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Author: John ONeill

New Treasures: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

New Treasures: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

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Rebel of the Sands-smallIf you’ve noticed me covering a lot of Young Adult new releases recently, you’re not wrong. It’s a full time job keeping up with all the intriguing YA fiction flooding the market, and I’ve had to become a lot more selective than I used to be.

Alwyn Hamilton’s Rebel of the Sands cries out for some attention, however. It features a desert kingdom, mythical beasts, djinn, and an orphaned girl who becomes a gunslinger. Bestselling author Alison Goodman calls it “a wild ride… a stunning debut full of irresistible energy, heart-stopping action, and a new voice that sings.” It’s available in hardcover from Viking.

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mythical beasts still roam the wild and remote areas, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinn still perform their magic. For humans, it’s an unforgiving place, especially if you’re poor, orphaned, or female.

Amani Al’Hiza is all three. She’s a gifted gunslinger with perfect aim, but she can’t shoot her way out of Dustwalk, the back-country town where she’s destined to wind up wed or dead.

Then she meets Jin, a rakish foreigner, in a shooting contest, and sees him as the perfect escape route. But though she’s spent years dreaming of leaving Dustwalk, she never imagined she’d gallop away on mythical horse — or that it would take a foreign fugitive to show her the heart of the desert she thought she knew.

Rebel of the Sands reveals what happens when a dream deferred explodes — in the fires of rebellion, of romantic passion, and the all-consuming inferno of a girl finally, at long last, embracing her power.

Rebel of the Sands was published by Viking Books for Young Readers on March 8, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $10.99 in digital format.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Your Favorite Novellas In One Sentence: Announcing the Winners of Tor.com‘s March Releases!

Your Favorite Novellas In One Sentence: Announcing the Winners of Tor.com‘s March Releases!

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The Martian Way Isaac Asimov-smallLast week we invited the readers of Black Gate to submit a one-sentence review of their all-time favorite novellas.

Every qualifying entry was entered into our contest to win one of Tor.com‘s March novella releases: The Devil You Know by K. J. Parker, Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal, or Pieces of Hate by Tim Lebbon.

We received a huge number of entries, covering a vast number of novellas both famous and obscure — proof once again (as if we needed it) that you folks are the most widely-read fantasy fans on the planet. At the bottom of this article we announce our three winners.

But first, we’ve selected ten of the best entries to share with you here. The very first one we received was from Jeff Rogers, who kicked things off with an old school classic from a science fiction master, Isaac Asimov:

Hard to beat the classics: “The Martian Way” by Asimov stands out for its elevation of rational, evidence-based thought; its portrayal of can-do attitude mixed with engineering know-how; and its foreshadowing of The Expanse in setting!

Nice one, Jeff. I re-read “The Martian Way” just a few months ago, and you’re quite right… it put me in mind of The Expanse immediately.

Next up is Andrew Slater, who went really old school.

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Vintage Treasures: Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll

Vintage Treasures: Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll

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Voice of Our Shadow Jonathan Carroll-small Voice of Our Shadow Jonathan Carroll-back-small

Jonathan Carroll has been nominated for the Hugo, World Fantasy Award, and British Fantasy Awards multiple times. He won the World Fantasy Award for his short story “Friend’s Best Man,” the British Fantasy Award for his novel Outside the Dog Museum (1991), and the Bram Stoker for his collection The Panic Hand (1995).

I read his first novel The Land of Laughs (1980) the year it was released, and was enormously impressed. Carroll is a true original — his fantasy is hard to quantify, but I consider it an effective blend of magic realism and horror. His second novel, Voice of Our Shadow, appeared in hardcover from Viking in 1983, and was reprinted in paperback by Ace the following year. As you can see from the cover above, it was originally marketed as horror, but later printings have treated it more as dark fantasy. In 1992, it was reprinted by Gollancz as Fantasy Masterwork #25, and published in ebook format by Open Road Integrated Media in 2012.

Voice of Our Shadow was published by Ace Books in December 1984. It is 197 pages, priced at $2.75. The cover is by Joe DeVito. It is not hard to find; I bought an unread copy for $1 on eBay earlier this month.

April Analog Magazine Now Available

April Analog Magazine Now Available

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Analog April 2016-smallWe don’t cover every issue of Analog. To be honest, I have my hands full keeping up with 40-odd fantasy magazines, without trying to cover science fiction as well.

But I’ve been trying to work out a system that allows me to showcase the occasional issue, and I think I’ve finally stumbled on it. We’ll cover every issue that has a dinosaur on the cover. Genius!

Here’s editor Trevor Quachri’s description from the website.

