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The Mid-March Magazine Rack

The Mid-March Magazine Rack

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Swords-and-Sorcery-Magazine-February-2016-rack Locus-February-2016-rack First-Kill-Jennifer-Fallon-rack The-Magazine-of-Fantasy-and-Science-Fiction-March-April-2016-rack

I think you could read a healthy diet of exclusively short fiction every day, and not come even close to staying on top of all the great new fantasy stories published every month.

But don’t panic — Black Gate is here to help. And we’re happy to report that March has been shaping up terrifically for short fiction fans. Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace — editors of Clarkesworld — have packaged up all of the fiction from last year in Clarkesworld: Year Eight, now available in trade paperback. In his February Short Story Roundup, Fletcher Vredenburgh reviewed the latest sword & sorcery tales from F&SF and Swords and Sorcery Magazine. For our vintage magazine readers, Rich Horton took a look at two issues of Analog from either side of the Campbell divide, and Matthew Wuertz reviewed the April 1941 of Unknown, with stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, Theodore Sturgeon, P. Schuyler Miller, and Robert Heinlein. And we reported on the news that the entire run of IF Magazine, one of the great 20th Century science fiction magazines, is now freely available online at the Internet Archive.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our early March Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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Future Treasures: The Human Chord/The Centaur by Algernon Blackwood

Future Treasures: The Human Chord/The Centaur by Algernon Blackwood

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The Human Chord The Centaur Algernon Blackwood-small The Human Chord The Centaur Algernon Blackwood-back-small

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve not read much Algernon Blackwood. But I’ve been educated on his substantial contributions to the American horror genre by my fellow Black Gate writers, especially Ryan Harvey and Bill Lengeman. In his 2009 post “The Incredible Adventures of Algernon Blackwood,” Ryan wrote:

Of all the practitioners of the classic “weird tale”…  none entrances me more than Algernon Blackwood. Looking at the stable of the foundational authors of horror — luminaries like Poe, James, le Fanu, Machen, Lovecraft — it is Blackwood who has the strongest effect on me. Of all his lofty company, he is the one who seems to achieve the most numinous “weird” of all.

Blackwood is often referred to as a “ghost story” writer… But true ghosts rarely appear in his fiction. Blackwood liked to dance around the edge of easy classification, and as his work advanced through the 1900s and into the teens, it got even harder to pinpoint. Blackwood’s interest in spiritualism, his love of nature, and his pantheism started to overtake his more standard forays in supernatural terror. His writing turned more toward transcendentalism and away from plot. The most important precursor to this development is his 1911 novel The Centaur, which critic S. T. Joshi describes as Blackwood’s “spiritual autobiography.”

And in his 2015 review of Algernon Blackwood’s The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories, Bill Lengeman clearly agreed.

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New Treasures: A Cure For Cancer by Michael Moorcock

New Treasures: A Cure For Cancer by Michael Moorcock

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A Cure for Cancer Moorcock-small A Cure for Cancer Moorcock-back-small

Titan Books has been doing a marvelous service for modern fantasy fans, as they gradually reprint Michael Moorcock’s back catalog — including some of the most fondly remembered fantasy of the 20th Century. They began with his early steampunk trilogy Nomad of the Time Streams (starting with The Warlord of the Air), and continued with the complete Chronicles of Corum. This year they’ve turned their attention to the Cornelius Quartet, starring the hippest adventurer in fantasy, scientist and rock star Jerry Cornelius.

The first volume, The Final Programme (which we gave away three copies of last month) was published on February 2. Volume Two, A Cure For Cancer, arrived earlier this month. A mirror-image of his former self, Jerry Cornelius returns to a parallel London, armed with a vibragun and his infamous charisma and charm, and hot on the trail of the grotesque Bishop Beesley. Click on the cover above for the complete book description (or just to gawk at the trippin’ cover art).

A Cure For Cancer was published by Titan Books on March 1, 2016. It is 340 pages, priced at $9.95 in paperback and $7.99 for the digital version. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd.

February Issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine Now Available

February Issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine Now Available

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Swords and Sorcery Magazine February 2016-smallIssue 49 of Curtis Ellett’s Swords and Sorcery Magazine, cover-dated February 2016, is now available.

