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Author: John ONeill

Vintage Treasures: Through the Reality Warp by Donald J. Pfeil

Vintage Treasures: Through the Reality Warp by Donald J. Pfeil

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Through the Reality Warp-smallI have friends who wonder why I bother with old paperbacks. If there’s one thing tablets have made obsolete, it sure seems to be the need to collect books. Of course, I collect old paperbacks because I love them, not because it’s the only way to enjoy them. But in many cases, it really is the only way to get a copy of an old book. I type the words “There is no digital edition” at the bottom of at least a third of these Vintage Treasures posts (and about 15% of New Treasures, now that I think about it.)

The latest example is Donald J. Pfeil’s 1976 space adventure Through the Reality Warp. Pfeil is a minor SF writer with a brief career and only two other novels to his name, Voyage to a Forgotten Sun (1975) and Look Back to Earth (1977). Not one of his books was ever reprinted. If you have a Kindle or a Nook, Pfeil will remain ever a mystery. But copies of the Ballantine paperback start at $0.01 online — cheaper than that digital book you were going to order.

“You mean even if I succeed, it’s still a suicide mission?”

Latham Billiard stared at the four men standing before him… the four men who could not meet his eyes, the four men who were asking him to navigate a ship through a one-way black hole — into an alien universe — to destroy something totally unknown.

Billiard could not believe what he was hearing!

“If you don’t succeed,” the Guild General said, “It’s death for every living thing in our universe.”

What could a soft-hearted, thick skinned, cracker-jack mercenary like Billiard say? After all , it wasn’t every day a man was asked to save a universe he would never see again…

An Exciting Space Adventure

Through the Reality Warp was published by Ballantine Books in February 1976. It is 164 pages, priced at $1.50 in paperback. The cover is by Boris Vallejo. It has never been reprinted, and there is no digital edition.

Future Treasures: Time Salvager by Wesley Chu

Future Treasures: Time Salvager by Wesley Chu

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Time Salvager-smallI first met Wesley Chu at the 2013 launch party for Mary Robinette Kowal’s Without a Summer here in Chicago. His first novel, The Lives of Tao, was about to be released by Angry Robot, and it was a thrill to meet another local author just beginning to get his career underway.

Well, that didn’t last long. Fast forward two years, and Wesley Chu is one of the hottest writers in the business. His second novel, The Deaths of Tao, appeared in October 2013, and in April he received a nomination for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Before most of us could even say “Congratulations!” however, Wesley announced that his third and fourth novels, The Rebirths of Tao and Time Salvager, would both be released this year. And on June 3, Wesley posted a brief announcement on Facebook pointing to this post at Tor.com, which began:

Michael Bay to Adapt Wesley Chu’s Time Salvager

Ahead of its publication in July, Wesley Chu’s Time Salvager has already been optioned for a movie! According to Publishers Weekly, Paramount Pictures acquired the rights for a feature film franchise, with Michael Bay attached to direct and Chu set to executive produce.

Four novels, a major award nomination, a movie deal, and more. If you haven’t already heard of Wesley Chu, I suggest that now is the time to sit up and take notice.

Time Salvager is a great place to start. It’s a fast-paced time travel adventure featuring what Wesley describes as “an energy stealing time traveler with addiction issues.” After the announcement, Tor quickly shipped a small number of advance copies to the Nebula weekend here in Chicago in early June, and I was lucky enough to grab one. It opens with a tense scene on the bridge of a starship on the verge of destruction, and things accelerate quickly from there.

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New Treasures: Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson, edited by Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois

New Treasures: Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson, edited by Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois

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Multiverse Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson-smallPoul Anderson was one of the greats of 20th Century science fiction and fantasy. He was astoundingly prolific, writing over 70 novels and numerous short stories before his death in 2001. He won virtually every award the field has to offer, including seven Hugos and three Nebulas, and the ambitious project to collect his short fiction, The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson from NESFA Press, stands at six thick volumes and counting.

Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson is a tribute anthology edited by Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois that collects all-original fiction from Larry Niven, C. J. Cherryh, Stephen Baxter, Robert Silverberg, David Brin, Harry Turtledove, Terry Brooks, Gregory Benford, Tad Williams, Nancy Kress, and many others. It also contains articles and reminiscences of Anderson by most of the authors involved, plus Jerry Pournelle, Poul Anderson’s wife Karen, his daughter Astrid, and his son-in-law, novelist and co-editor Greg Bear.

