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Author: John ONeill

New Treasures: The Last Girl by Joe Hart

New Treasures: The Last Girl by Joe Hart

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Joe Hart is the author of several horror and thriller novels, including The River Is Dark, Lineage, and Widow Town. His latest is the opening novel in a new post-apocalyptic series in which a mysterious worldwide epidemic dramatically reduces the number of females born, from 50% of births to less than 1 percent. Twenty-five years after the first infection, there’s still no cure, and there are fewer than a thousand woman on the face of the Earth.

The Last Girl tells the tale of Zoey, and a few other surviving women, kept in a research compound desperately searching for the cause of the epidemic. It’s not a life Zoey wants… and when she makes a bid for freedom, she takes the future of mankind into her hands.

The second volume in The Dominion Trilogy, The Final Trade, is scheduled to be released on September 13, 2016. The Last Girl was published by Thomas & Mercer on March 1, 2016. It is 371 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback and $5.99 for the digital price. The cover was designed by M.S. Corley. Click the images above for bigger versions.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 194 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 194 Now Available

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 194-smallBeneath Ceaseless Skies has changed up its cover art again. I quite like the new art, “Research Lab” by Sung Choi (see the full piece here), which covers their third Science Fantasy Special Issue.

The March 3rd BCS is a special double-issue featuring a bonus story, a bonus podcast, and a science-fantasy episode of the BCS Audio Vault podcast. It contains original short fiction by Yoon Ha Lee, Cat Rambo, Anaea Lay, and an Audio Vault reprint by Yoon Ha Lee.

“Foxfire, Foxfire” by Yoon Ha Lee
Even in human-shape, I had an excellent sense of smell. I had no difficulty tracking the pilot. She lay on her side in the lee of a chunk of rubble, apparently asleep. The remains of a Brick Ration’s wrapper had been tossed to the side. She had downed all of it, which impressed me. But then, I’d heard that piloting was hungry work.

“Call and Answer, Plant and Harvest” by Cat Rambo
Today her sleeves are sewn with opals and moonstones and within their glimmer here and there on the left sleeve, glitters another precious stone, set in no particular order, random as the stars. Her skirt and bodice are aluminum fish-scales, armored though she expects no fight. Her only weapon is her own considerable wit.

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Take a Classic Science Fiction Tour With IF Magazine

Take a Classic Science Fiction Tour With IF Magazine

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If Worlds of Science Fiction 50s lot-small

The entire run of IF Magazine, one of the great 20th Century science fiction magazines, is now freely available online at the Internet Archive.

IF, originally titled If Worlds of Science Fiction and later Worlds of If, was a monthly magazine that began publishing in 1952. It was published continuously for 22 years, until it was merged with Galaxy in 1974. During its run it published some of the most acclaimed SF of the 20th Century, including “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Larry Niven’s “Neutron Star,” James Blish’s A Case of Conscience, Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness, Heinlein’s Farnham’s Freehold, Jack Williamson and Fredrick Pohl’s The Reefs of Space, and much, much more.

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Future Treasures: World’s End by Will Elliott, Volume 3 of The Pendulum Trilogy

Future Treasures: World’s End by Will Elliott, Volume 3 of The Pendulum Trilogy

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In The Pilgrims (2014), the opening volume of Will Elliott’s Pendulum Trilogy, down on his luck London journalist Eric Albright discovered a strange red door on the graffiti-covered walls under a bridge near his home. When the door opened and gang of strange bandits — including a giant — dashed out and robbed a nearby store, Eric and his friend Case decided to go through the door… to the land of Levaal, a fantasy kingdom populated by power damaged mages, stone giants, pit devils, and a mountain-sized dragon sleeping beneath a great white castle. In Shadow (2015), Eric and his new friends found themselves in the thick of a brutal war. And in the third and final volume, World’s End, coming later this month from Tor, Levaal faces the final battle in an age-old war between worlds. One more fantasy trilogy brought to a successful close! Every time that happens, we bake a cake.

When Eric Albright, a luckless London slacker, and his pal Stuart Casey went through a battered red door under a railway bridge, the last thing they expected to find was another world. There lay the strange, dark realm of Levaal, whose tyrant lord Vous has ascended to godhood. The great wall which has divided the land has been brought down, setting loose a horde of demonic Tormentors. In their sky prisons, the dragons are stirring, set to defy their slumbering creator and steal humanity’s world.

