John ONeill – Page 446

2012 SFWA Grand Master Awarded to Gene Wolfe

Saturday, December 22, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America has named Gene Wolfe the 2012 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

The Grand Master Award is given not for a particular work but for “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.” It is given only to living writers.

Previous recipients include Fritz Leiber, Clifford D. Simak, A. E. van Vogt, Jack Vance, Ursula K. Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Michael Moorcock.

Wolfe’s publications include The Book of the New Sun, Peace, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Soldier of the Mist, The Book of the Long Sun, and The Wizard Knight. His recent works include Pirate Freedom (2007), An Evil Guest (2008), The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009), The Sorcerer’s House (2010), and Home Fires (2011). He has won two Nebulas, five World Fantasy Awards, six Locus Awards, and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2007.

Read C.S.E. Cooney’s lengthy interview with Gene, conducted over breakfast in November 2010, here.

The award will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, CA, May 16-19, 2013. Read the complete announcement at SFWA.org.

Prince of Thorns Available for $1.99 at Amazon.com

Saturday, December 22, 2012 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

For today only, Amazon.com is offering the Kindle version of Prince of Thorns, the opening volume of Mark Lawrence’s The Broken Empire trilogy, for just $1.99.

In a Black Gate blog post shortly before publication, Mark Lawrence wrote:

The book I’ve written, Prince of Thorns, has layers, rather like an onion (or an ogre). I hope it can be enjoyed as a violent swords and sorcery romp. Get your teeth into it though and there’s more there – it’s as much about our prince as it is about what he does. This is a damaged person and although the story is told in his words without a hint of excuse, there are lessons to be learned between the lines. It wasn’t until tonight though, desperately scratching at the subject in the effort to come up with something to say in this blog post I was invited to supply, that I discovered another layer, deeper still…

In Prince of Thorns the main character has suffered a personal disaster. It’s not the ‘evil threatens the village’ of classic fantasy. It’s not injured pride or a looming darkness in the east. He’s been screwed over, a tsunami has rolled through his life and left devastation. And the book is in large part his reaction to that. It’s about where he takes his anger and where it takes him.

It’s only through the lens of half a decade and more that I see I was writing out… not a version of my own experience, but a mapping of the emotions.

If you’re the kind of reader who has to think long and hard before parting with $1.99, by all means check out the generous excerpt we presented here last October.

The sequel, King of Thorns, was released in August 2012, and the final volume, Emperor of Thorns, is scheduled for August 2013. We have several of Mark Lawrence’s short stories in inventory, and the first, “Bulletproof,” will appear as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction line early next year.

Prince of Thorns was published by Ace in August 2011. The 336-page hardcover edition is still in print, priced at $24.95. You can buy the Kindle version here.

Thanks to Awsnyde for the tip!

Vintage Treasures: The Casebook of Carnacki The Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson

Friday, December 21, 2012 John ONeill Comments 12 comments

William Hope Hodgson is almost unique among his contemporaries: his most famous novels, The House on the Borderland and The Night Land, have been continuously in print for the better part of the last hundred years. H.P. Lovecraft described The Night Land, first published in 1912, as “one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written.”

But Hodgson wrote many other highly-respected works of horror and dark fantasy, and here his publication history is a little more spotty. Perhaps chief among them are the tales of Carnacki The Ghost Finder, a supernatural detective who came up against horrors that would have made Van Helsing blanche. I’m pleased to say that the Wordsworth Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural have not let us down, and in 2006 they brought the complete collection back in print in a handsome and inexpensive edition.

“‘I saw something terrible rising up through the middle of the ‘defence’. It rose with a steady movement. I saw it pale and huge through the whirling funnel of cloud – a monstrous pallid snout rising out of that unknowable abyss. It rose higher and higher. Through a thinning of the cloud I saw one small eye… a pig’s eye with a sort of vile understanding shining at the back of it.”

Thomas Carnacki is a ghost finder, an Edwardian psychic detective, investigating a wide range of terrifying hauntings presented in the nine stories in this complete collection… Encountering such spine-chilling phenomena as ‘The Whistling Room’, the life-threatening dangers of the phantom steed in ‘The Horse of the Invisible’ and the demons from the outside world in ‘The Hog’, Carnacki is constantly challenged by spiritual forces beyond our knowledge. To complicate matters, he encounters human skullduggery also. Armed with a camera, his Electric Pentacle and various ancient tomes on magic, Carnacki faces the various dangers his supernatural investigations present with great courage.

Josh Reynolds explored the career of Carnacki The Ghost Finder in greater detail as part of The Nightmare Men series last year.

We’ve covered ten volumes in the Wordsworth Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural series so far:

The Crimson Blind and Other Stories by H.D. Everett
Couching at the Door by D.K. Broster
The Casebook of Carnacki The Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson
The Beast with Five Fingers by W.F. Harvey
The Power of Darkness — Tales of Terror, by Edith Nesbit
Alice and Claude Askew’s Aylmer Vance, The Ghost-Seer
The Black Veil & Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths edited by Mark Valentine
Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead
Sherlock Holmes: The Game’s Afoot, edited by David Stuart Davies
The Casebook of Sexton Blake, edited by David Stuart Davies

There’s plenty more to come, so stay tuned.

