Browsed by
Author: John ONeill

James Enge’s Wrath-Bearing Tree Coming in August

James Enge’s Wrath-Bearing Tree Coming in August

Comments 11 comments

Wrath Bearing TreeWoo hoo! Our Bothan spies report that the second novel in James Enge’s epic new fantasy trilogy, A Tournament of Shadows, will be released by Pyr on August 13, 2013.

Many Bothans died to bring us this information. But lordy, it was worth it.

The book continues the origin story of Morlock Ambrosius, which began in A Guile of Dragons (Pyr, August 2012). Have I ever mentioned that Morlock’s first appearance was in Black Gate 8, in James Enge’s first published work of fiction, “Turn Up This Crooked Way?” True story. Morlock was in virtually every issue of Black Gate for the next five years. Morlock and Black Gate, best buds. I could tell you some stories.

Of course, he’s a big shot now. The first Morlock novel, Blood of Ambrose, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award; after that came his rapid ascent to fame and a decadent west-coast lifestyle, and he stopped taking our calls. We still get Christmas cards, with a sloppy signature forged by his agent. We treasure them.

Into the Unguarded Lands . . .

The masked powers of Fate and Chaos are killing gods in the land of Kaen, facing the Wardlands across the Narrow Sea. Vocates Aloe Oaij and Morlock Ambrosius go into the Unguarded Lands, on a mission to find the reasons for the godslaying, and to avert any threat to the lands the Graith of Guardians has sworn to protect.

After crash-landing on the hostile coast of Kaen, they will face vengeful frightened gods, a calmly murderous dragon, a demon called Andhrakhar, and a bitter old necromancer named Merlin Ambrosius.

Amid these dangers they will find that they can trust no one but themselves — and each other.

“A calmly murderous dragon.” Doesn’t that sound like a Morlock story? He’s so cool. Can’t wait.

Wrath-Bearing Tree will be published by Pyr Books on August 2013. It is 320 pages in trade paperback, priced at $18.00; $11.99 for the digital edition. Cover art by Steve Stone. See more details at the Pyr website.

New Treasures: The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

New Treasures: The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

Comments 0 Comment

The Thousand NamesWhen I was younger, I had very specific criteria for selecting fantasy reading material. I relied exclusively on the jacket copy, blurbs, and author reputation. But after reading numerous crummy books, I decided to switch things up a bit, and only buy books with great cover art.

That worked pretty well for about a decade. By the time I was 40, I’d refined my cover selection process even further. Now I base it almost solely on color. Lush greens and gold — that’s the ticket for the best in fantasy entertainment. Take it from the voice of experience.

Based on the excited buzz around Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names, and the righteous color scheme on the cover, I expect great things. But here’s the jacket copy in case you want to decide things the old fashioned way.

Enter an epic fantasy world that echoes with the thunder of muskets and the clang of steel — but where the real battle is against a subtle and sinister magic…

Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was resigned to serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost. But that was before a rebellion upended his life. And once the powder smoke settled, he was left in charge of a demoralized force clinging tenuously to a small fortress at the edge of the desert.

To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must win the hearts of her men and lead them into battle against impossible odds.

The fates of both these soldiers and all the men they lead depend on the newly arrived Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich, who has been sent by the ailing king to restore order. His military genius seems to know no bounds, and under his command, Marcus and Winter can feel the tide turning. But their allegiance will be tested as they begin to suspect that the enigmatic Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural — a realm with the power to ignite a meteoric rise, reshape the known world, and change the lives of everyone in its path.

The Thousand Names was published today by Roc Books. It is 513 pages in hardcover, priced at $25.95 ($12.99 for the digital edition). It is the first novel of The Shadow Campaigns.