Shilen, a dragon cloaked in human form, has convinced Eric and Aziel, Vous’s daughter, to help free the dragons from their sky-prison, or Earth will be destroyed. She promises great power, and safety for all Eric’s favoured people, but Shilen has an ulterior motive, for the dragons wish to control humankind completely.

World’s End will be published by Tor Books on March 22, 2016. It is 432 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 in digital format. The cover is by Cynthia Sheppard.

New Treasures: Mort(e) by Robert Repino

New Treasures: Mort(e) by Robert Repino

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Robert Repino’s Mort(e) is an unusual book.

In his article “Five Books in Which Giant Insects Ruin Everyone’s Day” at Tor.com last year, Eric Smith described it thusly:

An epic science-fiction thriller out on January 20th, Mort(e) introduces you to a world that’s been conquered by hyper-intelligent giant ants… Tired of mankind’s treatment of the world, the ants have risen to take the planet, and have made other animals self-aware. It’s an epic battle between humans, ants, dogs, ants, cats, ants, raccoons, ants, and it is incredible. And the protagonist, a housecat named Mort(e), will stick with you long after you close the pages.

I found the newly released trade paperback at the bookstore this week, and was impressed enough with the accolades on the back cover to bring it home. Mort(e) was included in Andrew Liptak’s Very Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Book Of 2015 at i09, and listed as an Amazon Best Book of January 2015. BookRiot called it “Absolutely incredible.. The apocalypse has never, ever been this entertaining.” (Click the cover above to see the complete text.)

I’ve been intrigued by anthropomorphic fantasy ever since I first read Watership Down, and this one sounds right up my alley. Mort(e) was published in hardcover on January 20 of last year, and was reprinted by Soho Press on February 9, 2016. It is 358 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Napo Ng.

Series Fantasy: The Half-Light City by M.J. Scott

Series Fantasy: The Half-Light City by M.J. Scott

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Shadow Kin MJ Scott-small Blood Kin MJ Scott-small Iron Kin MJ Scott-small Fire Kin MJ Scott-small

Three years ago I received a package of review copies from Roc Books that included Iron Kin, which turned out to be the third book in a dark fantasy series called The Half-Light City. I was intrigued enough by the cover and the description to dash off a quick New Treasures article, and also to order the opening volume, Shadow Kin.

And truthfully, after that I sort of forgot about it. Until I stumbled on all four books in the series at Barnes & Noble on Saturday. Now, it’s nothing new to come across a fantasy series at B&N (frankly, it’s a lot tougher to find books that aren’t part of a series), but what interested me was that — wonder of wonders — this one was complete, and all four books were right there on the shelves, mine for the taking. Hallelujah, it’s some kind of miracle.

You have to understand that my weekly Saturday trip to the bookstore routinely goes like this. Browse the shelves until something catches my eye. Ooooo, that looks cool. Wait, is this part of a series? Of course it is, why do I even ask. What volume is this? Crap, number six? How the hell did I miss five previous volumes? Never mind, I’ll just grab the first one. They don’t have it? Come on! Looks like I’m reading The Hobbit again this weekend.

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February 2016 Locus Now on Sale

February 2016 Locus Now on Sale

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Locus February 2016-smallWhile I was at my local Barnes & Noble on Saturday, picking up the new issues of F&SF, Analog, and Asimov’s, I was delighted to see the February issue of Locus peeking out from behind Mystery Scene. I don’t always have the best luck finding Locus on newsstands, and I really didn’t want to miss the February issue.

The February Locus is always a special event… it’s their annual Year in Review issue, and this one does not disappoint. It has detailed looks back at the best new books and short fiction from the last twelve months by virtually all of their reviewers, including Gardner Dozois, Rich Horton, Jonathan Strahan, Russell Letson, Faren Miller, Gary K. Wolfe, Cheryl Morgan, Ellen Datlow, Paul Kincaid, and many others. It also includes the 2015 Locus Survey ballot, their annual Magazine Survey, a long interview with Tom Doherty, and — as always — plenty of reviews of short fiction and books. There’s also an obituary of David G. Hartwell, and a promise of additional appreciations next month.

In addition to all the news, features, and regular columns, there’s also the indispensable listings of Magazines Received, Books Received, British Books Received, and Bestsellers. Plus Letters, and an editorial. See the complete contents here.

