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Author: John ONeill

Vintage Treasures: Stephen E. Fabian’s Ladies & Legends

Vintage Treasures: Stephen E. Fabian’s Ladies & Legends

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Stephen Fabian Ladies and Legends-thumbI brought home two boxes of treasures from the 2014 Windy City Pulp & Paper show in April. I’ve been very happy with my various finds, which included a rich assortment of eye-catching pulps, vintage paperbacks, classic anthologies, and hard-to-find fanzines and magazines. I’ve covered some of the more interesting items here in the past few months.

But I’ve saved the best for the last: a luscious collection of black and white artwork from one of my all-time favorite artists, Stephen E. Fabian.

A few years ago, Scott Taylor asked me to provide my list of nominees for his Top 10 Fantasy Artists of the Past 100 Years and I had Fabian right near the top, along with Wally Wood and Al Williamson. (None of those three made the list. Go figure.)

Stephen Fabian is one of the great craftsmen in all of fantasy. It’s not merely his command of the medium and his consummate technical skill… his art is genuinely beautiful (a characteristic I frequently find lacking with some of his contemporaries). Fabian has an unerring eye for composition, perfectly positioning his knights, mermaids, and grave robbers among moonlit ruins, floating fairy castles, and more imaginative settings.

He’s equally at home with humor, action, and horror, and all are on display in Stephen E. Fabian’s Ladies & Legends. He’s frequently at his best with pen and ink drawings, as he is here. This is a gorgeous book and, like the best fantasy artwork, it will set your imagination soaring.

Warning — some adult content ahead.

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Robed Figures and Snake-headed Staves: Lawrence Schick on Napoleon’s Pyramids

Robed Figures and Snake-headed Staves: Lawrence Schick on Napoleon’s Pyramids

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Napoleon's Pyramids-smallOver on his blog Of Swords and Plumes, Lawrence Schick takes a look at the Ethan Gage Adventures, a promising new historical action series from William Dietrich.

The series is set in the Napoleonic era, and is clearly modeled, at least in part, on George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels. Like Flashman, the hero is a self-described amoral rogue who gets drawn into every major fracas of his time. But Dietrich’s books are no mere homage to Fraser, as they have their own distinctive tone; Dietrich is pulpier than Fraser, and has fewer qualms about embroidering on history in the pursuit of outlandish action scenes or occult overtones.

Dietrich’s hero, Ethan Gage, is an American frontiersman, a gambler and opportunist who finds himself in Europe after attaching himself to Ben Franklin during his term as Ambassador to France. After Franklin’s return to the States Gage hangs on in Paris, playing the “Franklin’s man” card in the salons of the Revolutionary elite, charming the ladies with his tales of the American savages and doing parlor tricks with that new scientific toy, electricity.

In classic pulp fashion, Gage wins a mysterious Egyptian amulet in a game of cards, refuses to sell it to an ominous foreigner, and is soon being pursued through the Parisian night by mysterious robed figures led by a man with a snake-headed staff. That pretty much roped me in right there: equip your villain with a snake-headed staff, and I’m sold.

Lawrence’s most recent article for us was Compiling The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, on his upcoming anthology from Pegasus Books. Read his complete review of Napoleon’s Pyramids here.

Napoleon’s Pyramids was published in paperback by Harper on April 24, 2012. It is 400 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback, and just $1.99 for the digital version. The sequel is The Rosetta Key and the most recent volume, The Three Emperors, brings the series to seven volumes.

Future Treasures: Stories of the Raksura by Martha Wells

Future Treasures: Stories of the Raksura by Martha Wells

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Stories of the Raksura-smallMartha Wells’s Books of the Raksura trilogy — The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, and The Siren Depths — have captivated readers around the world. In Stories of the Raksura: Volume One: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud, she returns to the world of Raksura with a pair of exciting novellas.

In “The Falling World,” Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud Court, has traveled with Chime and Balm to another Raksuran court. When she fails to return, her consort, Moon, along with Stone and a party of warriors and hunters, must track them down. Finding them turns out to be the easy part; freeing them from an ancient trap hidden in the depths of the Reaches is much more difficult.