In his February Short Story Roundup, Black Gate‘s roving reporter Fletcher Vredenburgh had this to say about the latest issue:

Issue 49 kicks off the mag’s fifth year. Congratulations are definitely due Mr. Ellett for holding the genre’s banner high…

The magazine’s second story, Lynn Rushlau’s “The Garden of Dreamers” is much better at achieving its author’s goal, which apparently was to creep the everloving snot out of me.

A group of guardsman and their commander have been sent to the Garden of Dreamers on a mission. They must overcome the Garden’s servitors, and their fears, to capture their quarry. It’s very short with little plot, but it creates an intense atmosphere of unpleasant closeness I found perfectly unnerving.

Each issue of Swords and Sorcery Magazine contains two short stories, and is available free online. Here’s the issue summary.

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Win One of Tor.com‘s March Releases!

Win One of Tor.com‘s March Releases!

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The Devil You Know-small Forest of Memory-small Pieces of Hate-small

I love novellas. Tor.com loves novellas. We have so much in common, I sometimes wish we could run off together. (Of course, you know how these internet infatuations end up. I’m emotionally needy, and Tor.com is such a workaholic… it would all end in tears. But you know it’d be beautiful while it lasted.)

Our love may be doomed, but there’s no reason someone shouldn’t end up happy. And I think it should be you. To help make that happen, Black Gate and Tor.com have teamed up to give away copies of all three of their March releases:

The Devil You Know, K. J. Parker (126 pages, $10.99, March 1) — cover by Jon Foster (reveal, excerpt)
Forest of Memory, Mary Robinette Kowal (88 pages, $9.99, March 8) — cover by Victo Ngai (reveal, excerpt)
Pieces of Hate, Tim Lebbon (148 pages, $12.99, March 15) — cover by Gene Mollica (reveal, excerpt)

How do you make one of them yours? Nothing could be simpler! Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “Tor.com contest,” and a one-sentence review of your all-time favorite novella.

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Future Treasures: The Blood Red City by Justin Richards

Future Treasures: The Blood Red City by Justin Richards

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Justin Richards is a jack-of-all-trades. He’s written numerous books — including The Chaos Code, The Parliament of Blood, and the Time Runners series — as well as audio plays and a stage play. He’s also an editor for a media journal, with several anthologies to his credit. He’s the Creative Director for the BBC’s Doctor Who books, and has authored several himself (including Time Lord Fairytales, The Shakespeare Notebooks, and The Only Good Dalek).

None of that prepared me for his 2015 novel The Suicide Exhibition, which featured an insidious Nazis plot to use alien Vril technology to win the war, and the small band of British wartime intelligence agents who undertake a desperate mission to stop Heinrich Himmler from excavating ancient burial grounds and finding these extraterrestrial Übermenschen. Michael Moorcock said “Richards brings all his skills as a leading Doctor Who writer to this tale of wartime intelligence at odds with some of H.P. Lovecraft’s worst nightmares,” and Kirkus Reviews said “Richards’ true talent lies in crafting campy but believable dialogue which imbues the novel with a real sense of character… Part Indiana Jones, part X-Files, part Catch-22, it’s good campy fun.”

The Blood Red City, the second volume in The Never War, arrives in hardcover from Thomas Dunne before the end of the month. As the alien Vril awaken, Colonel Brinkman and his team at Station Z stuggle to solve an ancient mystery… while preparing for an imminent alien attack.

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The Problem With Marion Zimmer Bradley: Rich Horton on Falcons of Narabedla/The Dark Intruder

The Problem With Marion Zimmer Bradley: Rich Horton on Falcons of Narabedla/The Dark Intruder

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Falcons of Narabedla 1964-small The Dark Intruder 1964-small

In a recent review at his blog Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton tackles the thorny subject of Marion Zimmer Bradley, one of the top-selling fantasy writers of the 20th Century (The Mists of Avalon, Darkover) head on.

