Browsed by
Author: John ONeill

Shimmer 23 Now on Sale

Shimmer 23 Now on Sale

Comments 2 comments

Shimmer 23-smallI’m someone who believes that the core of the fantasy genre is still its short fiction magazines.

This used to be a lot more true, of course. When fantasy and science fiction were still fresh and new as distinct literary genres in the early 20th Century, the only place they regularly appeared was pulp magazines. For fantasy, that meant Weird Tales, the shot-lived Unknown, and later Famous Fantastic Mysteries and the like. Mass market paperback fantasy didn’t take shape until the 1950s, and didn’t really become popular until The Lord of the Rings appeared in paperback in the 60s. Nowadays when people think of fantasy, they tend to think of paperback bestsellers like George R.R. Martin, Stephen King, and Brandon Sanderson.

Where did all three of those writers get their start? In magazines, of course.

Magazines are where the next generation of breakout fantasy writers are already at work today. And if you’re interested in trying a magazine that has a fabulous rep for discovering and promoting stellar writers long before they’re well know — authors like Amal El-Mohtar, Genevieve Valentine, Lou Anders, Chris Roberson, Aliette de Bodard, and many others — then I highly recommend Shimmer.

Shimmer is published bi-monthly, and edited by E. Catherine Tobler. It’s available in both print and your choice of DRM-free electronic formats (indeed, a wide range of formats, not just PDF and Kindle.) It has shown a talent for rooting out great fiction across a wide range of fantasy and SF, and takes pride in publishing “Speculative fiction for a miscreant world.”

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Stomping Grounds, edited by Neil Baker

New Treasures: Stomping Grounds, edited by Neil Baker

Comments 1 comment

Stomping Grounds Apirl Moon Books-smallApril Moon Books is a new press, but they’re not acting like it.

They’ve produced two of the most innovative — and frankly, most fun — anthologies of the past year, The Dark Rites of Cthulhu and Amok! Editor Neil Baker explains the concept at the heart of their newest release in his introduction:

Just one look at the face of Calvin as he stamps through a sandbox city while Hobbes looks on aghast, or the sheer, unadulterated joy of Stitch as he trashes a carefully constructed city in Lilo’s bedroom, reveals the stark truth; it must be a hell of a lot of fun to reduce a city to rubble under your mighty, scaled feet.

Stomping Grounds is the second volume of Short Sharp Shocks, April Moon’s short fiction horror line. The third, Ill-considered Expeditions, featuring tales of exploration and derring-do gone horribly wrong, will be released in April.

Stomping Grounds includes 17 short stories celebrating the joy of rampaging giant monsters from CJ Henderson, Aaron Smith, Michael Thomas-Knight, D.G. Sutter, and many others.

Here’s the book description.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Horrors Unseen, edited by Sam Moskowitz

Vintage Treasures: Horrors Unseen, edited by Sam Moskowitz

Comments 3 comments

Horrors Unseen-smallAbout six months ago I bought a small collection of vintage horror paperbacks on eBay (see the whole set here). It was a delightful batch of books, mostly anthologies and short story collections from the 60s-70s, and I’ve been gradually working my way through it.

I previously covered Night Fear by Frank Belknap Long, Carl Jacobi’s Revelations in Black, and Anthony Boucher’s The Compleat Werewolf, from the same set.

Horror anthologies are still published today, of course, and we’ve covered several recent examples right here. But over the years the market has shrunk enough that they are nowadays exclusively published in hardcover, or (at best) trade paperback. The days of the cheap paperback horror anthology, when a wide range of titles crowded the shelves, are long over. I miss them.

Sam Moskowitz was a well-known editor with some 25 anthologies to his name, and Horrors Unseen was the last. It was the third in a loose series which started with Horrors Unknown (1971) and Horrors in Hiding (1973; edited with Alden H. Norton). Sam was a pulp enthusiast, and these books are crammed full of classic horror tales from the pulps — this one includes the first reprint of C. L. Moore’s “Daemon” from Famous Fantastic Mysteries, and other reprints from Imagination!, Colliers, and other places.

Horrors Unseen was edited by Sam Moskowitz and published in June 1974 by Berkley Medallion. It is 208 pages, originally priced at 75 cents. It has never been reprinted, and there is no digital edition, but it’s not a rare book and copies are available online for $2-3. The cover artist is not credited, but it sure looks like Vincent di Fate.

…

Read More Read More

C.C. Finlay Appointed Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

C.C. Finlay Appointed Editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Comments 0 Comment

Charles Coleman Finlay-smallC.C. Finlay has been named the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. He replaces Gordon van Gelder, who has been editor since 1997. C.C. Finlay was the guest editor of the July/August 2014 issue, which was well received, and had been expected to edit two additional issues in 2015. Several reviewers noted that he brought a high percentage of new names to the magazine.

