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Author: John ONeill

December 2015 Nightmare Magazine Now on Sale

December 2015 Nightmare Magazine Now on Sale

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Nightmare Magazine December 2015-smallThe December issue of the online magazine Nightmare contains original short stories from Damien Angelica Walters and Caspian Gray, and reprints from Tim Lebbon and Nancy Etchemendy.

Original Stories

“The Judas Child” by Damien Angelica Walters
A kid in a baseball cap and a Ninja Turtles t-shirt is sitting on the park bench, swinging his legs. The boy stands off to the side until he’s sure there are no grown-ups nearby, and then he flops down on the bench, hiding his misshapen left hand while pretending to pick a scab from his knee with the other. Turtle leans forward, the hat’s brim turning his eyes to shadow. The boy guesses he’s eight, maybe, or close enough. Not too skinny either. The monster doesn’t like it when they’re skinny.

“The King of Ashland County” by Caspian Gray
Uncle Reggie couldn’t afford to fly to Ireland to find a selkie wife, so instead he drove across the country to Carmel-by-the-Sea and came back with a selkie queer. I was fifteen then, and so ready to get out of Perrysville that California sounded like paradise.

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New Treasures: The Angel of Highgate by Vaughn Entwistle

New Treasures: The Angel of Highgate by Vaughn Entwistle

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The Angel of Highgate-smallVaughn Entwistle is the author of two volumes in The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Revenant of Thraxton Hall and The Dead Assassin, atmospheric mysteries featuring the detecting duo of Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde.

The Angel of Highgate is a prequel to those books, but to reveal exactly how would be telling. It was published in trade paperback this month by Titan.

People die… but love endures immortal.

Lord Geoffrey Thraxton is notorious in Victorian society — a Byronesque rakehell with a reputation as the “wickedest man in London.” But on a fog-shrouded morning in Highgate Cemetery, Thraxton encounters a spectral wraith that stirs his morbid fascination with death and the supernatural. After surviving a pistol duel, Thraxton boasts his contempt for death and insults the attending physician. It is a mistake he will regret, for Silas Garrette is a deranged sociopath and chloroform-addict whose mind was broken on the battlefields of Crimea. When Thraxton falls in love with a mysterious woman who haunts Highgate Cemetery by night, he unwittingly provides the murderous doctor with the perfect means to punish a man with no fear of death.

The Angel of Highgate was published by Titan Books on December 1, 2015. It is 377 pages, priced at $12.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

The Late December Fantasy Magazine Rack

The Late December Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Want to read the best up-and-coming fantasy writers? The holidays are a great time to try out some new magazines, and discover them for yourself. This month we start our coverage of the splendid online magazine GigaNotoSaurus, which publishes one long novelette or novella each issue, and Fletcher Vredenburgh reviews the excellent Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume 1. Doug Ellis did some impressive detective work to bring to light the 70-year old correspondence between Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and Astounding cover artist Hubert Rogers, and Fletcher found much to like in the newest issues of Swords and Sorcery Magazine and Fantasy Scroll in his November Short Story Roundup. For vintage fiction fans, Matthew Wuertz continued his Galaxy re-read with the February 1953 issue, with top-notch stories by Damon Knight, Algis Budrys, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Sheckley, and Clifford D. Simak.

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

As we’ve mentioned before, all of these magazines are completely dependent on fans and readers to keep them alive. Many are marginal operations for whom a handful of subscriptions may mean the difference between life and death. Why not check one or two out, and try a sample issue? There are magazines here for every budget, from completely free to $12.95/issue. If you find something intriguing, I hope you’ll consider taking a chance on a subscription. I think you’ll find it’s money very well spent.

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December 2015 Lightspeed Magazine Now on Sale

December 2015 Lightspeed Magazine Now on Sale

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Lightspeed December 2015-smallLots of great stuff in the December Lightspeed. First off, editor John Joseph Adams shares some big news in his editorial.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publishers of my Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy (and the rest of the Best American series), have offered me the opportunity to edit a science fiction/fantasy (and horror) novel line for them — and naturally I agreed!

