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Sample All Ten of Tor.com‘s Upcoming Novellas With Their Fall 2015 Sampler

Sample All Ten of Tor.com‘s Upcoming Novellas With Their Fall 2015 Sampler

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Tor 2015 Fall SamplerI’m very excited to see that Tor.com has made an impressive commitment to a distinctive new line of premium novellas coming out this fall. It’s not just that I love novellas — these books really look terrific.

These are short novels, ranging in size from 96 to 224 pages, and all are available in trade paperback for around $12.99, or in digital format for just $2.99 each. The line includes a great mix of established authors — including folks we’ve discussed enthusiastically here at Black Gate, like Daniel Polansky (Low Town), Michael R. Underwood (Shield and Crocus), Paul Cornell (London Falling), and Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death) — and some exciting new discoveries. Tor.com has just released a free sample of all ten books in their Fall 2015 Sampler. It’s available now through multiple outlets. Check it out!

You can now download a free ebook sampler that will give you an exclusive sneak peek at all ten of our Fall novellas. Featuring authors such as Kai Ashante Wilson, Nnedi Okorafor, K. J. Parker, Daniel Polansky, and many more, this sampler contains exciting new fantasy worlds, harrowing science fiction adventures, stolen memories, edible angels, and talking salamanders. Download the sampler now from Amazon or iBooks. (A Barnes & Noble link will be available soon!)

We’ve previously covered two upcoming titles in the Tor.com fall catalog, Alter S. Reiss’s Sunset Mantle and Kai Ashante Wilson’s The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, and we’ll be covering more in the coming weeks. All ten will be available globally in ebook for $2.99 US/CAN, trade paperback, and audio format. See the complete catalog of upcoming novellas at Tor.com.

New Treasures: Professor Challenger: New Worlds, Lost Places, edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec

New Treasures: Professor Challenger: New Worlds, Lost Places, edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec

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Professor Challenger New Worlds, Lost Places-smallProfessor Challenger is one of the great explorer-heroes of the genre. Created by Arthur Conan Doyle in his 1912 novel The Lost World, Challenger also appeared in The Poison Belt and The Land of Mist, and a pair of short stories. Now editors J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec have assembled a brand new collection of exciting tales featuring the irrepressible Professor Challenger, with contributions from Mark Morris, Stephen Volk, Guy Adams and James Goss, Black Gate blogger Josh Reynolds, and many others.

Brilliant, belligerent and bearded in equal measure, incapable of suffering fools, or journalists, gladly, the greatest scientific mind of his generation — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor George Edward Challenger — returns in ten all-new tales of scientific adventure and wonder. He is the discoverer of The Lost World, the prophet of The Poison Belt, the destroyer of The Disintegration Machine, and the man who made the World Scream! Who can deliver mankind from the shackles of ignorance? Who else but that great self-proclaimed champion of science? We give you, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, the one, the only, Professor George Edward Challenger!

This original anthology, from the authors and editors who brought you the Gaslight Sherlock Holmes series, sees Challenger and his stalwart company including the reporter Malone, big game hunter Lord John Roxton and the skeptical colleague Professor Summerlee, travel across space and witness the ravages of time, narrowly eluding a dinosaur’s bite only to battle against the invasive red bloom of alien foliage, then plunge deep into the mysteries hidden within the Earth and reach out to the moon and into the heart of the unknown. Strap yourself in for chills, thrills and challenges to the unknown in exciting new worlds and lost places with literature’s foremost scientific adventurer.

Professor Challenger: New Worlds, Lost Places was edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec and published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing on August 15, 2015. It is 250 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback, and $5.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Dave Elsey.

538 Blog Reports Crowdfunding Is Driving A $196 Million Board Game Renaissance

538 Blog Reports Crowdfunding Is Driving A $196 Million Board Game Renaissance

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Exploding Kittens-smallNate Silver’s popular 538 blog, known mostly for astute political analysis, often takes a hard look at other industries, and yesterday Oliver Roeder examined the recent explosive growth in crowdfunding for board games. His examples include Conan (which we covered here,) Reaper Miniatures, Dwarven Forge, and the break-out hit Exploding Kittens, which exceeded its campaign goal in eight minutes and set a record for most backers in Kickstarter history, raising $8,782,571 from 219,382 backers.