This year’s April issue has a bit more gravitas than we typically expect this time of year, with mysteries galore. Our lead story is one such: a corpse and an unusual religious practice might be the keys to a larger mystery than anyone is expecting in “Seven Ways of Looking at the Sun-Worshippers of Yul-Katan” by Maggie Clark. Then dubious deeds are afoot at a radio show, in Edward M. Lerner’s “Soap Opera,” and we have Steven L. Burns’ story of one cop’s fight against his own limitations — and a society rotten beneath the surface — in “Playthings.”

Our fact article is a bit outside the norm as well, with Mark C. Childs’ look at “Composing Speculative Cities.” Then we have our shorter pieces, such as “Alloprene” by Stephen R. Wilk; “Early Warning” by Martin L. Shoemaker; “Sleep Factory” by Rich Larson; “Most Valuable Player” by Eric Choi; and “Diamond Jim and the Dinosaurs” by Rosemary Claire Smith.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Future Treasures: A Shadow All of Light by Fred Chappell

Future Treasures: A Shadow All of Light by Fred Chappell

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A Shadow All of Light-smallFred Chappell won a World Fantasy Award for his short story “The Lodger” (1993). He’s also the author of the classic horror novel Dagon (1968) and I Am One of You Forever (1985), and was the subject of a deluxe Masters of the Weird Tale volume from Centipede Press last December.

His latest is an epic adventure featuring pirates, master thieves, monsters, and fantasy detectives. It arrives in hardcover from Tor next month.

Fred Chappell’s A Shadow All of Light, a stylish, episodic fantasy novel, follows the exploits of Falco, a young man from the country, who arrives in the port city of Tardocco with the ambition of becoming an apprentice to a master shadow thief. Maestro Astolfo, whose mysterious powers of observation would rival those of Sherlock Holmes, sees Falco’s potential and puts him through a grueling series of physical lessons and intellectual tests.

Falco’s adventures coalesce into one overarching story of con men, monsters, ingenious detection, cats, and pirates. A wry humor leavens this fantastical concoction, and the style is as rich and textured as one would hope for from Chappell, a distinguished poet as well as a World Fantasy Award-winning fantasy writer.

A Shadow All of Light will be published by Tor Books on April 12, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital edition. Read a lengthy excerpt at Tor.com.

See all of our coverage of the best upcoming fantasy here.

New Treasures: Skyborn, Book One of Seraphim by David Dalglish

New Treasures: Skyborn, Book One of Seraphim by David Dalglish

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Skyborn David Dalglish-small Fireborn David Dalglish-small

American writer David Dalglish is the author of several popular series, including Shadowdance (six novels, starting with A Dance of Cloaks and A Dance of Blades, from Orbit), The Half-Orcs (seven books, starting with The Weight of Blood, self-published), and The Paladins (two volumes, also self-published). His latest is the opening volume of the new Seraphim trilogy, featuring floating islands holding the last remnants of humanity, and the elite winged soldiers who protect them.

Six islands float high above the Endless Ocean, where humanity’s final remnants are locked in brutal civil war.

Their parents slain in battle, twins Kael and Brenna Skyborn are training to be Seraphim, elite soldiers of aerial combat who wield elements of ice, fire, stone and lightning.

When the invasion comes, they will take to the skies, and claim their vengeance.

Skyborn was published by Orbit on November 17, 2015. It is 464 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. It will be followed by Fireborn (November 22, 2016), and Shadowborn. The covers are by Tommy Arnold.

A Tale of Two Covers: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

A Tale of Two Covers: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

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Stand on Zanzibar-small Stand on Zanzibar 1976-small

For this installment of A Tale of Two Covers, we look at my favorite book by one of my favorite writers: John Brunner’s Hugo Award-winning Stand on Zanzibar.

Stand on Zanzibar was published in 1969. I read it about a decade later, when I was in my mid-teens, and it pretty much blew my mind. It’s set in the far-distant future of 2010, when the Earth groans under the weight of a staggering seven billion souls, terrorists are the major threat facing America, China is a new economic superpower, erectile dysfunction and depression are treated with pills, and the head of state is President Obomi.

Pretty clear-eyed predictions (over the years, in fact, Brunner has been lauded for his amazing forecasting). But it wasn’t his predictive skills that drew me to the book — it was the brilliant structure. Brunner painted an astonishingly vivid picture of the future of our planet by interspersing his chapters with numerous brief vignettes, news items, book quotes, and snapshots of life all over the world. It was the most believable and compelling rendition of the future I’d ever encountered, and it has stayed with me for decades.