The line will be called John Joseph Adams Books (their idea, not mine!), and will be a tightly-curated list of 7-10 titles per year. We’ll be pre-launching the line in early 2016 with new editions of three Hugh Howey novels: Beacon 23, Shift, and Dust — making them available via traditional publishing for the first time, and then the line will kick things off in earnest in early 2017 with our first batch of never-before-published works.

This is fabulous news for John, and for the industry as a whole. Expectations are high for the new line, and I’m sure he will deliver.

Also, Black Gate readers will be delighted to find a story by BG blogger Mark Rigney, author of the eternally popular Tales of Gemen, “The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone,” three of the most widely read stories in the Black Gate Online Fiction library. “Portfolio” is a tale of strange reincarnation, and a set of very unnerving paintings.

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Entertainment Weekly Gives Us Our First Look at Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr Strange

Entertainment Weekly Gives Us Our First Look at Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr Strange

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Entertainment Weekly Dr Strange-smallThe new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on sale tomorrow, offers us our first peek at Benedict Cumberbatch as sorcerer supreme Dr. Strange — and they’ve really nailed the look. As James Whitbrook at io9 puts it:

I am genuinely shocked at how close this adheres to Strange’s classic costume from the comics — it’s all there, the color scheme, the cloak, the eye of Agamotto dangling from his neck, It’s all there — right down to Strange’s greying hair. It really has leapt off the page of a Doctor Strange comic into real life, and it looks great.

Click the image at right for a bigger version.

Doctor Strange is one of two films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe scheduled to be released next year; the other is Captain America: Civil War (May 6). Principal photography on Dr Strange began last month, and it is scheduled to be released November 4. It also stars Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Mads Mikkelsen, and is directed by Scott Derrickson (The Messengers, Sinister).

The article reportedly will reveal the roles played by Cumberbatch’s co-stars for the first time. Read more details at the EW website, or read the complete article in the print issue. We last covered Entertainment Weekly with the February 2013 issue, which coincidentally featured Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness.

New Treasures: Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen

New Treasures: Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen

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Barsk The Elephants Graveyard-smallI’ve been looking forward to Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk since I first glimpsed the cover over the summer. It will be released this week, and the pre-release buzz has been impressive. Nancy Hightower at The Washington Post ranked it as one of the Best SF and Fantasy titles of December, saying:

Barsk is set 62,000 years into a human-less future, where anthropomorphic animals rule the galaxy. There is no record of human existence, and while the different species get along relatively well, the Fant, an elephant-like hybrid, are completely shunned and exiled to live on a rainy planet called Barsk. While labeled less intelligent and “dirty,” the Fant nonetheless are the only species to produce a drug that allows clairvoyants known as Speakers to commune with the dead. When the planet is threatened with invasion and annihilation by the galaxy Senate, Jorl, a Fant Speaker, must race to save it by communing with ancient beings who hold even darker truths. Suspenseful and emotionally engaging, Barsk brings readers into a fascinating speculative world.

Lawrence has been nominated for the Nebula Award three times, and the Hugo Award once. The early reviews for Barsk have been glowing, with Karl Schroeder calling it “A compulsive page-turner and immensely enjoyable,” and James L. Cambias proclaiming it “Captivating… [a] heartwarming story in a unique and fantastic world… as rich and mysterious as Dune.” We first covered the book last month.

Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard will be published by Tor Books on December 29, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The marvelous cover is by Victo Ngai.

Hypnojewels, Smugglers, and Ancient Alien Races: Rich Horton on The Plot Against Earth/Recruit for Andromeda

Hypnojewels, Smugglers, and Ancient Alien Races: Rich Horton on The Plot Against Earth/Recruit for Andromeda

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“Calvin M. Knox” is one of Robert Silverberg’s most well-known pseudonyms. He used it extensively to write reviews, over two dozen short stories (frequently in magazines where he also had a story under his own name), and three novels: Lest We Forget Thee, Earth (1958), The Plot Against Earth (1959), and One of Our Asteroids is Missing (1964), all Ace Doubles.

Milton Lesser was born in Brooklyn in 1928, and changed his name to Stephen Marlowe in 1956. Under that name he wrote 40 crime novels and fictional autobiographies. He began publishing SF under his original name while still a teenager, and he continued to to do so through the 50s and 60s, producing seven novels and nearly 100 short stories between 1950 and 1965.