“The Tale of Indigo and Cloud” explores the history of the Indigo Cloud Court, long before Moon was born. In the distant past, Indigo stole Cloud from Emerald Twilight. But in doing so, the reigning Queen Cerise and Indigo are now poised for a conflict that could spark war throughout all the courts of the Reaches.

Stories of Moon and the shape changers of Raksura have delighted readers for years. This world is a dangerous place full of strange mysteries, where the future can never be taken for granted and must always be fought for with wits and ingenuity, and often tooth and claw. With two brand-new novellas, Martha Wells shows that the world of the Raksura has many more stories to tell…

Read Martha’s complete Nebula-Award nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer right here at Black Gate, and her article on the Raksura series, How Well Does The Cloud Roads Fit as Sword and Sorcery?  Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two will contain two more novellas; it is not yet scheduled.

Stories of the Raksura will be published by Night Shade Books on September 2, 2014. It is 240 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and digital format.

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in May

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in May

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The Alchemist's Revenge-smallThe most-read piece of fiction on the Black Gate blog last month was our exclusive excerpt from The Alchemist’s Revenge by Peter Cakebread, the first novel from the co-author of the role playing games Airship Pirates and Clockwork & Chivalry. The first volume in the Companie of Reluctant Heroes takes place in a 17th century that didn’t quite happen, in a nation torn apart by civil war.

When an embittered mercenary agrees to escort a grieving widow to visit her husband’s grave, little does he realize the dangers they will face. This is the story of their struggle through a country divided. As they journey through tainted lands, ravaged by alchemical magic and giant clockwork war machines, they are reunited with old friends and stalked by sinister foes. The reluctant heroes band together in this tale of loss and despair, of redemption and friendship, and ultimately, of retribution and revenge!

“Stand at Dubun-Geb,” Ryan Harvey’s second tale of Ahn-Tarqa, returned to the setting of “The Sorrowless Thief,” for another heroic fantasy packed with adventure, swordplay, and weird magic. It took second place this month.

Steven H Silver’s tale of the strange astral adventures of Hoggar the Cremator, “The Cremator’s Tale,” continued its run at the top of the charts, taking third place.

Also making the list were exciting stories by Janet Morris and Chris Morris, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Michael Shea, David Evan Harris, Aaron Bradford Starr, Joe Bonadonna, John C. Hocking, E.E. Knight, David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna, Jason E. Thummel, Jon Sprunk, John R. Fultz, Dave Gross, and Harry Connolly.

If you haven’t sampled the free adventure fantasy stories offered through our Black Gate Online Fiction line, you’re missing out. Here are the Top Twenty most-read stories in May.

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New Treasures: Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century Volume 2: 1948 – 1988: The Man Who Learned Better, by William H. Patterson

New Treasures: Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century Volume 2: 1948 – 1988: The Man Who Learned Better, by William H. Patterson

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Robert A Heinlein In Dialogue With His Century Volume 2-smallIn 2003, I was on a panel on classic SF and fantasy with Charles N. Brown, the esteemed editor of Locus, when the conversation turned to Robert A. Heinlein (as it does).

I don’t know much about Heinlein, really. I read a small handful of his books when I was younger, but I was never really a fan. I was more an Asimov guy. Brown however, was a dedicated Heinlein reader, and when Heinlein died in 1988, Brown famously wrote that there had never really been “the Big Three SF writers,” (meaning Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein.) There had only ever been Heinlein, towering over the field.

Heinlein’s first novel, For Us, The Living, written in 1939 but unpublished until 2003, would appear later that year. I had received an advance proof, but I hadn’t read it. Brown had, however, and the book was major news. The rest of us on the panel deferred to Charles as he smoothly warmed to his topic, lecturing the assembled crowd on the importance of the novel in Heinlein scholarship, and indeed, to literature itself.

“The thing to remember,” Charles said, “is that Heinlein never intended the novel to be published –”

“Yes he did,” I said.