For Poul Anderson fans, and for those being introduced to him for the first time, this is a truly invaluable anthology featuring some of the brightest names in the field. Here’s the complete table of contents.

Introduction: My Friend Poul, by Greg Bear
“Outmoded Things” by Nancy Kress
“The Man Who Came Late” by Harry Turtledove
“A Slip in Time” by S. M. Stirling
Living and Working with Poul Anderson, by Karen Anderson

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Black Static #46 Now on Sale

Black Static #46 Now on Sale

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Black Static 46-smallThe Barnes & Noble near my house doesn’t carry Black Static magazine. The one near my old job did, but I don’t work there any more. I’m going to have to find another source for it here in Chicago. It may mean driving a few miles, but it’s definitely worth it.

Issue #46 is cover-dated May/June, and contains six stories:

“So Many Heartbeats, So Many Words” by Steven J. Dines
“The Secret Language of Stamps” by Neil Williamson
“Falling Under, Through the Dark” by Damien Angelica Walters
“My Boy Builds Coffins” by Gary McMahon
“Magnifying Glass” by Sarah Read
“Men Wearing Makeup” by Ralph Robert Moore

The magazine’s regular columns include Coffinmaker’s Blues by Stephen Volk and Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker (comment). Rucker’s column this month is titled “Reviews, What Are They Good For?”, and the website offers this snippet.

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Vintage Treasures: Secret of the Lost Race by Andre Norton / One Against Herculum by Jerry Sohl

Vintage Treasures: Secret of the Lost Race by Andre Norton / One Against Herculum by Jerry Sohl

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Secret of the Lost Race Andre Norton-small One Against Herculum-small

Time to get back to some Ace Doubles.

I’ve covered 20 in the series so far, which, as die-hard collectors will know, is only scratching the surface of this marvelous series. As long as we’re returning to our survey after a lengthy hiatus, we might as well return in style. And that means Andre Norton.

So today we’ll look at Secret of the Lost Race, one of her classic novels of space adventure, paired with an early novel by future Star Trek writer Jerry Sohl, One Against Herculum. It was published as Ace Double #D-381 in 1959. Both short novels were original publications.

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Future Treasures: The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

Future Treasures: The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

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The Fifth Season Jemisin-smallIn 2010 I attended a reading at Wiscon, Madison’s premiere SF convention. One of the readers was a relative unknown named N.K. Jemisin, whose first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, was still five months from release. There were many talented readers in the room, but the moment Jemisin began reading it became apparent that she was something very special. Her voice was sure, her prose sparkled, and the story grabbed your attention instantly. I enjoy a lot of things about this hobby, but there’s nothing else quite like stumbling upon a stellar new talent.

If you were one of the early readers of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, you probably have an idea how it felt to be sitting in that room in Madison. In the last five years Jemisin has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, Crawford, and Gemmell awards — she’s no longer a “new” talent, and expectations for her latest book run very high indeed. But if you still enjoy the thrill of the new, you can get in on the ground floor of a brand new fantasy series from N.K. Jemisin when Orbit releases The Fifth Season, the first volume of The Broken Earth, in early August.

This is the Way the World Ends. For the Last Time.

A season of endings has begun.

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.

It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.

It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

The Fifth Season will be published by Orbit on August 4, 2015. It is 512 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.

New Treasures: Legends of the Duskwalker by Jay Posey

New Treasures: Legends of the Duskwalker by Jay Posey

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Legends of the Duskwalker Three-small Legends of the Duskwalker Morningside Fall-small Legends of the Duskwalker Dawnbreaker-small

Jay Posey’s writing career is rich and varied, and he’s had more success than the vast majority of writers of his generation… but that doesn’t mean you’re likely to have heard of him. That’s because Posey is primarily a videogame writer. As the Senior Narrative Designer at Red Storm Entertainment, he’s spent over eight years writing for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six franchises, and his stories have been enjoyed by millions of fans around the world.

For his first novel Three, the opening book in the Legends of the Duskwalker series, Posey tried his hand at a futuristic weird western, and succeeded in reaching a brand new audience. Set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the series features augmented humans, advanced weaponry, cyborgs, and dangerous creatures known as the Weir.