We last covered Locus with the December 2015 issue. Locus is edited by Liza Groen Trombi, and published monthly by Locus Publications. The issue is 62 pages, priced at $7.50. Subscriptions are $63 for 12 issues in the US. Subscribe online here. The magazine’s website, run as a separate publication by Mark R. Kelly, is a superb online resource. It is here.

See our March Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

Vintage Treasures: Try a Little Sturgeon Caviar

Vintage Treasures: Try a Little Sturgeon Caviar

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Lester Del Rey
Lester Del Rey

I started what eventually became a casual series of posts about Theodore Sturgeon back in June 2014, when I wrote a brief piece on his 1979 collection The Stars Are the Styx. It was casual because I’d make another entry in the series only when I acquired another of his collections. The result was eight posts over roughly two years, not a bad stretch, really.

The only real drawback to this system is I’ve been dying to do a post on his 1955 collection Caviar, perhaps my favorite of his many books, and a copy has not tumbled into my hands for many years. So I’m breaking with my system (and had to troop upstairs and root around on the shelves until I found a copy, no small accomplishment) to bring you this report. You’re welcome.

Why is Caviar my favorite? Nostalgic reasons, mostly. It contains “Microcosmic God,” the first Theodore Sturgeon tale I can remember reading, and still one of my favorites.

Also, I had a lot of fun tracking down the various paperback versions, especially the 1977 Del Rey edition with the brilliant cover by Darrell K. Sweet (above right), which pretty clearly has publisher Lester del Rey putting in a cameo appearance as “Microcosmic God”‘s genius inventor James Kidder.

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Future Treasures: Snakewood by Adrian Selby

Future Treasures: Snakewood by Adrian Selby

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Snakewood-smallHere’s an interesting little artifact. Snakewood, a debut fantasy of “betrayal, mystery, and bloody revenge,” tells the story of the Twenty, a band of mercenaries being hunted down one-by-one by an unknown killer.

What’s really fascinating is the plant-based magic system. The author says “Snakewood is set in a world where magic is in the plant-life, concoctions of which, known as ‘fightbrews’, radically transform the capabilities and appearance of warriors at a terrible cost.” It arrives in hardcover next week from Orbit Books.

A Lifetime of Enemies has its Own Price

Mercenaries who gave no quarter, they shook the pillars of the world through cunning, chemical brews, and cold steel.

Whoever met their price won.

Now, their glory days are behind them. Scattered to the wind and their genius leader in hiding, they are being hunted down and eliminated.

One by one.

Snakewood will be published by Orbit Books on March 15, 2016. It is 432 pages, priced at $26.00 in hardcover and $13.99 for the digital version. Read an excerpt from the novel here.

New Treasures: Son of the Morning by Mark Alder

New Treasures: Son of the Morning by Mark Alder

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Son of the Morning-smallUnder the name M.D. Lachlan, Mark Alder has written four novels in the Wolfsangel fantasy series; under the name Mark Barrowcliffe, he’s the author of the D&D memoir The Elfish Gene, Lucky Dog and Girlfriend 44. His newest is the opening volume of a fantasy retelling of the Hundred Years War, in a world where angels and demons choose sides on the battlefield, and England and France are locked in a true holy war. Publishers Weekly calls it “alternate history leavened with wry humor… [a] fast-moving epic.”

England, 1337: Edward III is beset on all sides, plagued by debt and surrounded by doubters. He refuses to pay homage to the newly crowned Philip Valois of France and seeks to secure his French holdings, but he’s outmanned. Philip can put 50,000 men in the field, but he is having his own problems: he has summoned the angels themselves to fight for France, but the angels refuse to fight. Both kings send priests far and wide, seeking holy relics and heavenly beings to take up the cause of their country, but God remains stubbornly silent, refusing to grant favor to either side.

Meanwhile, among the poor and downtrodden, heretical whispers are taking hold: what if God — who has never been seen to do anything for them — is not the rightful leader of the heavens after all? And as Edward’s situation becomes increasingly desperate, even his counselors begin to believe that if God won’t listen, perhaps they can find a savior not from Heaven, but from Hell.

In a sweeping tale packed with courtiers and kings, knights and priests, and devils and angels, Mark Alder breathes fresh and imaginative life into the Hundred Years War in this unique historical epic.

Son of the Morning was published by Pegasus on February 15, 2016. It is 727 pages, priced at $26.95 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version. The cover painting is a detail from Luca Giordano’s painting of St. Michael.