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Author: John ONeill

Grimdark Magazine 5 Now Available

Grimdark Magazine 5 Now Available

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GrimDark Magazine 5-smallGrimdark is a quarterly magazine of dark fantasy. Editor Adrian Collins summarizes the latest for us nicely in his Issue #5 Line Up post:

Grimdark Magazine issue #5 is chock full of grimdark goodness. We’ve pushed the genre boundaries of grimdark a bit more in this issue, with zombie apocalypses and cold-hearted near-future sci-fi to go with the three fantasy pieces, which include a Dominion of the Fallen short story by Aliette de Bodard.

The Line Up post even has a nifty teaser trailer. Check it out. In his review of the first few issues, Fletcher Vredenburgh seems to like what he sees:

From a swords & sorcery perspective, the biggest — and potentially most interesting — new publication out there is Grimdark Magazine… grimdark fantasy is nihlistic/realistic storytelling that moves the genre forward/destroys the genre, and features characters with realistic motives/who are utterly vile. Whether you like or hate the fiction coming out under the rubric, Grimdark Magazine, by its very nature, is going to feature S&S… At only $2.99 a pop, I’ll be keeping up with Grimdark Magazine…

The latest issue went on sale in October, and contains new fiction by Aliette de Bodard, Chadwick Ginther, Sean Patrick Hazlett, David Annandale, and T.C. Powell, as well as an excerpt from Victor Milan’s new novel The Dinosaur Lords, book reviews, interviews with James A. Moore and Peter Orullian, and an article titled ‘Who is the Grimdark Hero?’ by C.T. Phipps.

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New Treasures: Souldrifter by Garrett Calcaterra

New Treasures: Souldrifter by Garrett Calcaterra

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Souldrifter-small2Garrett Calcaterra’s most recent posts for us were “Fantasy Clichés Done Right and “Can SF Save the World From Climate Change?” In addition to investigative reporting, he also dabbles in writing fantasy novels. Dreamwielder, the opening novel in his Dreamwielder Chronicles, is a terrific sword & sorcery adventure, and has been widely acclaimed. James P. Blaylock called it “fast-paced, colorful, and richly detailed… My kind of book,” and Tim Powers proclaimed it a “good solid fantasy adventure.” Souldrifter, the long-anticipated second volume in the series, finally went on sale last month.

In the shadow of Emperor Guderian’s fallen empire, young Queen Makarria finds her throne ― and her life ― in grave danger. The Old World Republic has come, demanding that Queen Makarria bring order to the struggling Five Kingdoms by forming a new empire, one she would rule as the Old World’s puppet. When Makarria refuses them, the Old World threatens war and unleashes a nefarious spy to sow discord in her court. Before she knows it, Makarria’s budding romance with Prince Caile has been exploited by the spy, and Makarria finds herself embroiled in a complex game of power and lies in which she can trust no one.

Betrayed and lost, Makarria is forced to shed all pride and discover the true nature of her power as a dreamwielder in order to recreate herself and face the sprawling threat that is the Old World Empire.

Souldrifter was published by Diversion Publishing on September 29, 2015. It is 298 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $4.99 for the digital edition. Try a sample chapter right here at Black Gate.

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

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The Book AwardsJay Maynard’s “A Proposal: An Award for SF Storytelling” was the most popular post on Black Gate last month. It’s been read over 30,000 times since September 10th, and garnered nearly 500 comments. If there’s a topic BG readers really care about, it’s clearly SF awards.

The #2 post on the list was our look at the breakout success of Cixin Liu’s novel The Three-Body Problem, the first Chinese-language novel to win the Hugo Award. #3 was Guy Windsor’s very first contribution to Black Gate, “Tips on Writing a Great Swordfight from a Professional Swordsman.”

Rounding out the Top Five for September were Scott Taylor’s Art of the Genre Kickstarter essay, “Why I Hate Stretch Goals and You Should Too,” and Jay Maynard’s report on game designer Ken Burnside’s experience as a Sad Puppy at the Hugo Award ceremony, “Ken Burnside Tells the Hugo Story from the Inside.”

Our Top Ten posts last month also included articles by M. Harold Page (“Conan is My Spirit Guide”), Neil Clarke on “The Sad Truth About Short Fiction Reviews,” William I. Lengeman III defending Children of Dune, Sarah Avery’s “How One Award-Winning Author Thinks About Awards,” and a detailed look at the classic Durdane Trilogy by Jack Vance.