Charles looked startled. He seemed to have forgotten that there was anyone else on the panel. He looked around, obviously annoyed at the interruption.

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Vintage Treasures: Master of Hawks by Linda E. Bushyager

Vintage Treasures: Master of Hawks by Linda E. Bushyager

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Master of Hawks Linda Bushyager-smallThursday’s article on Theodore Sturgeon’s The Stars Are the Styx reminded me of other Dell paperbacks we used to read, collect, and pass around enthusiastically in 1979. Perhaps the most popular was Linda E. Bushyager’s Master of Hawks.

Linda Bushyager is forgotten today. She wrote only two novels, Master of Hawks and its loose sequel, The Spellstone of Shaltus (May 1980), before vanishing, like J.D. Salinger. But she was far from forgotten among fantasy fans in the early 80s, who found her pair of novels set in the magical Eastern Kingdoms original and a lot of fun. Here’s the back cover blurb for Master of Hawks.

War of the Wizards

Backed by the power of the world’s mightiest sorcerers, the forces of the Empire marched on the Kingdom of York. But York had its own wizardry… including the telepathic gift of young Hawk, who could control every kind of bird — and more, see through their eyes.

The key to York’s survival was an alliance with the Sylvan — mysterious forest dwellers who mistrusted all humans — and to win their friendship, Hawk embarked on a quest deep into Empire territory, where only his mastery of his winged comrades could bring him through alive.

Linda E. Bushyager reappeared briefly in 2002, co-authoring the SF novel Pacifica with John Gregory Betancourt. She’s published nothing since.

Master of Hawks was published in July 1979 by Dell Publishing Co. It is 256 pages, originally priced at $1.95. The cover is by Maelo Cintron. It remained out of print for nearly 30 years, before being reprinted by Fantastic Books in trade paperback in April 2010. There is no digital edition.

Star Trek 3 Confirmed

Star Trek 3 Confirmed

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Star Trek Spock and Kirk-smallParamount Pictures confirmed on Wednesday that the third film in the J.J. Abrams-helmed Star Trek reboot has been green-lit for a 2016 release.

I haven’t been the biggest fan of the new films. Sure, they are highly watchable blockbuster action pics — fast moving, splendidly acted, and with terrific effects. But to me they haven’t captured the spirit of the original show and the creators seem kinda oblivious to this fact, turning characters I’ve loved for 40 years into action-film superheroes, with Spock getting into prolonged fistfights with superhuman opponents and Kirk ascending confidently into the Captain’s chair of the Enterprise in his early 20s, less than 24 hours out of the academy. It’s been more like watching The Expendables filmed on a Star Trek set (which actually sounds sorta cool, now that I say it out loud.)

But that’s okay. The films have been popular and have kept the franchise in the public eye. And they’re by no means bad films — they’re just not the Star Trek I wanted. So I was pleased to hear that there would be a third. Especially since the ending of Star Trek Into Darkness strongly implied the next one would be closer in spirit to the original version, with the crew finally beginning their five-year mission of exploration.

We don’t know a lot about the new movie yet. We know it will be directed by Roberto Orci, screenwriter and producer of Star Trek Into Darkness, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and the Sleepy Hollow TV show, in his directorial debut. In a recent interview, Orci stated that he wants the film to be more original, and to stay in the classic Trek world, which at least sounds good. His co-writer J.D. Payne also dropped a few clues about the plot.

Star Trek 3 (no idea if that’s the final title) will be written by Patrick McKay, Roberto Orci, and John D. Payne, and produced by J.J. Abrams and David Ellison. It is scheduled for a 2016 release, just in time for the show’s 50th anniversary. (Thanks to Tor.com for the tip.)

Future Treasures: The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume Two edited by Gordon Van Gelder

Future Treasures: The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume Two edited by Gordon Van Gelder

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The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction Volume 2-smallOne of my favorite anthologies of the last half decade (and considering how many I’ve purchased, that’s saying a lot) was The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume  One edited by Gordon Van Gelder. Considering it was an absolutely gorgeous 470-page package sampling five decades of the finest fantasy magazine in the genre, how could it not be?