The Casebook of Carnacki The Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson was published in 2006 by Wordsworth Editions. It is 191 pages in paperback priced at $6.99. There is no digital edition.

New Treasures: Dungeon Command: Curse of Undeath and Tyranny of Goblins

Thursday, December 20, 2012 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Back in August, I made some excited noises about the new head-to-head skirmish game from Wizards of the Coast, Dungeon Command.

At the time, only two Faction Packs were available: Heart of Comyr, including a human ranger, halfling sneak, dragon knight, dwarven defenders, and copper dragon; and the Sting of Lolth, which contained the drow assassin, priestess, wizard, spiders, and umber hulk.

Now, if you’re like me, you probably wondered what a “Faction Pack” was, and how a “head-to-head skirmish game” might work. But that was really secondary, because all the cool toys packed inside were more than worth the money.

If you had to justify the purchase, you could do it on those alone — Dungeon Command components are fully compatible with the Wizards of the Coast games you’re already playing. The miniatures and dungeon tiles can be used with the D&D RPG, and the unique cards provided with each miniature can be used with D&D Adventure System board games like Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and The Legend of Drizzt.

You don’t have to be an expert on head-to-head skirmish games to appreciate that they’re a lot more fun with a variety of miniatures. So I was intrigued to see the recent arrival of two new factions: Tyranny of Goblins, containing a complete goblin warband — including bugbears, wolf riders, a feral troll, and a hobgoblin sorcerer — and Curse of Undeath, which includes the gravehound, lich necromancer, and dracolich.

Dungeon Command features themed miniature factions designed to play as unified war bands. The game eliminates luck-driven mechanics in favor of player-driven skill, creativity, and quick thinking. Each faction comes in its own box, with a dozen miniatures, a set of unique cards, dungeon tiles, and the game rules.

I’m already hearing reports that the miniatures — and the new rules set — have found favor among roleplayers looking for a quick and refined combat system. Stay tuned for further reports as we experiment with the rules here at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters. Assuming we ever stop playing with the cool minis long enough to read the rules, that is.

Both Tyranny of Goblins and Curse of Undeath retail for $39.99. They were released by Wizards of the Coast in October and November, respectively.

Star Trek Into Darkness Official Trailer Released

Wednesday, December 19, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

It’s been a packed few weeks for Star Trek fans.

First Paramount released a one-minute teaser trailer which generated more questions than it answered. Then, viewers who attended the opening of The Hobbit on Friday were treated to the first nine minutes of the film. And now comes the release of the first full trailer.

It’s been fun to watch all the speculation that’s resulted (see Chris Lough’s entertaining article Has Star Trek Into Darkness Revealed That It’s the Contemporary Wrath of Khan? over at Tor.com, for example). If you’re looking for Wrath of Khan similarities, there’s a few big ones in the full trailer. Check it out below.

Weird Tales Meets Planet Stories in Space Eldritch

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

I stumbled on this little beauty today while browsing the latest Kindle releases on Amazon.

The cover art by Carter Reid is spectacular, and the contents — seven original novelettes and novellas of Lovecraftian pulp space opera — look pretty darn promising too. Contributors include Huge and Nebula nominee Brad R. Torgersen, Schlock Mercenary-creator Howard Tayler, and Michael R. Collings (The Slab, The House Beyond the Hill). Here’s the complete TOC:

Foreword, by Larry Correia
“Arise Thou Niarlat From Thy Rest,” by D.J. Butler
“Space Opera,“ by Michael R. Collings
“The Menace Under Mars,” by Nathan Shumate
“Gods in Darkness,” by David J. West
“The Shadows of Titan,” by Carter Reid and Brad R. Torgersen
“The Fury in the Void,” by Robert J. Defendi
“Flight of the Runewright,” by Howard Tayler

The whole package looks professional — although the lack of an editor credit admittedly diminishes the effect somewhat. Still, I’m willing to give this one a chance.

You can sample the first thousand words of each tale at Cold Fusion Media.

Space Eldrich was published on December 14, 2012 by Cold Fusion Media. It is 248 pages in trade paperback for $13,99; and is also available as an ebook for just $5.99 from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying”

Sunday, December 16, 2012 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

gharad-small1 We’re slowly capturing all the online fiction we’ve published here over the past 12 years as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction series. This week we present the complete text of Alex Kreis’s “The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying,” one of the shortest tales to ever appear in Black Gate.

I am very sorry about seizing the throne of Falland and establishing a dictatorship based on terror and intimidation. As ruler of Falland, I enforced a number of highly unfair and immoral policies for which I now feel very badly, including putting all orphans raised by any forms of wildlife to death, and ordering the execution of all wandering bards (although I must say in my defense that that decision was not entirely unpopular).

Alex Kreis is a graduate of the Viable Paradise workshop and a member of BRAWL, the Boston SF/F writing critique group. He lives with his wife and two children in Massachusetts. “The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying” was his first fiction sale.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying” originally appeared in Black Gate 14. It is a complete 960-word short story of satirical fantasy offered at no cost. Art by Bernie Mireault.

