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Steven Erikson finally gets a Bestseller with The Crippled God

Steven Erikson finally gets a Bestseller with The Crippled God

the-crippled-godJustin Golenbock, publicist at Tor, tells us that Steven Erikson’s The Crippled God, the last book of The Malazan Book of the Fallen, will debut at #12 on the print bestseller list in the March 20 edition of The New York Times. It’s only the second time for Erikson — last year his previous novel barely made the list.

As Justin puts it:

Steven’s first novel, Gardens of the Moon, came out in 1999 to much fanfare…and flopped. We spent the next ten years and eight novels telling everybody and anybody who would listen that this was THE fantasy series to be reading, the best that no one knew about. The depth and breadth of its world, characters and cultures, its heartbreaking yet addictive story, and the level of pathos and philosophy embedded into every narrative layer is staggering. Erikson’s core fans knew; so many of our top-selling authors kept telling us, he’s the guy who deserves it more; yet it was on us to convince everyone else.

Then last fall, Steven’s ninth novel, Dust of Dreams, finally squeaked its way onto the NYT extended bestseller list, claiming the last spot at #35… and it was just this afternoon that we learned that the tenth and final novel in his Magnus opus will get the due he so richly deserves.

During his 2008 book tour Steven confirmed that he had signed to write six more Malazan novels; two trilogies, one of which would be a prequel to the main series, detailing the history of Anomander Rake and Mother Dark. He also plans six additional Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novellas, set in the same world.

Congratulations to Steven Erikson, Justin Golenboc, and Tor books on a job well done!

Fantasy Magazine Issue 48 Arrives — Including George R. R. Martin, Tanith Lee and Holly Black

Fantasy Magazine Issue 48 Arrives — Including George R. R. Martin, Tanith Lee and Holly Black

fantasy-mag-march-2011The March 2011 issue (#48) of the excellent Fantasy magazine is now online.

This issue includes original fiction from George R. R. Martin, Tanith Lee, Holly Black, and Genevieve Valentine. It is the first issue assembled by the new editor, John Joseph Adams.

Nonfiction includes author spotlights, and the articles “Three Real Historical Figures Who Embarked Upon the Hero’s Journey,” by Graeme McMillan, “Five Fantasy Worlds That You Wouldn’t Want to Visit,” by Te Jefferson & J. Corbeau, “From Story to Screen,” by LaShawn Wanak, and an interview with Steven Erikson, conducted by Andrew Bayer.

Each week in March one story and one nonfiction article is posted free online. So far they’ve posted an editorial by John Joseph Adams, and the HTML and podcast version of Genevieve Valentine’s “The Sandal-Bride.”

You can buy the complete issue at any time for just $2.99 USD, or subscribe via Weightless Books. The complete Table of Contents is here.

The cover is by Scott Grimando. David Soyka reviewed Fantasy #2 for us back in 2008.

Apex Magazine 22 Released

Apex Magazine 22 Released

apex22Apex continues to mock us by releasing their issues on time.

Their latest includes two works of original fiction, “The Dust and the Red” by Darin Bradley, and “The Speaking Bone” by Kat Howard, as well as a reprint: “Rats” by Veronica Schanoes.

Poetry contributors are Jessica Wick with “Quest,” and the trio of Mike Allen, Sonya Taaffe, and Nicole Kornher-Stace, with  “The King of Cats, the Queen of Wolves.”

Apex is edited by popular author and legendary supermodel Catherynne M. Valente.

We last covered Apex with issue 21 and issue 19.

Apex Magazine 22 is sold online for $2.99; it’s also available in Kindle, Nook, and a downloadable format through Smashwords. Previous issues are available through their back issue page.

Why not subscribe and get 12 issues for just $19.99? Support one of the best new fantasy magazines on the market. You know you want to (or as my English teacher would say, you know it is that which you want).

Frank M. Robinson’s Legendary Pulp Collection for Sale

Frank M. Robinson’s Legendary Pulp Collection for Sale

incredible-pulpsOne of the largest and most impressive pulp collections in the world is now for sale.

Pulp historian and author Frank M. Robinson, whose books on pulps include The Incredible Pulps, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines, and Science Fiction of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History, is selling his collection of nearly 10,000 pulps magazines. The sale will be conducted through John Gunnison’s Adventure House Auctions.