Silverberg and Lesser were published back-to-back in Ace Double D-358 in 1959, with the novels The Plot Against Earth and Recruit for Andromeda. The latter has never been reprinted, and has now been out of print for over 55 years.

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Vintage Treasures: The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

Vintage Treasures: The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

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The Midwich Cuckoos Dean Ellis-smallJohn Wyndham’s first SF story, “Worlds to Barter,” was published in the May 1931 issue of Wonder Stories, one of the very first pulp magazines I ever bought (which still brings back fond memories every time I see the cover). It appeared under his pulp pseudonym, John Beynon Harris, and alongside “Through the Purple Cloud” by Jack Williamson, and stories by Fletcher Pratt, Ed Earl Repp, and an editorial by Hugo Gernsback. Wyndham was just 27 years old.

His real fame, of course, came with his novels. The first to appear under his own name was the international bestseller The Day of the Triffids (1951), followed by The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955), The Outward Urge (1959), Trouble with Lichen (1960), and Chocky (1968).

The Midwich Cuckoos was first published in hardcover in the UK by Michael Joseph in 1957, and made into the classic SF film Village of the Damned in 1960 (and remade by John Carpenter in 1995).

A nightmare tale of a quiet English village where nothing ever happened until late one September night, when every woman in town became inexplicably pregnant…

Nine months later, sixty beautiful children were born… sixty unbelievable threats to the human race!

Today The Midwich Cuckoos is something of a neglected classic. It has been out of print in the US since the Del Rey paperback edition shown at right was released in May 1980. It is 189 pages, priced at $1.50. The cover is by Dean Ellis. An ebook was published in July 2010 by RosettaBooks, and that’s probably your best bet if you’re trying to track down a copy.

December 2015 Locus Now on Sale

December 2015 Locus Now on Sale

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Locus December 2015-smallThe December issue of the Newsmagazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field features interviews with authors Chuck Wendig and Bet Cato, reports on the 2015 World Fantasy Awards and British Fantasy Awards, a convention report of the World Fantasy Convention, news on the massive Orbit expansion we reported on last month, the Nebula Nominations, author updates on George R.R. Martin, William Gibson, and Neil Gaiman, and many others, US and British Forthcoming Books lists, a column by Kameron Hurley, short fiction reviews from Gardner Dozois and Rich Horton, and reviews of new books from Charlie Jane Anders, Jonathan Strahan, Catherynne M. Valente, Linda Nagata, Cherie Priest, Matt Wallace, Kameron Hurley, Gemma Files, and many others.

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 an obituary for T.M. Wright, Letters, and an editorial. See the complete contents here.

We last covered Locus with the October 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 December Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

John DeNardo’s 2015 Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Holiday Gift Guide

John DeNardo’s 2015 Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Holiday Gift Guide

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Spectrum 22-smallWell, Christmas is over, the gifts are (mostly) unwrapped and, barring that one uncle who always seems to be traveling on Christmas, all the presents have been exchanged. Which means it’s finally safe to look at gift-giving guides again (I don’t know about you, but all the best ones seem to pop up just as I finish my shopping.) After all, you need some suggestions on what to spend those gift certificates on, right?

Perhaps the best guide I found this year was John DeNardo’s 2015 Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Holiday Gift Guide, published in two parts over at Kirkus Reviews. What makes it so cool? It’s packed with deluxe comics, Star Trek and Stars Wars books, cool merchandise, and lots more. Here’s his suggestions for how to spend on the art lover in your life.

The go-to gift for your visually oriented loved ones is an art book. Science fiction and fantasy fans would adore Spectrum 22: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art edited by John Fleskes. Its 300 pages are jam-packed with an amazingly diverse selection of art, especially considering that they are all spectacular. It’s is a book you’ll pick up again and again. Or maybe your giftee leans toward the creepy? The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History by Stephen Jones is a visual feast aimed at lovers of horror. It contains an endlessly impressive selection of horror art since the late 19th century. Every page deserves multiple visits.

John has so many ideas, he had to split his list into two parts.

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