In 1964… Marion married Walter Breen, a fellow SF fan and a noted numismatist, within a month. Breen was already well known as an advocate of pederasty, and MZB certainly knew of his proclivities, and indeed Breen had been banned from at least one SF convention in that time period. Breen had been convicted of pederasty-related crimes as early as 1954, and continued to have trouble with the law, finally going to jail after another conviction in 1990. MZB managed to dodge serious consequences of her husband’s activities throughout her life, and she died in 1999. In 2014 her daughter, by Breen, Moira Greyland, accused her of sexual abuse, and in retrospect it seems to me that it should have been clear all along that Bradley was at least negligently complicit in her husband’s crimes, certainly aware of them, and now it appears more likely than not that she was a participant herself. (Though I suppose I must add that damning and convincing as the accusations seem, Bradley never did have a chance to defend herself against those that came after her death, though some of her own testimony given during Breen’s legal troubles is chilling enough.) This has understandably had a devastating effect on her reputation — and she was not really a good enough writer to make it likely that her work will long survive the posthumous stain. Jim Hines briefly discusses this, with links to more direct information, in a good blog post here.

With that preamble, he has another look at Bradley’s 1964 Ace Double, the novel Falcons of Narabedla paired with the collection The Dark Intruder.

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Barnes & Noble’s Fantasy Picks for March

Barnes & Noble’s Fantasy Picks for March

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Gemini Cell Javelin Rain Myke Cole

Barnes & Noble announced their Bookseller’s Picks for March earlier this month, including their top SF and Fantasy releases. It’s an impressive list — including BG author Myke Cole’s upcoming novel Javelin Rain.

While this is technically the fifth book in Cole’s Shadow Ops series, it’s really a sequel to the prequel novel Gemini Cell. Set in a future in which magic’s reappearance in the world is just beginning to erode the old order, Jim Schweitzer is a U.S. Navy SEAL serving with the Gemini Cell — until he’s killed in action. And then brought back from the dead via occult means. His escape is coded “javelin rain,” indicating the worst possible security threat — one that must be stopped as quickly as possible, by any means necessary. As Schweitzer discovers his resurrection has made him immortal, his family certainly isn’t, and he has to use all of his skills — old and new — to protect all that is important to him. Combining military heroics, espionage intrigue, and magic-infused action, Cole adds new layers to one of the most unique SF/F universes on shelves today.

We covered B&N’s picks for the Best SF and Fantasy of 2015 here.

Javelin Rain, by Myke Cole, will be published by Ace Books on March 29. It’s priced at $7.99 in paperback and digital formats. Myke’s last posts for Black Gate were Drizzt Do’Urden Simply Won’t Stop Adventuring: Learning to Love Serial Fantasy and Selling Shadow Ops. Our roving reporter Patty Templeton interviewed him here.

New Treasures: These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

New Treasures: These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas

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Well here’s something interesting — a Victorian era superhero novel. Debut novelists Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas bring us the tale of Evelyn Wyndham and her sister Rose, a Victorian adventure featuring evening parties, abductions, a love triangle, witty dialog, mysterious and secret societies, fog-shrouded London, villains with phenomenal abilities, intrigue, mystery, and more. It’s being called Jane Austen meets X-Men, which isn’t a description I hear very often.

These Vicious Masks was published by Swoon Reads on February 9, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $9.99 for both the trade paperback and digital editions. The cover is by Rich Deas. Click on the back cover above to read the complete description. See the complete details, including a brief excerpt, at the Swoon Reads website.

See all of our coverage of the best in New Fantasy here.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q27 Now Available

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q27 Now Available

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q27-small

In his January Short Story Roundup, Fletcher Vredenburgh reported on the latest issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly:

As usual, HFQ has got the goods, and both stories grabbed me and then left me hanging. The stunning cover painting, Forbidden Valley is by Brad Fraunfelter.

The first is “Crazy Snake and the Tribute for Pachacamac” by Eric Atkisson. It’s the third story about the Comanche warrior wandering south from the Comancheria (read the others here) into Central America… Fleeing Walker’s soldiers, he and his faithful horse, Aahtaqui, find themselves in the ocean, swimming toward a silver-mist-shrouded shore. Pretty much everything you could want in a S&S story shows up on shore: stone idols, an evil god served by evil priests, fighting, mad sorceries, and ancient curses…

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