Read the complete story here.

Vintage Treasures: Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars

Sunday, December 16, 2012 John ONeill Comments 8 comments

Back in October, I featured the Robert E. Howard collection Solomon Kane: The Hills of the Dead, the second of two Bantam paperbacks published in the late 70s. The first was Skulls in the Stars, released in 1978.

The Solomon Kane tales are some of my best-loved Howard fiction. “The Skull in the Stars” was one of the first Robert E. Howard tales I ever read, and for many years it was my favorite of his short stories.

He was the Puritan, who flinched not from the gates of Hell. Tall, gaunt, hollowed-eyed in his opposition to the forces of darkness, he defied the devil himself. Kane, cold, steely-nerved duelist, snatched his long rapier from its sheath and thrust it into the heart of evil. Ghoulish laughter follows him. Foul horror haunts his way. Kane, a man whose blood quickens with adventure. Kane, a man more dangerous than a famished wolf.

These slender paperbacks both have fold-out cover art (click on the image at right for the full version). The art is uncredited for this volume, but some sources claim it is Jeff Jones, and the style seems right to me. While the contents aren’t pure Howard (both books contain fragments completed by Ramsey Campbell), it’s a pleasure to see both the poetry and Cambell’s introductions. Here’s the complete TOC:

“The World of Solomon Kane” by J. Ramsey Campbell
“Skulls in the Stars”
“The Right Hand of Doom”
“Red Shadows”
“Rattle of Bones”
“The Castle of the Devil” (Completed by Ramsey Campbell)
“The Moon of Skulls”
“The One Black Stain” (poem)
“Blades of the Brotherhood”

Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars was published in paperback by Bantam Books in December, 1978. It is 178 pages, with a cover price of $1.95.

New Treasures: American Gothic Tales

Sunday, December 16, 2012 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

I’ve had my eye on this collection for a while, but it was Matthew David Surridge’s fascinating four-part series on Joyce Carol Oates’s Gothic Quintet that finally nudged me over the edge. I ordered it last week, and have been enjoying it ever since.

To be honest, while I was prepared for a survey of American horror, my brief perusal of the contents before I laid down my money led me to believe it was slanted towards modern writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Harlan Ellison, and Stephen King. And while they’re all represented, the book doesn’t neglect the classics either.

They’re all here: Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” Herman Melville’s “The Tartarus of Maids,” Poe’s “The Black Cat,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Henry James’s “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes,” Ambrose Bierce’s “That Damned Thing,” and many more.

How does it manage that? By being nicely huge: the trade paperback is 546 pages.

Something else I appreciate is the nice selection from modern authors who aren’t usually represented in horror anthologies: Paul Bowles’s “Allal,” Robert Coover’s “In Bed One Night,” E. L. Doctorow’s “The Waterworks,” Don DeLillo’s “Human Moments in World War III,” Raymond Carver’s “Little Things,” Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Temple,” and Steven Millhauser’s classic “In the Penny Arcade.”

And if that’s not enough for you, there’s also a varied selection from horror writers more associated with the genre, including Thomas Ligotti, Nancy Etchemendy, Bruce McAllister, Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg, Katherine Dunn, John Crowley, and Lisa Tuttle.

It’s not perfect — where are Fritz Leiber, Frank Belknap Long, Hugh Cave, or Dan Simmons? — but it’s damn close. American Gothic Tales, edited by Joyce Carol Oates, was published in trade paperback by Plume in December, 1996. It is $21 for 546 pages; there is no digital edition.

Saturday Round Up: Talk to the Hand

Saturday, December 15, 2012 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Last Saturday, I posted the Black Gate Christmas Gift List, crammed with gift-giving ideas for the discerning fantasy fan. For the last week, I’ve been receiving additional suggestions from readers.

By far my favorite comes from Todd Ruthman, who pointed me to the Bluetooth Handset Gloves offered by ThinkGeek, shown at left. For only $69.99 you can talk to your loved ones just by extending your thumb and pinky. Described as “warm and comfortable capacitive-touch gloves with a Bluetooth headset built in,” they seem ideal for impressing friends and passers-by. I love this gift idea more than I can say. If the right-handed glove comes with a wall-climbing feature, two of my childhood dreams will have totally come true.

George Dew at Dark City Games points out that DCG products make great stocking stuffers, and that unscientific studies (conducted by watching episodes of The Big Bang Theory) show that the amount of time that families spend playing board games is inversely proportional to the chances of children getting involved in drugs, alcohol “and anything else bad.” I’m a believer. You can find Dark City’s splendid catalog here.

Finally, a few readers complained because the number two item on the list, Howard Andrew Jones’s The Bones of the Old Ones, was not yet on sale. Our tireless team of minions have reported that it is now, in fact, on shelves all across the country. In other BotOO news, the esteemed Mr. Jones tells us that a major studio has optioned The Chronicles of Sword and Sand (AKA the Dabir and Asim novels), and the hunt is currently on for a screenwriter.

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