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New Treasures: Mystic by Jason Denzel

New Treasures: Mystic by Jason Denzel

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Mystic Jason Denzel-smallJason Denzel has been immersed in the world of high fantasy for decades — he’s the founder of Dragonmount, the popular online community for fans of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. His debut fantasy novel Mystic, the tale of a strange teenager with humble origins who’s chosen as a candidate for the most powerful magical position in the land, is the opening volume of The Mystic Trilogy. It arrived in hardcover from Tor last month.

I called to the Myst, and it sent us you.

For hundreds of years, high-born nobles have competed for the chance to learn of the Myst. Powerful, revered, and often reclusive, Mystics have the unique ability to summon and manipulate the Myst: the underlying energy that lives at the heart of the universe. Once in a very great while, they take an apprentice, always from the most privileged sects of society. Such has always been the tradition — until a new High Mystic takes her seat and chooses Pomella AnDone, a restless, low-born teenager, as a candidate.

Commoners have never been welcomed among the select few given the opportunity to rise beyond even the highest nobility. So when Pomella chooses to accept the summons and journey to Kelt Apar, she knows that she will have more to contend with than the competition for the apprenticeship.

Breaking both law and tradition, Pomella undergoes three trials against the other candidates to prove her worthiness. As the trials unfold, Pomella navigates a deadly world of intolerance and betrayal, unaware that ruthless conspirators intend to make her suffer for having the audacity to seek to unravel the secrets of the Myst.

Mystic was published by Tor Books on November 3, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version. The cover artist is Larry Rostant.

BuzzFeed Names the 32 Best Fantasy Books Of 2015

BuzzFeed Names the 32 Best Fantasy Books Of 2015

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Half-Resurrection Blues-smallAh, the end of the year, when Best of the Year lists start to arrive in earnest, and we learn which novels are jockeying for front-runner status for major awards. Most lists limit themselves to 10, but this week the editors at BuzzFeed bravely cataloged “The 32 Best Fantasy Books Of 2015.” Their list includes plenty of titles we’ve enthused about at Black Gate in the past few months, including The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson, and Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu. It also highlights a few we’ve somehow overlooked, such as Daniel José Older’s Half-Resurrection Blues, the opening novel in his Bone Street Rumba series:

A dark urban fantasy that explores the world between dead and living through the eyes of Carlos Delacruz, an agent of the New York Council of the Dead who, as an “inbetweener,” knows a little something about both worlds. Delacruz works to solve a mystery that threatens to bring these two worlds dangerously close together in this engaging beginning to a promising new series.

And Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Signal to Noise:

The charming debut novel from Silvia Moreno-Garcia alternates between 1988 and 2009 in Mexico City to uncover the circumstances behind why heroine Meche’s beautiful childhood friendships fell apart, and whether there is a chance she can mend these broken bonds. Meche’s ability to cast spells using songs makes this fascinating read as much a meditation on the incredible power of music as it is an exploration of why some friendships disintegrate, and whether they can be put back together again.

The list was compiled by Tanner Greenring, Isaac Fitzgerald, and Jack Shepherd on the BuzzFeed Staff. Read the complete article here.

Ares Magazine #2 Now Available

Ares Magazine #2 Now Available

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Ares Magazine 2-smallThe legendary magazine Ares, published by SPI between 1980 and 1984, included a complete SF or fantasy game in every issue. It lasted only 19 issues, but in that time it produced several much-loved games, including Greg Costikyan’s popular Barbarian Kings, an adaptation of Poul Anderson’s 1960 novel The High Crusade, the proto-RPG Citadel of Blood, the under appreciated classic Star Trader, and many others.

Last year Matthew Wuertz reported on the successful attempt to resurrect Ares Magazine by One Small Step Games through a Kickstarter. The first issue of the new version came out last year, with the complete two-player game War of the Worlds, and a nice mix of intriguing articles and fiction. I checked the website recently and discovered the second issue is now available as well, packed with original fiction, articles, and of course a brand new game, Invasive Species. Here’s a peek at the complete contents:

Features

The science behind the construction and utility of space elevators, and why they are so much better than space escalators.
Interview with Dino Andrade, professional voice actor and driving force behind SoulGeek.com
Invasive Species, a two-player boardgame

Invasive Species pits the human crew of a small scout space ship, the CFS Quicksilver, against an alien apex predator trapped on board.