Read all of our recent New Treasures articles here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: The Death of the Necromancer, Part Five

Black Gate Online Fiction: The Death of the Necromancer, Part Five

Comments 0 Comment

The Death of the Necromancer paperbackBlack Gate is very proud to present the final installment of Martha Wells’s Nebula Award-nominated novel, The Death of the Necromancer, presented complete online for the first time. In his SF Site review Wayne MacLaurin wrote:

The setting is a gaslit European continent that has familiar sounding names (Vienne, Lodun) and comes complete with steam engines and revolvers. But magic works and sorcerers walk the streets of the cities, have a great university and hold positions of power at the courts… The plot revolves around Nicholas Valiarde, a disgraced nobleman, consumed with the desire to revenge the wrongful death of his godfather. He also happens to be the greatest thief in all of Ile-Rien (a helpful talent which, I am sure you can see, would significantly help with those late night prowls around your arch-enemy’s estate)…

Valiarde’s revenge starts getting interrupted by a series of increasingly bizarre, unexplainable events. Somebody, or something, with significant magical ability begins to oppose him. More chilling is the obvious taint of necromancy — and necromancy is an art that has been outlawed for centuries…

The Death of the Necromancer is a fabulous read and earns my vote for “Most Exciting New Book of the Summer!”

Martha Wells is the author of fourteen fantasy novels, including City of Bones, The Element of Fire, The Cloud Roads, and The Serpent Sea. Her most recent novel is the YA fantasy, Emilie and the Hollow World, published by Strange Chemistry Books in April. Her previous fiction for us includes “Reflections” in Black Gate 10, “Holy Places” (BG 11), and “Houses of the Dead“ (BG 12). Her most recent article for us was “How Well Does The Cloud Roads Fit as Sword and Sorcery?,” which appeared here March 13. Her web site is www.marthawells.com.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mary Catelli, Michael Penkas, Vera Nazarian, Ryan Harvey, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, E.E. Knight, C.S.E. Cooney, Howard Andrew Jones, Harry Connolly, and many others, is here.

The Death of the Necromancer was originally published in hardcover by Avon EOS in 1998. The complete, unedited text is being presented here; it began on June 2 with the first four chapters here.

Part Five includes Chapters Nineteen through Twenty-Two. It is offered at no cost.

Read Part Five of the complete novel here.

The 2013 Locus Award Winners

The 2013 Locus Award Winners

Comments 0 Comment

The Apocalypse Codex Charles StrossYesterday the Locus Science Fiction Foundation announced the winners of the 2013 Locus Awards at the Locus Awards Weekend in Seattle. The winners are:

FANTASY NOVEL

  • The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross (Ace)

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

  • Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor)

FIRST NOVEL

  • Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

  • Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey)

…

Read More Read More

The Top 50 Black Gate Blog Posts in May

The Top 50 Black Gate Blog Posts in May

Comments 0 Comment

Federation Commander Klingon BorderWe published 99 posts in the month of May. 99! If I’d known that I would have tossed off one more at the last minute, just to cross that magic 100.

But we focused on quality, not quantity (he tells himself stoically). And our top article for the month — no doubt ably assisted by the release of Star Trek Into Darkness — was a look at the Federation Commander: Klingon Border board game. Number two was also gaming-related: a peek at the Against the Odds historical gaming magazine. Third was our obituary for the talented editor and Thieve’s World author Andrew J. Offutt, followed by Violette Malan’s entirely reasonable question, “Why is it Always a Northern Barbarian?” and a guest post by Milton Davis on Sword and Soul fantasy.

The Top 50 Black Gate posts in May were:

  1. New Treasures: Federation Commander: Klingon Border
  2. Explore History Through Tiny Cardboard Counters With Against the Odds Magazine
  3. Andrew J. Offutt: August 16, 1934 – April 30, 2013
  4. Why is it Always a Northern Barbarian?
  5. Sword and Soul Revisited
  6. The Hunger Games and Kids: When to Say When
  7. The Kids Are Alright: The Fate of the Novel lies in the Hands of Teenagers
  8. Forrest J Ackerman and the Days of the Do-it-Yourself Anthology
  9. Vintage Treasures: Robert E Howard’s Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors
  10. Remembering Ray Harryhausen Through Ten Great Visual Effects Scenes 

     

    11. …

    Read More Read More

New Treasures: The Beautiful Land by Alan Averill

New Treasures: The Beautiful Land by Alan Averill

Comments 2 comments

The Beautiful LandI’d never heard of Alan Averill, but I think that’s because this is a debut novel. I like debuts — they make me think I’m the first to discover an exciting new writer. I get to tell all my friends and be cool. Being cool doesn’t happen to me very often, believe me, so anything that even hints at the possibility gets a closer look.