So I was delighted to hear that Gordon and his publisher, Tachyon Publications, are hard at work on a second volume. It will be released next month, and is nearly as large as the first. Here’s the description:

A mutant baby goes on a rampage through Central Park. An immigrant reveals secrets in the folds of a perfect gift. Lucky Cats extend their virtual paws to salute a generous revolution. The Internet invades a third-world village.

The premier speculative-fiction magazine Fantasy & Science Fiction continues to discover and showcase many of the most inventive authors writing in any genre. Now drawing even more deeply upon F&SF’s impressive history, this extraordinary companion anthology expands upon sixty-five years’ worth of top-notch storytelling. The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume Two is a star-studded tribute to the continuing vision of F&SF.

This volume collects classic short fiction from Alfred Bester, Stephen King, Zenna Henderson, Robert Sheckley, Robert A. Heinlein,  Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny,  R. A. Lafferty, Lucius Shepard, Gene Wolfe, and many others. It even includes two of my all-time favorite stories: Harlan Ellison’s “Jeffty Is Five,” and “The Aliens Who Knew, I mean, Everything” by George Alec Effinger.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Robert Hood’s Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead Wins the Ditmar Award

Robert Hood’s Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead Wins the Ditmar Award

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fragments of a broken land-smallWhat the heck is the Ditmar Award?

The Ditmar Awarda are the Australian Hugo Awards, recognizing superior achievement in Australian science fiction, fantasy, and horror. They’ve been awarded every year since 1969. They’re named after Martin James Ditmar “Dick” Jenssen, an Australian fan who footed the bill for the awards way back when they were just getting off the ground. Awards are given for best novel, short story, fan writing, and other more boring categories.

All very interesting. But what’s more interesting is that a major international award just went to a fantasy novel with GIANT TENTACLES ON THE COVER. And a floating red eyeball.

This is watershed moment, people. Thousands of years from now, future civilizations will point to this moment and say, “Yep, right there, that was it.” There will be no need to explain further, because future people are cool and will understand immediately.

I do not have a copy of Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead. But I really, really want one. I want to know what all the cool future people are talking about, and those Australians with their funky awards. Plus. Giant tentacles.

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Strange Chemistry Shuts Down

Strange Chemistry Shuts Down

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Pantomime by Laura Lam-smallStrange Chemistry, the innovative YA imprint of Angry Robot Books, has closed its doors. Here’s the announcement made earlier today by Caroline Lambe, Publicity Manager at Angry Robot:

Angry Robot Books has a history of innovation and we continue to go from strength to strength. We’re constantly trying out new concepts and new ideas, and we continue to publish popular and award-winning books. Our YA imprint Strange Chemistry and our crime/mystery imprint Exhibit A have – due mainly to market saturation – unfortunately been unable to carve out their own niches with as much success.

We have therefore made the difficult decision to discontinue Strange Chemistry and Exhibit A, effective immediately, and no further titles will be published from these two imprints.

Strange Chemistry launched in September 2012 with editor Amanda Rutter at the helm, and released 17 books in its first year. Last summer, they produced this splendid montage displaying all of their book covers, and we helped them celebrate their first birthday just last August.

Over the last two years, Strange Chemistry has published a marvelously diverse range of titles, including Martha Wells’s Emilie and the Hollow World, Jonathan L. Howard’s Katya’s World and its sequel Katya’s War, Broken by A. E. Rought, Black Dog by Rachel Neumeier, Pantomime by Laura Lam, and many others. The sudden shut down leaves nearly half a dozen previously announced titles in limbo, including Eliza Crewe’s Crushed, Rabble by Rosie Best, and A Curse of Ash and Iron by Christine Norris.

As disappointing as the news is, Angry Robot reports that their core SF and fantasy imprint is still very robust, and in fact they plan to increase output from two books a month to three. Read the complete announcement here.