He is the author of the Traitor to the Crown fantasy trilogy, published by Del Rey in 2009. Under the name Charles Coleman Finlay he has published some highly regarded short fiction, including the Hugo and Nebula Award nominees “The Political Prisoner” and “The Political Officer.” We published his story “The Nursemaid’s Suitor” in Black Gate 8. In 2003 he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He addresses the announcement on his blog:

As some of you may have guessed, my guest editing gigs at F&SF were a job audition. I guess I did okay…. Officially, I take over with the March/April issue this year… March/April is at the printers so that means I’m already working on May/June. I started reading submissions for the magazine on January 1. Originally, it was going to be just for a guest editor spot in September/October, but now it is for all future issues of the magazine. So that worked out well…

Current editor Gordon Van Gelder has an inventory of stories for the magazine. After the March/April issue, these will be mixed in with the stories that I select. It will probably take a few issues to make the transition, but it won’t be sudden. Readers will still see many of the familiar writers they love. And I expect there to be new voices as well.

Gordon Van Gelder will remain publisher. We covered the January/February issue of F&SF here.

George R.R. Martin’s The Winds of Winter Will Not Appear in 2015

George R.R. Martin’s The Winds of Winter Will Not Appear in 2015

Comments 2 comments

Martin The Winds of Winter-smallHopes that the sixth book in George R.R. Martin’s epic Song of Ice and Fire would arrive this year were dashed earlier this month, when Martin’s UK publisher Jane Johnson tweeted that the book was not on the 2015 schedule.

There was a flurry of speculation about the imminent release of The Winds of Winter late last year, triggered by a Twitter countdown from his publisher, but Martin put the rumors to rest on his blog, saying:

I don’t play games with news about the books. I know how many people are waiting, how long they have been waiting, how anxious they are. I am still working on Winds. When it’s done, I will announce it here.

It’s been almost four years since the release of the fifth volume, A Dance With Dragons; that book appeared six years after A Feast for Crows.

Given that two volumes remain in the series, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, and that Martin has said that he expects both to be big (1,500 manuscript pages each), fans are understandably nervous that the series may never be completed. More than a few recall the unexpected death of Robert Jordan, who left his 14-volume Wheel of Time series incomplete at the time of his death in 2007.

Altogether, it took Martin 11 years to produce the two most recent books. Martin is currently 66 years old; if he stays true to form, we can reasonably expect him to complete the series in 2022, at the age of 73. Jordan died at age 58.

For those who can’t wait, Martin offered an excerpt from The Winds of Winter on his blog two years ago; check it out here.

New Treasures: The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin

New Treasures: The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin

Comments 6 comments

The Inheritance Trilogy Jemisin-smallIt’s tough to come up with a title for a new fantasy trilogy these days. Titles are like web domains — all the good ones are taken, and most of the not-so-good ones, too. As Scott Adams had noted, if you want a completely original title (or web domain) nowadays, you’re stuck with a shrinking number of phrases that resemble monkey sounds.

Take “The Inheritance Trilogy.” The title has already been used a few times — mostly famously for the first three novels of Christopher Paolini’s best selling fantasy series, which began with Eragon. It’s also the name of an Ian Douglas military SF trilogy beginning with Star Strike, published from 2008-2009, as another example.

Well, we all know that good things come in threes. So I wasn’t all that surprised to see the omnibus volume of N.K. Jemisin’s first fantasy series published under the name The Inheritance Trilogy last month. If you can’t be original, go for something popular.

Titles aside, the omnibus volume of The Inheritance Trilogy is definitely a book you want on your shelf. Modern fantasy is a vibrant and exciting field, and talented new writers are emerging all the time, but precious few of them hold a candle to Jemisin. She is one of the most gifted fantasy writers I have come across in a very long time, and this new one-volume edition contains the complete text of her first three novels, in a single affordable (and massive) package.

The Inheritance Trilogy omnibus includes the novels The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, The Broken Kingdoms, and The Kingdom of Gods. As a special bonus, it also includes a brand new novella set in the same world, The Awakened Kingdom, which appears here for the first time.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: Courtney Crumrin Volume 7: Tales of a Warlock by Ted Naifeh

Future Treasures: Courtney Crumrin Volume 7: Tales of a Warlock by Ted Naifeh

Comments 2 comments

Courtney Crumrin Volume 7 Tales of a Warlock-smallNearly three years ago, I reviewed the first volume of the new hardcover editions of Courtney Crumrin, concluding that “Courtney Crumrin is one of the finest comics produced in the 21st Century.”

In his Black Gate blog post on Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, renamed Courtney Crumrin Volume One: The Night Things in its expanded hardcover edition, Michael Penkas did a far better job than I of describing the appeal of this brilliant comic:

Be honest. If you had magical powers when you were a teenager, what would you have done? How long would you have walked the path of righteousness before cursing the school bullies? Before casting a spell to make yourself popular? Before just flat-out killing bad people? Would you have made friends with elves… or goblins?

Ted Naifeh’s series of fantasy comics… introduces us to Courtney Crumrin on the day her vapid parents move in with her grand-uncle, Aloysius… Going through his collection of grimoires, she begins her own self-guided education in the magical arts. In the first volume, she traps a child-eating goblin, enchants herself to become the most popular girl in school, travels to the faerie kingdom to swap out a changeling for a human infant, and gets replaced by a doppelganger who turns out to be nicer than her.