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Apex Magazine #73 Now on Sale

Apex Magazine #73 Now on Sale

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Apex Magazine Issue 73-smallEditor Jason Sizemore offers this intriguing summary of the short fiction in Apex this month, in his editorial:

The three original works we have for you this month all address a similar subject in three different ways: interconnectivity and privacy… In Alex Livingston’s “Proximity,” in what I would call a ‘data caper’ in the mold of Ocean’s Eleven, we follow a group of metadata thieves as they face a life or death situation in a major information heist. Mari Ness explores the danger of becoming so reliant on an ‘internet of things’ that we lose control of our lives. Finally, DJ Cockburn writes a cautionary tale of the dangers of living in a world of heightened technology where our body is currency and our information is readily accessible to the clever. After reading these three works, I think I should make room for all of us in the official Apex Publications off-the-grid bunker.

The June issue of Apex contains three pieces of original fiction and a reprint by Malon Edwards — plus poetry, an article on “Building Book Events to Build Community in SFF” by Tor Associate Publicist Ardi Alspach, two novel excerpts (Flex by Ferrett Steinmetz, and The Venusian Gambit, Book Three of the Daedalus series by Michael J. Martinez), Charlotte Ashley’s short fiction reviews, a podcast, and much more.

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Vintage Treasures: The Dream Lords by Adrian Cole

Vintage Treasures: The Dream Lords by Adrian Cole

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The Dream Lords 1 A Plague of Nightmares-small The Dream Lords 2 Lord of Nightmares-small The Dream Lords 3 Bane of Nightmares-small

I don’t often hear of fantasy described as “In the tradition of Tolkien and Lovecraft!” Just seems like an odd mix to me. But that’s exactly how Adrian Cole’s first three novels, collectively known as The Dream Lords trilogy, are described.

Cole is a British writer also known for his four-volume Omaran Saga, and his more recent trilogy The Voidal, which Fletcher Vredenburgh called “an endless collection of interesting settings: universe-sized dimensions; monster-infested pocket worlds; a realm filled not with planets but islands that float in space.” But I was first introduced to him with The Dream Lords, which he reportedly wrote after reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings while working in a library in the mid-seventies.

Interestingly, this series has no second volume. It has a first volume, A Plague of Nightmares, and two third volumes, Lord of Nightmares and Bane of Nightmares, but no second volume. That’s cool.

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The Omnibus Volumes of Steven Brust: The Adventures of Vlad Taltos

The Omnibus Volumes of Steven Brust: The Adventures of Vlad Taltos

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The Book of Jhereg-small The Book of Taltos-small The Book of Athyra-small


The omnibus editions of The Adventures of Vlad Taltos from Ace Books, collecting
the first seven volumes: The Book of Jhereg (1999), The Book of Taltos (2002), and
The Book of Athyra (2003). Covers by Stephen Hickamn, Kinuko Y. Craft, Ciruelo Cabral

Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels are unique in modern fantasy. They’re caper novels in which a supremely gifted assassin, Vlad Taltos, teams up with a group of like-minded companions (including pickpockets and vampires) to right wrongs, alter the course of destiny, and sometimes make a little coin. The odds are always against them, and things don’t always go their way, but Vlad, our protagonist and narrator, has a wry and self-deprecating sense of humor that makes the books highly entertaining. There are plenty of great reviews out there I could point you to, but one of my favorites is this concise one-paragraph bit from Amazon reviewer Wizard’s Apprentice:

Vlad is a human in a city dominated by eight-foot Dragaerans, who never have to shave and live to be a thousand. It’s their turf, and their rules, and they routinely conquer and abuse “Easterners” like Vlad. He’s not the type to take this, so he becomes a “Jhereg” assassin, working up the ranks of a criminal syndicate until he comes to boss dozens of Dragaerans around, befriending some and terrorizing others. He adopts a new-hatched mini-dragon or jhereg, finding that the cat-sized beast has a humanlike intelligence and a nasty sense of humor, and wins a grudging respect from the dominant species. All his friends are 900 years old, or undead vampires, or legendary thieves; but don’t hold it against them. Vlad solves mysteries and evades death, and cooks fiery fungus-laced omelets, in a bizarre semi-alien milieu. He finds love. He sharpens knives. He gloomily bandages his jhereg bites. He’d be right at home in a Zelazny novel, which is reason enough to buy this or any other Brust book.

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