The complete list of Top Articles for September follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular blog categories for the month.

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Vintage Treasures: Special Wonder, Volumes 1 & 2, edited by J. Francis McComas

Vintage Treasures: Special Wonder, Volumes 1 & 2, edited by J. Francis McComas

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Special Wonder-small

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction was founded in 1949 by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, who believed science fiction and fantasy could aspire to a literary niche far above the level of the pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s. With F&SF they succeeded brilliantly, launching a magazine with a discerning adult readership that published some of the best fiction of the 20th Century — and is still published today.

Anthony Boucher remained editor of F&SF from Fall 1949 to August 1958. After his death in 1968, McComas assembled a tribute anthology called Special Wonder, collecting stories from 29 of the top writers in the field. It was published in hardcover in 1970 by Random House, and then reprinted in paperback in two volumes in January and February of 1971 by Beagle Books (above). Special Wonder contained reprints that were “to Tony’s taste,” most of which had been published in F&SF, and in aggregate they provided a splendid representative sample of the kind of writing that Boucher sought out, nurtured, and made a home for in the field.

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Future Treasures: Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume 2, edited by Kathy Koja and Michael Kelly

Future Treasures: Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume 2, edited by Kathy Koja and Michael Kelly

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Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume Two wrap-small

The first volume of Year’s Best Weird Fiction appeared last October, and was a complete success. Edited by Michael Kelly and guest editor Laird Barron, it gathered the very best weird fantasy of the year, from John R. Fultz, Jeffrey Ford, John Langan, Sofia Samatar, Simon Strantzas, Paul Tremblay, Jeff VanderMeer, and many others (see the complete TOC here.)

I’ve been highly anticipating the second volume, and I’m not the only one. The one is edited by Kelly and Kathe Koja, and the Table of Contents looks just as stellar. According to publisher Undertow Publications, it will be available November 1st. The cover art is by Tomasz Alen Kopera.

The cover price for the print edition is $18.99, but Undertow currently has a bundle special — get Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume 2 and their acclaimed annual anthology Shadows & Tall Trees 5 (regular price $14) for just $25 — including shipping, anywhere in the world. That’s a hard offer to refuse. Check out the details here.

Scrolls of Legendry #1 is Your Source for Old-School Fantasy Reviews

Scrolls of Legendry #1 is Your Source for Old-School Fantasy Reviews

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Scrolls of Legendry 1-smallD.M. Ritzlin, editor of Swords of Steel, is a man who knows sword & sorcery. His latest venture is an intriguing little magazine devoted to reviewing overlooked heroic fantasy, horror, and weird fantasy of all kinds. Here he is in the editorial for the first issue:

Scrolls of Legendry is for the overlooked and forgotten, whether they’re lost classics or things that would be better off undiscovered. We’re only going to review old, out of print books, with a few exceptions for reprints or other works of interest to us. Some of these titles probably haven’t been reviewed in decades… or in some cases, at all.

As you may have inferred from the title, the main focus in the pages of Scrolls of Legendry is fantasy (especially of the sword & sorcery variety), because that’s what we’re most passionate about. But we’ll also include related genres such as horror, historical adventures, and science fiction. If you’re a fan of the great authors of Weird Tales like Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith, Scrolls is for you.

In addition to reviews, each issue we’ll have a story or article. For our debut, Jeff Black presents us with “The Heaviest Sword.” It takes place in Japan, an underused setting for sword and sorcery.

The first issue proved to be surprisingly packed for such a slender little zine, crammed with articles on long out-of print texts by H. Bedford-Jones, John Christopher, Tanith Lee, Robert Lory, F. Van Wyck Mason, Thomas Burnett Swann, Karl Edward Wagner, and others.