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March GigaNotoSaurus Features “Polyglossia” by Tamara Vardomskaya

March GigaNotoSaurus Features “Polyglossia” by Tamara Vardomskaya

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giganotosaurus logo-smallThis month GigaNotoSaurus features Tamara Vardomskaya’s long story “Polyglossia,” which Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews described as follows:

This month’s story at GigaNotoSaurus is the longest of the year to date (though it being March that’s not saying too much) and tackles the complex nature of language. It is nice to read more longer stories, especially ones that really delve into the world building as this one does, providing a vivid picture of a breathing world. It’s one of the reasons that GigaNotoSaurus is such a treat to check out…

This is a story about language… It looks at people from very different situations, all brought together by language. A man who has lost the language of his mother. A woman who studies languages but cares little for the heritage of them… A boy who absorbs languages like a sponge, who sees each new language like a new city, full of adventures and secrets. There’s so much going on with this story and so much to see and enjoy, a world with layers of history and conflict that all come to a head here, in this story about a song…

And in the end I think that the story just works because it does such an elegant and nuanced job building its world… the cast is meticulously balanced and great… It’s an affirming, kinetic experience, about reaching out across the barriers that language can create to find common meaning. An excellent story!

Read the story free here, and read Charles’ complete review here.

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Future Treasures: Spira Mirabilis, Book 3 of The Wave Trilogy, by Aidan Harte

Future Treasures: Spira Mirabilis, Book 3 of The Wave Trilogy, by Aidan Harte

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Irenicon Aidan Harte-small The Warring States-small Spira Mirabilis Aidan Harte-small

Spira Mirabilis Aidan Harte-back-smallIn her review of Irenicon, the opening novel in Aidan Harte’s Wave Trilogy, Sarah Avery wrote:

Welcome to Rasenna, a shining city-state turned failed state, where river spirits haunt the streets and mistake themselves for the citizens they’ve drowned. Rasenna’s people hide in their towers at night, and even by day fear the river their enemy wielded to cut their city in two…. Can a city recover from two decades of grief, madness, and self-destruction? Can these people change in time to save themselves? They’d better, because the rival city of sorcerous Engineers that smashed them before may well do so again…

Aidan Harte has been justly praised for his world-building in his debut novel. Irenicon is, almost, what we might get if Italo Calvino’s classic Invisible Cities had lingered for a few hundred pages in one of its gem-perfect vignettes… Irenicon would make a perfect action film. Aidan Harte gives us a pretty good view of the movie he must have seen in his mind while he was writing. The flashing banners of Rasenna’s homegrown martial art, the glorious decay of a city that breeds endless tension, the disturbing chill of Concord’s purity and the darkness at its foundation, and (oh my!) the uncanny otherness of the river spirits could be the making of a summer blockbuster.

Sounded pretty dang good to me, but I resisted the urge to dive in right away. Partly because I gave Sarah our only review copy. But mostly because these days I avoid trilogies until I can hold all three titles in my greedy little hands. That resolution became harder and harder to keep as the accolades continued to pile up (click on the back cover of the third volume, at right, for some examples). But my long wait is finally over. The Warring States, the second volume, was published on April 7, 2015, and the final book, Spira Mirabilis, will be released in two weeks… and our review copy arrived last week. Interns, hold all my calls. I’m on assignment.

Spira Mirabilis will be published by Jo Fletcher Books on April 5, 2016. It is 522 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover. The cover is by Ghost.

ChiZine Announces Don Bassingthwaite’s Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight

ChiZine Announces Don Bassingthwaite’s Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight

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Cocktails at Seven Apocalypse at Eight-smallDon Bassingthwaite is a man of many talents. We published his terrific sword & sorcery tale “Barbarian Instinct” in Black Gate 5, and an excerpt from his unpublished Kingdoms of Kalamar novel Point of the Knife in Black Gate 7. On top of that, he was the magazine’s Games Editor for our first four years, recruiting top-notch talent to write reviews for us, including Jennifer Brozek, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Webb, Johanna Meade, and Michael Thibault.

Don’s writing career has taken him to the top of the industry, with a dozen novels in the last ten years, from publishers like Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf. Over the years he’s also produced a series of highly regarded holiday tales, collectively known as the “Derby Cavendish” stories.

Earlier this month Don revealed the cover of his first short story collection, Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight: The Derby Cavendish Stories, in a Facebook post.

What’s this? A collection? Oh, you shouldn’t have!

ChiZine Publications has just revealed the cover (by the incomparable Erik Mohr) for my forthcoming collection Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight: The Derby Cavendish Stories — more details to come but look for it this fall!

Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight: The Derby Cavendish Stories will be available in both ebook and print editions. Look for it from Canadian publisher ChiZine later this year. I don’t have many more details at the moment — but trust me, as soon as I know more, so will you!

See our survey of ChiZine’s gorgeous 2014 catalog here.