Luke Crane is Kickstarter’s in-house board game expert and resident dungeon master. He sees Kickstarter as the latest in a series of board and card gaming milestones. Dungeons & Dragons, first published in 1974, crystallized role-play gaming. Magic: The Gathering, which debuted in 1993 and became a smash hit, spawned countless expansions and still boasts a competitive professional circuit. The Settlers of Catan, and its first English-language edition in 1996, gave many their first taste of German board gaming kultur. That game has sold over 15 million copies.

And then, in mid-2009, Kickstarter launched.

Since that debut, pledges to board and card game projects on the site have totaled $196 million, according to the company. Ninety-three percent of that money went to successful projects — those that reached their fundraising goal. For comparison, pledges to video game projects, including hardware and mobile games, have totaled $179 million. Of that, 85 percent went to ultimately successful projects. On Kickstarter, analog is beating digital.

Read the complete article here.

Future Treasures: Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss

Future Treasures: Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss

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Sunset Mantle-smallI’ve really been impressed with what I’ve seen of Tor.com’s new line of novellas. There are ten on the schedule, from a diverse range of exciting authors — including Nnedi Okorafor, K. J. Parker, Daniel Polansky, and Michael R. Underwood — and they look terrific.

The first to go on sale will be Kai Ashante Wilson’s debut, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, and Tor.com will publish roughly one a week through most of the fall. September 15th sees Alter S. Reiss’ Sunset Mantle, the tale of an exiled warrior, and a doomed settlement called the Reach Antach…

With a single blow, Cete won both honor and exile from his last commander. Since then he has wandered, looking for a place to call home. The distant holdings of the Reach Antach offer shelter, but that promise has a price.

The Reach Antach is doomed.

Barbarians, traitors, and scheming investors conspire to destroy the burgeoning settlement. A wise man would move on, but Cete has found reason to stay. A blind weaver-woman and the beautiful sunset mantle lure the warrior to wager everything he has left on one final chance to turn back the hungry tides of war.

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Science Fiction Classics #10 Now on Sale

Science Fiction Classics #10 Now on Sale

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Science Fiction Classics 10-smallIf you’re a pulp fan like me, you’re always interested in high quality facsimile reproductions of pulp magazines, especially ones available at reasonable prices. So I was delighted to discover Science Fiction Classics, a magazine that reproduces a complete pulp magazine with every issue. They’ve published ten issues, focusing (so far) exclusively on that grand old lady of the pulps, Amazing Stories.

The most recent issue, Science Fiction Classics #10, reproduces one of the rarest early pulps, and certainly the rarest issue of Amazing — the very first Amazing Stories Annual, from 1927. It includes the complete Barsoom novel The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and a short story by A. Hyatt Verrill, as well as five reprints — two classics from A. Merritt, including the long novella “The Face in the Abyss” and “The People of the Pit,” and tales by Austin Hall, Jacque Morgan, and H. G. Wells. It also contains interior artwork by Frank R. Paul, Gambee, and others. The complete contents are:

Preface by Hugo Gernsback
The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“The Face in the Abyss” by A. Merritt (1923)
“The Man Who Saved the Earth” by Austin Hall (1919)
“The People of the Pit” by A. Merritt (1918)
“The Man Who Could Vanish” by A. Hyatt Verrill
“The Feline Light & Power Company Is Organized” by Jacque Morgan (1912)
“Under the Knife” by H. G. Wells (1896)

Science Fiction Classics is published by Pulp Tales Press. Issues are print on demand, and available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Lulu, and other places. Issue #10 was published on June 3, 2015; it is 132 pages, priced at $12.95. The cover is by Frank R. Paul. Order right at the Pulp Tales Press website.