The Beautiful Land is a tale of dimension-hopping and alternate realities. Over at io9, Charlie Jane Anders called it “a great love story disguised as a thriller.” Here’s the book description.

Takahiro O’Leary has a very special job… working for the Axon Corporation as an explorer of parallel timelines — as many and as varied as anyone could imagine. A great gig — until information he brought back gave Axon the means to maximize profits by changing the past, present, and future of this world.

If Axon succeeds, Tak will lose Samira Moheb, the woman he has loved since high school — because her future will cease to exist. A veteran of the Iraq War suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Samira can barely function in her everyday life, much less deal with Tak’s ravings of multiple realities. The only way to save her is for Tak to use the time travel device he “borrowed” to transport them both to an alternate timeline.

But what neither Tak nor Axon knows is that the actual inventor of the device is searching for a timeline called the Beautiful Land — and he intends to destroy every other possible present and future to find it.

The switch is thrown, and reality begins to warp — horribly. And Tak realizes that to save Sam, he must save the entire world…

The Beautiful Land was published by Ace Books on June 4. It is 362 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback ($9.99 for the digital edition).

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

It’s a Strange Chemistry Book Cover Montage

It’s a Strange Chemistry Book Cover Montage

Comments 2 comments

Strange Chemistry — publishers of such marvelous titles as Martha Wells’s Emilie and the Hollow World, Blackwood by Gwenda Bond, Pantomime by Laura Lam, Christian Schoon’s Zenn Scarlett, and many others — have produced a montage displaying all of their book covers.

Strange Chemistry is known for their gorgeous cover designs, and this montage of eighteen captures all of them. Sort of makes you want to collect them all, doesn’t it? Click on the image for a full size version.

Strange Chemistry Book Button2

We’re supporters of Strange Chemistry and so we’re reproducing it here with pride. Steal this smaller button for your own blog, and check out all of their books at the Strange Chemistry website.

Sterling E. Lanier and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

Sterling E. Lanier and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

Comments 25 comments

Hiero-s JourneyTor.com writers Tim Callahan and Mordicai Knode have been reading Gary Gygax’s famous Appendix N, the list of fantasy and SF titles in the back of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. This time Tim Callahan tackles Sterling E. Lanier, author of Hiero’s Journey.

It’s a terrific article, but I note that the editors chose Darrell K. Sweet’s cover for the 1983 Del Rey edition to accompany it, featuring our hero next to his mutant giant moose, chatting amiably with a bear. Dudes. (Or Dames, I dunno.) That’s waaay too sedate a cover for Lanier’s classic. The Vincent di Fate cover for the 1974 Bantam paperback (at right) is the one you want. (Click for a much bigger version, showing that toothy dino in all his glory).

It’s… an incredibly enjoyable book. Lanier may not be even close to as famous as Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, or Roger Zelazny or some of the others from Gygax’s list, but Hiero’s Journey constantly surprised me with its inventiveness and slow built toward a satirical climax. It also moves with a pace appropriate to a story about a guy riding a giant moose and unleashing the occasional psychic fury on mutated howler monkeys and other nefarious creatures….

It’s also a book that seems to have informed one of the weirder seemingly-slapped on aspects of Dungeons & Dragons — I’m speaking about psionics, which seemed out of place in the original AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide — and almost the entirety of the later Gamma World game setting. Gygax isn’t credited with designing Gamma World, but James Ward’s original rulebook for Gamma World cites Hiero’s Journey as an influence, and with that game’s post-nuclear-holocaust setting and mutated animals and cities with names like primitive spellings of our own, it’s like playing scenes straight out of Lanier’s novel…

What Hiero and his companions find, as they explore and escape capture from the new breed of machine-friendly beings who don’t seem to recall what trouble technology hath wrought, is a deep and treacherous dungeon. This part is almost pure D&D adventuring, with roving monsters (mutated beasts) and foul threats from below.