Adventure House has prepared a YouTube video showing a small sampling of the pulps in the collection, including Weird Tales, Spicy Mystery, The Thrill Book, Submarine Stories, Pirate Stories, and Doc Savage, here.

Highlights of the collection include rare pulps such as Ghost Stories, Miracle Science Fiction and Fantasy, Tales of Mystery and Imagination — and ultra-rare gems such as Gun Molls, Courtroom Stories, Saucy Movie Tale, Mystery Adventure, and the only only known copy of the June 1929 issue of Zeppelin Stories, which includes the near-legendary tale “Gorilla of the Gasbags.” 58 of the rarest issues in his collection are included in the MagazineArt Gallery (do a search on Frank M. Robinson).

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m glad the collection appears to be being kept together. But there’s no way I can buy it without winning a lottery.

I wonder if Patrick Rothfuss will offer to buy it for me.

Patrick Rothfuss Offers to help Nathan Fillion buy Firefly

Patrick Rothfuss Offers to help Nathan Fillion buy Firefly

the-wise-manPatrick Rothfuss, whose second novel The Wise Man’s Fear was released last week, has published an open letter to Nathan Fillion in which he offers to assist the actor who played Captain Mal in his quest to buy the rights to Firefly:

Here’s the deal. My second book is about to come out. My publisher tells me there’s a decent chance of us selling a truly ridiculous number of copies. If this happens, I will have more money than I’ll know what to do with.

Except that’s not exactly true. I know exactly what I’d like to do with that money. I’d like to help you buy the rights to Firefly back from Fox…

Alone, all we can do is dream wistful dreams of Firefly’s return. Together, we are a team. We can gather others to our cause. With 20 or 30 of the right people, we could pool our resources and make this… happen.

You know where to find me.

Rothfuss’s first novel, The Name of the Wind, was released to wide acclaim in 2007. Both his novels are part of the Kingkiller Chronicles.

Fillion’s off-hand comment in his Feb 17 Entertainment Weekly interview (“If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly… and distribute it on the Internet”) has triggered enormous interest among fans who are hungry for any hope of the series’ return. Several fan efforts have sprung up to assist him, including helpnathanbuyfirefly.com.

It remains to be seen just how serious Fillion is, however (likely not very). Still, we can dream.

Rothfuss complete letter, published on his blog, is here.

King of the Nerds reviews Black Gate 14

King of the Nerds reviews Black Gate 14

bglgMike Ferrante at the King of the Nerds blog has published a lengthy review of our latest issue:

Character driven stories with brisk pacing, often strange landscapes, and more often than not a boat load of action are what Black Gate is all about. It was a good time to jump on board with Black Gate since issue 14 (Winter 2010) is a double-stuffed issue clocking in at a massive 385 pages (in pdf), the print edition rivaling my 4th Edition Player’s Handbook in size. What’s most impressive about those 385 pages is the sheer amount of awesome fiction packed within… everything I’ve read has been fantastic in one way or another, and wonderfully unique as well.

He was especially impressed with “The Word of Azrael” by Matthew David Surridge:

By far my favorite story in this issue…  it was inspired by the snippets of biography that were featured in some of the old Conan novels.  As such “the Word of Azrael” reads sort of like a listing of deeds.  Brief highlights of a lengthy career that nonetheless serve as veritable seeds for the reader’s imagination.  Yet at the same time, in that sparse chronicle, Surridge still manages to convey a palpable weight to Isrohim Vey, a sense of gravitas and tragedy that a surround a character whom we know startlingly little about…  Fantastic stuff here and more than enough to make me damned glad I’m a Black Gate subscriber.

Read More Read More

C.S.E. Cooney’s “The Last Sophia” at Strange Horizons

C.S.E. Cooney’s “The Last Sophia” at Strange Horizons

claire-254Black Gate‘s website editor, the marvelously talented (and tireless) C.S.E. Cooney, has a new story up at Strange Horizons:

The gestation period for a Gentry babe is brutally short. Later, one is hard-pressed to remember any of it. As soon as ever I spew her forth into the world (this time, it is a girl; I’ve been dreaming of her), she will be taken away to be raised elsewhere, and I will not remember her face. Of my other children, I know only the names, but these I feel were all — or for the most part — in very bad taste…

I came under enemy enchantment at the soft age of fourteen. For some reason it pleased the Gentry that I should breed their changeling babes, will me nil me, and breed them I have, though I had little else to do with them. Since then, it’s been fumes and nostrums, narcotics and elixirs. I have existed in a kind of padded dream designed by the Abbot’s wizards to protect me from further Gentry meddling — although, if you look at my record, these potions hardly seem worth their weight in piss. I have now borne three Gentry babes in as many years and will any day deliver myself of a fourth.