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

Conquer a Dark and Dangerous Galaxy in Warhammer 40K: Forbidden Stars

Conquer a Dark and Dangerous Galaxy in Warhammer 40K: Forbidden Stars

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Forbidden Stars-small Last year I bought Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, Fantasy Flight’s two-player card game of interplanetary warfare in the Warhammer 40K universe, and enjoyed it quite a bit. But as much fun as it was, it wasn’t what I really wanted — a multi-player game of large scale strategic conflict in the stars.

So I was excited to discover today that Fantasy Flight has recently released Forbidden Stars, a competitive board game of interplanetary war set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and it looks to be exactly what I was hoping for. The base set features four iconic 40K factions: the loyalit Ultramarines Space Marines, Craft world Iyanden Elder, Evil Sunz Orks, and World Eaters Chaos Space Marines. Each faction has its own range of units and unique combat, event, and upgrade cards.

While I miss some of the other colorful factions in the 40K universe — such as Tyranids, Dark Eldar, and Tau — doubtless they will be included in later expansions.

The game uses the familiar moveable tile system, to give every conflict a unique scope and landscape (see the pic of the board below). The huge box comes packed with over 140 sculpted plastic pieces — always one of the delights of a Fantasy Flight game — and custom dice.

There was some concern in certain quarters that, following their acquisition by Asmodee last November, Fantasy Flight would lose some of its creative spark. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the case.

Fantasy Flight first dabbled with the Warhammer 40K license with a line of excellent role playing games, including Dark Heresy, Only War, and the superb Rogue Trader, one of the best space RPGs I’ve ever played. They have stopped producing supplements for the RPGs (and cleared out much of their back stock with a huge sale late last year), and have now turned their energies to board games. This is the third Warhammer 40K board game to be released by Fantasy Flight (the first two were Relic and Conquest), and this one seems by far the most ambitious.

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New Treasures: Flesh Like Smoke, edited by Brian M. Sammons

New Treasures: Flesh Like Smoke, edited by Brian M. Sammons

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Flesh Like Smoke-smallNew publisher April Moon Books has had a busy year. They’ve produced a number of highly acclaimed anthologies, including The Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Amok!, and the monster anthology Stomping Grounds, as well as Rich Hawkins’ short novel Black Star Black Sun.

Flesh Like Smoke, a collection of shape-shifting tales by Tim Waggoner, Darrell Schweitzer, Cody Goodfellow, William Meikle, and others, is their second partnership with editor Brian M. Sammons, and it looks like another fine volume for horror fans of all stripes.

Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Moon Beasts, Lycanthropes….

Whatever you choose to call them, they are the last thing you want to encounter in a darkened alley, or in a jungle, or in your bathroom.

In Brian M. Sammon’s follow-up anthology to the critically acclaimed ‘The Dark Rites of Cthulhu’, sixteen contemporary masters of the macabre weave their fevered visions into tales that turn the werewolf trope on its head. True, there are a handful of traditional lupine monsters within the pages, but these creatures rub hairy shoulders with bizarre chimeras, cyberpunk beasts and scaly demons.

Flesh Like Smoke will transport you from our distant past to our distant future with more familiar locales dotted along the way, locales drenched in blood and echoing with screams.

Flesh Like Smoke was published by April Moon Books on July 1, 2015. It is 252 pages, priced at $18.99 in trade paperback and $3.49 for the digital edition. The cover and interior illustrations are by Neil Baker. Learn more at the website.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Future Treasures: Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea

Future Treasures: Koko the Mighty by Kieran Shea

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Koko the Mighty-smallThe first Koko novel, Koko Takes a Holiday, set in a war torn future 500 years from now, flew under the radar for me. That was probably a mistake. Sandman Slim author Richard Kadrey called it “a vivid and brutal old school (in the best sense) cyberpunk headkick,” and Publishers Weekly said its “sheer velocity keeps the story rattling along like a big geeky pinball machine.”

A review copy of the sequel, Koko the Mighty, arrived last week, and this looks like a perfect time to jump on board. The book will be released in trade paperback by Titan at the end of August. Check it out.