Like Michael, I was thrilled to find the early black & white issues of Courtney Crumrin gradually being collected in handsome and affordable hardcover editions — and in color! I was purchasing them steadily, until I kinda lost track of them. (Cut me some slack… I collect a lot of stuff.) Shortly after Christmas, when I noticed that it was now 2015, I did a quick check to see how many volumes were out. I was startled to see that no less than six had already been released, and a seventh, Tales of a Warlock, was on its way.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The King’s Deryni by Katherine Kurtz

New Treasures: The King’s Deryni by Katherine Kurtz

Comments 2 comments

The King's Deryni-smallThe very first Deryni novel — and Katherine Kurtz’s first published novel — was Deryni Rising, which appeared as part of Lin Carter’s prestigious Ballantine Adult Fantasy line in 1970. Keith West has been gradually working his way through the entire BAF line, and I found what he said about Deryni Rising very compelling.

When Lin Carter started the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line, he began by reprinting works that were obscure and/or considered classic in the field at that time, but as he wrote in the introduction to Deryni Rising, he had hoped from the very beginning to be able to publish high quality new works as well. The first original fiction he published was Deryni Rising, the first novel by Katherine Kurtz.

I think he hit the ball out of the park when he selected this one.

Read Keith’s complete comments here.

Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels were some of the most popular fantasy novels of the 20th Century. Deryni Rising has been reprinted over 10 times, and more recent volumes in the series have hit the New York Times bestseller list. The series is still being published and now consists of five trilogies, a stand-alone novel, two collections of short stories, and a pair of reference books.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Second Ghost Book, edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith

Vintage Treasures: The Second Ghost Book, edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith

Comments 7 comments

Great Pan Second Ghost Book-smallI’ve done a fair job of collecting American horror and dark fantasy paperback anthologies over the years. I have by no means a complete collection (or anything close to a complete collection), but after nearly four decades of collecting I’ve seen almost all the really desirable stuff, and I’m intimately familiar with the market.

That’s not remotely true of British paperbacks. Take for example the highly regarded Pan Ghost Books. They were published between 1952 and 1980, and there are a lot of them. How many? I have no idea. A lot.

The first, originally titled The Ghost Book, was published in hardcover from Hutchinson in 1926, and didn’t appear in paperback until 1945. The Second Ghost Book had a hardcover edition in 1952 from James Barrie, and was reprinted in paperback by Pan (under the imprint Great Pan) in 1956. If things had continued at that pace, we wouldn’t have much of a series to talk about, but fortunately they picked up a bit, with the third appearing in hardcover in 1955.

The books were a mix of original fiction and reprints. All three of the first Pan Book of Ghost Stories were edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith, who was also a contributor (under the name Cynthia Asquith.) The fourth volume was edited by James Turner; altogether the series had half a dozen editors by the time it petered out in 1980.

My first encounter with the series was with The Bumper Book of Ghost Stories, a fat omnibus of two later volumes, which I found at the Windy City Pulp & Paper show last year. That was enough to set me on the trail of the earlier volumes. I recently stumbled across a copy of the The Second Ghost Book, and it’s got a stellar list of contributors, including V. S. Pritchett, Lord Dunsany, Elizabeth Bowen, L. P. Hartley, and many others. It’s also got a fabulous cover.

…

Read More Read More

The Tragic and Poignant Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist: A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread

The Tragic and Poignant Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist: A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread

Comments 0 Comment

A Night on the Moor-smallIt’s probably no surprise that I got a new volume in the Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural series for Christmas.

I’m not familiar with R. Murray Gilchrist, but that’s the beauty of this series — it’s introduced me to a wide range of excellent ghost story writers. Gilchrist wrote chiefly in the late 1800s and he produced a fine range of supernatural ghost stories, including horror, humor, mystery, and even tragic romance. A Night on the Moor is a slender volume (at just 190 pages, it’s considerably shorter than most of the recent Wordsworth edition we’ve covered), but I’m enjoying it so far.

Robert Murray Gilchrist (1868-1917) is perhaps best known for his interest in topography, and for his stories set in Derbyshire’s Peak District. But he was also a master of mystery and horror, as this richly varied collection shows.

If you are looking for a conventional horror story, in which the supernatural element is paramount, try “The Crimson Weaver,” “Dame Inowslad,” “Witch In-Grain,” or “A Night on the Moor.” If you are more taken with the psychology of the participants, often allied to a fascination with the killing of friends or lovers, then “Francis Shackerley,” “The Noble Courtesan,” “Althea Swathmore,” and “My Friend” will be right up your street. For humor we are offered the Peakland comedy of “The Panicle” or “A Witch in the Peak.” And when it comes to love, there are the tragic and poignant tales we might expect (“The Return,” “The Lost Mistress,” “The Madness of Betty Hooton”), but also the engaging and unusual “Bubble Magic” — a story of romantic betrayal which hints at a happy ending.

…

Read More Read More