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Vintage Treasures: The Queens’ Quarter Trilogy by Midori Snyder

Vintage Treasures: The Queens’ Quarter Trilogy by Midori Snyder

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New Moon Midori Snyder-small Sadar's Keep Beldan's Fire

It’s a tough thing to have to change publishers in the middle of a trilogy. That’s exactly what happened with Midori Snyder’s The Queens’ Quarter, which began with her second novel, New Moon, published in 1989. The last two novels followed over the next four years.

New Moon (1989)
Sadar’s Keep (1990)
Beldan’s Fire (1993)

Snyder’s first novel was Soulstring (1987), a standalone fairytale based on the Scottish legend of Tam Lin (which we covered here). Two years later, she decided to turn her attention to a secondary world fantasy. The first novel, New Moon, appeared in paperback from Ace in February 1989 with a fine cover by Jody Lee (above left; click for bigger version).

If subsequent books in the series had also had covers by Jody Lee, or even kept the same cover design, they would have been easy to spot as part of the same series. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Snyder was forced to switch publishers in midstream. As a result the second book, Sadar’s Keep, arrived in paperback in the US March 1991 from Tor Books, with a fine but strikingly different cover by Dennis Nolan (above middle).

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Future Treasures: Drake by Peter McLean

Future Treasures: Drake by Peter McLean

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Drake Peter McLean-smallPeter McLean’s first novel will be released in paperback by Angry Robot in early January, and it sounds pretty darn good.

Don’t believe me? Drake features a hitman who owes a gambling debt to a demon, his faithful magical accomplice The Burned Man (an imprisoned archdemon), the Furies of Greek myth, an (almost) fallen angel named Trixie, and oh, yeah. Lucifer. Dave Hutchinson calls it “a gritty, grungy, funny, sweary noir thriller with added demons. Don Drake is a wonderful creation.” I told you it sounded good. Drake is the opening installment in a new series titled The Burned Man.

Hitman Don Drake owes a gambling debt to a demon. Forced to carry out one more assassination to clear his debt, Don unwittingly kills an innocent child and brings the Furies of Greek myth down upon himself.

Rescued by an almost-fallen angel called Trixie, Don and his magical accomplice The Burned Man, an imprisoned archdemon, are forced to deal with Lucifer himself whilst battling a powerful evil magician.

Now Don must foil Lucifer’s plan to complete Trixie’s fall and save her soul whilst preventing the Burned Man from breaking free from captivity and wreaking havoc on the entire world.

Drake will be published by Angry Robot on January 5, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The very cool cover is by Raid71. Learn more at the Angry Robot website.

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

David W. Wixon on Editing The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak

David W. Wixon on Editing The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak

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I Am Crying All Inside-smallTwo months ago I was thrilled to announce the impending publication of the first six volumes of The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, edited by David W. Wixon, the Executor of the Literary Estate and a close friend of Simak’s. The lack of a complete collection of Simak’s short stories has been an aggravation to serious fans, so this massive project from Open Road Media — a comprehensive collection of all of Simak’s short stories, including his science fiction, fantasy, and westerns — was cause for celebration. Over the last few months there’s been a lot of excitement in the industry about the project, and Paul Di Filippo asked if “The Simak Renaissance was finally here.”

Wixon stopped by Black Gate yesterday, and he was gracious enough to answer some of the questions we posed in our first article, particularly on the digital pricing (the announced prices are a little wonky: $14.99 for volume 1, $7.99 for volumes 2 and 3, and $9.99 for volumes 4-6. As I said in the article, even $9.99 seems a little high for 8-10 stories/volume. ) Wixon commented:

I’m not sure of the policy behind Open Road’s pricing, but they assure me that they will deal with the issues you’ve raised.

On exactly how many volumes are in the series:

There will be 14 volumes of the complete Simak short fiction.

He also elaborated in more detail on how he selected and sorted the contents for each volume.

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Discovering Robert E. Howard: Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward Re-Read “The People of the Black Circle”

Discovering Robert E. Howard: Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward Re-Read “The People of the Black Circle”

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people-of-the-black-circleHoward Andrew Jones and Bill Ward kick off their re-read of The Bloody Crown of Conan by Robert E. Howard, the second of three omnibus volumes collecting the complete tales of Conan, with perhaps my favorite Conan tale, the 80-page novella “The People of the Black Circle.” It was originally published in three parts in the September, October and November 1934 issues of Weird Tales.