With an outstanding Ultimate Sanction bounty still on her head, Koko Martstellar (ex-mercenary and saloon madam extraordinaire) and Jedidiah Flynn (former orbital sky-cop) have narrowly escaped death in paradise. Rescued during a storm, Koko and Flynn are taken in by what amounts to a self-sufficient outlander cult. To save Flynn’s life, Koko barters her warrior skills and assists the de-civ group in fending off their most imminent threat: a horde of genetic-mutant raiders. However, even with the group’s foes bested and their idealist lifestyle somewhat enticing, being among the outlander de-civs doesn’t sit well with Koko. In spite of the de-civ group’s hospitality and Flynn’s arguing that they have it pretty good, Koko suspects something is amiss. People within the outlander group’s interlocking compounds keep disappearing with flimsy explanations — people like the girl who died on the cliff before Koko and Flynn’s rescue — and soon the group’s leadership assesses Koko as a threat to their secret agenda. As the mystery unfolds, Koko’s limits and loyalties — perhaps even her love for Flynn — will be tested.

And as if that isn’t enough, bounty agent Wire has managed to track down Koko and, after a little politicking, is preparing to lead an army of genetic-mutant raiders in a last-man-standing battle against the cult…

Koko the Mighty will be published by Titan Books on August 25, 2015. It is 327 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition.

The Dark Issue 9 Now on Sale

The Dark Issue 9 Now on Sale

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The Dark Issue 9-smalThe Dark is a quarterly magazine co-edited by Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace. The ninth issue features four all-original short stories:

“Hani’s: Purveyor of Rusks, Biscuits, and Sweet Tea” by Sara Saab
“A House of Anxious Spiders” by Jy Yang
“The Old Man in the Kitchen” by Patricia Russo
“Mother of Giants” by Kristy Logan

You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by subscribing to the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets. A one-year sub (six issues) is just $15 – subscribe today.

If you enjoy the magazine you can also support it by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments. Read issue 9 here, and see their complete back issue catalog here.

The issue is cover dated August 2015. We last covered The Dark with Issue 8.

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

New Statesmen on the “Shockingly Offensive” 100 Best Fantasy and SF Novels

New Statesmen on the “Shockingly Offensive” 100 Best Fantasy and SF Novels

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A Spell for Chameleon-smallLiz Lutgendorff at New Statesmen read all 100 books on NPR’s list of the best science fiction and fantasy novels — a list that includes virtually every major title the genre has yet produced. And her response mirrors a complaint I hear over and over from young fantasy readers, and especially women — the classics of our genre have very little to offer readers seeking interesting and strong women characters.

There were also books that were outright misogynistic, like a A Spell for Chameleon where characters openly talk about not trusting women… The main plot of A Spell for Chameleon is that the main character, stupidly named Bink, has no magical talent…. Along the way, he meets Chameleon, who has the unenviable magic of being smart but ugly in one phase of the moon and beautiful but stupid in another. This inevitably leads to Bink liking her… Apparently for Bink, having someone compliant was more valuable than intelligence or independence, making Bink an utter creep…

Frankly, from my vantage in 2015, it was just plain weird to read books where there were hardly any women, no people of colour, no LGBT people. It seemed wholly unbelievable. I know what you could say: it’s science fiction and fantasy, believability isn’t one of the main criteria for such books. But it is relatively absurd that in the future people could discover faster-than-light travel, build massive empires and create artificial intelligences but somehow not crack gender equality or the space-faring glass ceiling.

The consequence of the lack of women and the obvious sexism is that the books became very much like one another. My book reviews contained more profanity and I became a much more harsh critic of the genres I most enjoyed reading. They were all the same story of white guys, going on an adventure.

I’m sure Ms. Lutgendorff’s comments will be hotly debated, but I think it’s foolish to ignore her gut reaction. Like it or not, the classics of an older generation are giving way to new novels, as they should. That’s what happens in a living genre. Read the complete article here.