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New Treasures: The Silent End by Samuel Sattin

New Treasures: The Silent End by Samuel Sattin

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The Silent End-small The Silent End-back-small

Samuel Sattin’s first novel, League of Somebodies, was labeled “One of the most important novels of 2013” by Pop Matters. His second novel, The Silent End, has been called “a young adult novel that’s right over the plate for pop culture fans” by Bleeding Cool. It’s not hard to see why. This is the kind of book that immediately snares your attention. Here’s the first sentence of the book description:

In a mist-covered town in the Pacific Northwest, three teenagers find themselves pitted against an unearthly menace that dwells beneath the foundations of their high school…

So far the reviews have been terrific. Here’s Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver and Big Machine:

Imagine if Halloween had been written by The Kids in The Hall instead of John Carpenter and you start to understand the wild, mesmerizing mash up that is The Silent End. Monsters and monstrous fathers, missing mothers and young love — somehow all of this and much more fits wonderfully into this book. It manages to be scary and sweet and very, very fine. Sam Sattin is a talent and this novel is a joy.

The Silent End was published by Ragnarok Publications on August 9, 2015. It 506 pages, priced at $20.95 in hardcover and $4.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by M.S. Corley. Read the first chapter at Comic Vine.

Vintage Treasures: Pamela Sargent’s Women of Wonder

Vintage Treasures: Pamela Sargent’s Women of Wonder

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Women of Wonder The Classic Years-small Women of Wonder The Contemporary Years-small

In 1973, author Pamela Sargent began to assemble stories for a groundbreaking anthology: Women of Wonder, collecting science fiction stories by women, about woman. It was the first anthology of its kind, and as you can probably imagine, Sergeant ran into some obstacles when she tried to sell it. Here’s Ms. Sargent:

For over two years, I tried to find a publisher for Women of Wonder, and the reactions of editors were instructive. A few editors thought the idea was wonderful but decided not to do the book anyway. Some editors found the book absurd, a couple doubted whether I could find enough good stories to fill the book, and one editor didn’t think there was a large enough audience for such an anthology.

But the audience was there, and so were the authors.

That’s taken from the introduction to the fourth volume in the series, Women of Wonder: The Classic Years, published by Harcourt Brace in 1995.

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Last Chance to Win a Copy of Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard

Last Chance to Win a Copy of Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard

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Carter & Lovecraft-smallLast week, we told you that you had a chance to win one of two pre-release copies of Jonathan L. Howard’s upcoming novel of Lovecraftian mystery, Carter & Lovecraft, on sale later this month from Thomas Dunne Books.

How do you enter? Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “Carter & Lovecraft” and a one-sentence suggestion for the ideal Lovecraft team-up — and what dark horrors your dream team should investigate. That’s it; that’s all that stands between you and a copy of one of the most anticipated fantasy novels of the year. Two winners will be drawn at random from all qualifying entries and we’ll announce the winners here on the Black Gate blog the week before the novel is released. What could possibly be easier? But time is running out — the contest closes shortly. Here’s the book blurb:

Daniel Carter used to be a homicide detective, but his last case — the hunt for a serial killer — went wrong in strange ways and soured the job for him. Now he’s a private investigator trying to live a quiet life. Strangeness, however, has not finished with him. First he inherits a bookstore in Providence from someone he’s never heard of, along with an indignant bookseller who doesn’t want a new boss. She’s Emily Lovecraft, the last known descendant of H.P. Lovecraft, the writer from Providence who told tales of the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods, creatures and entities beyond the understanding of man. Then people start dying in impossible ways, and while Carter doesn’t want to be involved, but he’s beginning to suspect that someone else wants him to be. As he reluctantly investigates, he discovers that Lovecraft’s tales were more than just fiction, and he must accept another unexpected, and far more unwanted inheritance.

No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Not valid where prohibited by law. Eat your vegetables. Carter & Lovecraft will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on October 20, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. See more details at Jonathan’s website.

Future Treasures: A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe

Future Treasures: A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe

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A Borrowed Man-smallA new novel by Gene Wolfe is always an event. He has been honored with virtually every award our field has to offer, including the Rhysling Award, BSFA Award, August Derleth Award, Campbell Award, two Nebula Awards, four World Fantasy awards, and six Locus Awards. He has received eighteen Nebula award nominations and eight Hugo Award nominations.

His latest, A Borrowed Man, is a new science fiction novel arriving in hardcover from Tor on October 20.

It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.

E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.

A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.

If I had a dime for every time someone said “And then the plot gets complicated” with regards to a Gene Wolfe novel, I’d have a supertanker full of dimes.

A Borrowed Man will be published by Tor Books on October 20, 2015. It is 304 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition. You can read an excerpt in the eBook edition of the latest issue of Lightspeed magazine.