C.S.E.’s fiction and poetry have also appeared in Clockwork Phoenix 3, Book of Dead Things, Subterranean magazine, Goblin Fruit, Ideomancer, Doorways, Mythic Delirium, and Apex, among others. Her novella The Big Bah-Ha was recently published by Drollerie Press, and her story “Braiding the Ghosts” (from Clockwork Phoenix 3) was selected for inclusion in The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011.

You can read the complete text of “The Last Sophia” here.

Take Advantage of the Great Apex Nebula & Stoker Award Sale

Take Advantage of the Great Apex Nebula & Stoker Award Sale

i-remember-the-futureJason Sizemore at Apex Book Company, publishers of Apex magazine and many fine Dark SF, Fantasy, and Horror books, tells us that to celebrate receiving two Nebula nominations and two Stoker nominations, Apex is having a sale on all books by authors who’ve received nominations.

The discount is 40% off print and digital versions of the following books:

Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry L. Gordon — $11.97 (Buy Here)
To Each Their Darkness, Gary Braunbeck — $11.37 (Buy Here)
Taste of Tenderloin, Gene O’Neill — $8.37 (Buy Here)
Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales, Fran Friel — $9.57 (Buy Here)
I Remember the Future, Michael A. Burstein — $13.17 (Buy Here)
Unwelcome Bodies, Jennifer Pelland — $8.97 (Buy Here)
Aegri Somnia, edited by Jason Sizemore and Gill Ainsworth — $8.97 (Buy Here)

Issue 18 of Apex Magazine, containing Amal El-Mohtar’s Nebula-nominated story “The Green Book” is also 40% off. You can read the complete story here.

The special pricing ends March 14. Take advantage of a great sale to sample the work of some of the finest new writers in the genre!

Tangent Selects Six Black Gate Stories for its Best of 2010

Tangent Selects Six Black Gate Stories for its Best of 2010

hangmans-bigTangent Online has published its annual Recommended Readling List, this year including six stories from our most recent issue, Black Gate 14:

The Hangman’s Daughter” by Chris Braak
Devil on the Wind” by Michael Jasper and Jay Lake
Red Hell” by Renee Stern
La Señora de Oro” by R. L. Roth
Destroyer” by James Enge
The Natural History of Calamity” by Robert J. Howe

Congratulations to all!

Tangent Online is managed by Steve Fahnestalk, and published by Dave Truesdale. The complete Recommended Readling List is here.

Art by John Kauffman for “The Hangman’s Daughter.”

Charles R. Saunders Reviews A Desert of Souls

Charles R. Saunders Reviews A Desert of Souls

desertofsoulsCharles R. Saunders, author of the legendary Imaro books, has weighed in on Howard Andrew Jones’s first novel:

What, then, is so special about The Desert of Souls? Well, just about everything.

Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the Middle East during the initial bloom of Islam’s ascendance, Howard brings to life the storied past of places such as Baghdad, Basra, Mosul… To this tapestry of history, Howard adds several threads of sorcery…

The protagonists and the patron become involved in a fatal encounter in a local bazaar. Events swiftly escalate into a maelstrom of murder, theft, escape, pursuit, magic, mayhem, romance, rejection and redemption, The characters — and the reader — whirl along in a breakneck journey through a Middle East that is ancient, yet well beyond the cusp of irreversible change…

Yet for all this homage to the past, Howard also breaks new ground with this novel, which places him firmly among the ranks of such new-wave sword-and-sorcery writers as Joe Abercrombie, James Enge and Steven Erikson, to name just a few. Remember Howard Andrew Jonses’ name. You will be hearing — and reading — more from him.

Charles’ review joins the recent rave coverage from BookPage, Bush League Critic, and SF Revu.

You can read Charles’ complete review here.