Bill: It’s easy to see why “The People of the Black Circle” is a Conan fan-favorite: plot-twists and action galore, great supporting characters, an exotic but plausibly constructed setting, and fabulous villains using a host of inventive magic. Conan is the adventurer and rogue we’ve come to know over the last dozen or so stories, this time commanding a tribe of Afghuli raiders on the borders of Vedhya, the Hyborian Age equivalent of India. There are a few elements in the story that may recall others in the Conan saga, but this time around there is nothing that feels recycled or borrowed, indeed the whole story feels fresh and something of a departure from what has come before.

Howard: It was a grand adventure and a very different feel from the last little parcel of tales. I’m glad REH decided to vary his theme, and I’m scratching my head wondering why this story didn’t serve more often as a sword-and-sorcery template. Probably because its unique character made it far more difficult to imitate.

Next up, Bill and Howard dive into the first Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon. Stay tuned.

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New Treasures: The Shootout Solution by Michael R. Underwood

New Treasures: The Shootout Solution by Michael R. Underwood

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The Shootout Solution-smallMichael R. Underwood’s novel Shield and Crocus, set in a city built on the bones of a fallen giant and ruled by five criminal tyrants, had perhaps the most intriguing setting I came across last year. So I was delighted to see he was joining the stellar line-up at Tor.com with a new series, the Genrenauts. The first episode, The Shootout Solution, was published on November 17 as their tenth premium novella.

Leah Tang just died on stage.

Not literally.

Not yet.

Leah’s stand-up career isn’t going well. But she understands the power of fiction, and when she’s offered employment with the mysterious Genrenauts Foundation, she soon discovers that literally dying on stage is a hazard of the job!

Her first job takes her to a Western world. When a cowboy tale slips off its rails, and the outlaws start to win, it’s up to Leah — and the Genrenauts team — to nudge the story back on track and prevent major ripples on Earth.

But the story’s hero isn’t interested in winning, and the safety of Earth hangs in the balance…

See the complete list of Tor.com novellas we’ve covered so far below.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 187 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 187 Now Available

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 187-smallIssue #187 of BCS has short fiction from Rich Larson and Jason S. Ridler, and an Audio Vault podcast (from issue #33) by Aliette de Bodard. It is cover-dated November 24.

“The Delusive Cartographer” by Rich Larson
Crane needed no further invitation. The pain in his back was forgotten now that he was finally here, finally close. He charted a foot over from the cell’s sliver window and down to the floor. He’d doubted, in the darkest hours of the night. He’d doubted the whole thing. But the groove was exactly where the cartographer had described it.

“Spider’s Ink” by Jason S. Ridler
To catch a bug, you must burn him out. That had been our experience with Macti spies and rebels. Under the authority of the Wayfaring House we came with black fire and warned all that if the Spider known as Heriz was not returned, we would decree the island corrupted and purify by shot and flame. It had worked in Jani, Uurun, and it would work here.

Audio Vault Podcast:
“In the Age of Iron and Ashes” by Aliette de Bodard

Rich Larson has been nominated for the Sturgeon Award, and his work has appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, and many other places. Jason S. Ridler has published over sixty stories in such magazines as The Big Click, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Out of the Gutter.

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Vintage Treasures: Jinian Star-Eye by Sheri S. Tepper

Vintage Treasures: Jinian Star-Eye by Sheri S. Tepper

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Jinian Star Eye Tepper-small

Jinian Star-Eye was the last volume of Sheri S. Tepper’s monumental nine-volume fantasy opus, The True Game. On course, in keeping with 1980s-era fantasy marketing, no mention was made of this anywhere on the book. However, if you were an attentive buyer, you might have noticed the poem on the back, a sure tip that this was part of the series. Poetry as a marketing device, to the best of my knowledge, was an idea that was born and died with this series.

We’ve covered several of the previous installments over the years, but not the entire series. It began with King’s Blood Four in 1983, Tepper’s first novel. Subsequent volumes were divided into a trio of trilogies, starting with the True Game trilogy:

King’s Blood Four (1983)
Necromancer Nine (1983)
Wizard’s Eleven (1984)

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