…

Read More Read More

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in May

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in May

Comments 3 comments

The Sealord's Successor Part OneAaron Bradford Starr’s latest tale of Gallery Hunters Gloren Avericci and Yr Neh — the 35,000-word epic fantasy mystery “The Sealord’s Successor,” which Louis West at Tangent Online called “A gripping tale of fantasy, mystery, murder and intrigue. A must read!” — was our top fiction post last month.

Coming in a close second was Robert Rhodes’s story of a time-traveling swordsman, “Devotion,” followed by Vera Nazarian’s tale of armies, gods and a city on the brink of collapse, “Niola’s Last Stand.” Also making the list were terrific stories by Michael Penkas, Howard Andrew Jones, Mary Catelli, Judith Berman, Joe Bonadonna, Jason E. Thummel, and many others.

If you haven’t sampled the adventure fantasy stories offered through our new Black Gate Online Fiction line, you’re missing out. Every week, we present an original short story or novella from the best writers in the industry, all completely free. Here are the Top Twenty most read stories in May:

  1. “The Sealord’s Successor,” by Aaron Bradford Starr
  2. “Devotion,” by Robert Rhodes
  3. “Niola’s Last Stand,” by Vera Nazarian
  4. “The Worst Was Yet to Come,” by Michael Penkas
  5. An excerpt from The Bones of the Old Ones, by Howard Andrew Jones
  6. “The Turtle in the Sea of Sand,” by Mary Catelli
  7. “The Poison Well,” by Judith Berman
  8. “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” by Joe Bonadonna
  9. “Assault and Battery,” by Jason E. Thummel
  10. An excerpt from The Waters of Darkness, by David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna

     

    11. …

    Read More Read More

Barnes and Noble to Stop Manufacturing Nook Tablets

Barnes and Noble to Stop Manufacturing Nook Tablets

Comments 19 comments

Nook-ColorToday wasn’t a very good day for Barnes & Noble and its Nook e-reader business.

Yesterday, the nation’s top brick and mortar bookseller announced earnings for fiscal 2013 and they weren’t pretty. Sales plummeted in the last quarter, and the company’s net loss for the year more than doubled to $475 million.

Nook sales, which were tooted as the company’s salvation as recently as last year, fell to just 1 million units in the fourth quarter, down from 1.4 million in the same period last year. At the same time, sales of Kindle e-readers have kept growing at a robust clip. As part of its earnings statement, B&N announced it would discontinue tablet manufacturing in an effort to stop the red ink.

The headlines have been ugly. AllThingsD reported “Barnes & Noble Gets the Nook Ready for Its Dirt Nap,” BusinessWeek said “Barnes & Noble’s Nook Business Sees Fifty Shades of Red,” The Wall Street Journal announced “Barnes & Noble Throws in the Towel on Tablets,” and Motley Fool‘s read simply “Barnes & Noble Finally Gives Up.” Today the stock took it on the chin, dropping 17 percent to $15.61.

I finally bought my Nook HD tablet a few weeks ago. I know, I know. The very moment everyone else is fleeing the Nook, I figure it’s a good time to get around to that new tablet purchase. Maybe not the best timing. But hey, the price was great, and I wanted to support a quality digital reader while I still could. Reminds me of all those dumb hardware purchases I made in the late 90s, trying to single-handedly keep the Amiga alive.

B&N is not exiting the hardware business entirely. It will continue to produce the black-and-white versions of the Nook and look for a partner to take on the production of the high-end color tablets. Speculation is swirling around Microsoft as a possible white knight, but it’s all simply rumors at this point.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying my new $149 tablet. It really is a great little Internet appliance and a handy way to watch movies and read books. I have no idea how long they’ll be available at that price, so if you’re interested you might want to move quickly.