had mixed feelings on the Pi:

Ao has a fairly unique ability in Tony Pi’s “The Sweetest Skill.” Although he appears to be naught but a candy maker, Ao’s family has a long symbiotic history with the zodiac spirit animals that grant him the ability to form magical constructs out of simple materials. But absolute loyalty to the spirits is required for such power, and the penalty for disobedience can be awful, as Ao well knows. So when the spirit of King Tiger shows up one night with a request to rescue a divine tigress in need, Ao is more than a little wary. On the other hand, he owes a debt of gratitude to the injured spirit and all debts must be paid, even if that means going up against the sorcery of the Ten Crows gang… “The Sweetest Skill” is a neatly packaged sword and sorcery story set in a broader narrative world. The characters, the setting, and the plot are all decently constructed, but lack a stylistic charm to be truly eye-popping…

Aril knows that you ought never invite Rabbits into the garden, in Kelly Stewart’s “Rabbit Grass.” There’s no getting rid of them or fixing the damage they do if you’re silly enough not to heed that bit of advice. All the same, there’s something about the little Rabbit Picket that Aril can’t ignore. And conversation never hurt anyone, did it?… But Picket won’t stop going on about the non-existent Rabbit Grass, and when he shows up at her window one night looking desperate and worried, Aril won’t rest until she’s aided her unlikely companion, even if it means venturing into the Rabbit warrens herself. Part Peter Rabbit and part Alice in Wonderland, “Rabbit Grass” is… a lovely pastoral fantasy.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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