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Author: John ONeill

Black Gate Kuttner Contest: And the Winners Are…

Black Gate Kuttner Contest: And the Winners Are…

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kuttnerBlack Gate magazine is very pleased to announce the winners of our Kuttner Contest:

Pawel Martin
Alexander G. Tozzi
G. W. Thomas

All three winners receive a copy of Terror in the House: The Early Kuttner, Volume One, compliments of publisher Haffner Press. Terror in the House is 712 pages in hardcover, and is edited by Stephen Haffner and illustrated by Harry V. Parkhurst. Congratulations to the winners!

To enter the contest required a one-sentence review of your favorite Henry Kuttner short story. Winners were chosen at random from all eligible entries.

The wide range of entries gave us a fine appreciation for just how well Henry Kuttner is still remembered over 50 years after his death, and these concise reviews of readers’ favorite Kuttner tales should help those less familiar with him understand the enduring quality of his fiction. Some of the best entires we received are collected below.

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Take Advantage of Holiday Discounts at Lulu.com

Take Advantage of Holiday Discounts at Lulu.com

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luluI got a reminder from Lulu.com this morning that the window for placing Holiday orders in time for Christmas is closing.  Thanks Lulu!

Plus, they sent me the handy coupon at right.  It’s good for 20% off any order (up to a total of $100 savings) until Dec 31, 2010.

I hope I don’t get in trouble for sharing it. Probably not.  But if anybody locks you in a small room and shines a bright light in your face and demands to know where you got this coupon, remember these handy phrases: “I’ll talk!  It was Gordon van Gelder.”

Or just go get your own coupon online, at their Daily Deals page.

startling-storiesLulu is the leading Print on Demand (POD) publisher. Need a reminder of all the great titles available at Lulu?

Over the past year we’ve told you about the two volumes of The Clayton Astounding reprints, Vagabonds of Space and Planetoids of Peril.

For gamers, there’s the new role playing game of heroic rodents, Hyperborean Mice, featuring grim swords & sorcery action… with talking mice.

For short fiction lovers, there’s G.W. Thomas’ terrific Dark Worlds magazine, featuring tales of modern adventure fantasy, and the new incarnation of pulp magazine Startling Stories, from Wild Cat Books (shown at left).

And don’t forget Charles R. Saunders’ latest Imaro novels, The Naama War, and The Trail of Bohu.

At that and much more.  Support your favorite small press publishers, and get some great gifts at the same time. How cool is that?

Apex Magazine 19 arrives, featuring C.S.E. Cooney

Apex Magazine 19 arrives, featuring C.S.E. Cooney

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apex19I’m very jealous of how punctual this magazine is. I suspect a pact with demonic forces.

The new issue of Apex has arrived, featuring fiction from our own marvelous C.S.E. Cooney, with her short story “Pale, and from a Sea-Wave Rising,” as well as less interesting people like Nick Wolven, with “Radishes,” and Erzebet YellowBoy, with the reprint “At the Core” (from Fantasy Magazine, 2006.)

The issue also includes two poems: “Flourless Devil’s Food” by Shweta Narayan, and “Cancelled Flight” by W.C. Roberts.

Apex Magazine 19 is sold online for $2.99; it’s also sold in a downloadable, pay-what-you-want edition through Smashwords, and in a Kindle edition (for 99 cents). Previous issues are available through their back issue page.

C.S.E.’s complete story is online. Here’s the first line:

Aquilo Vickery Makepeace, anatomy student, was looking for corpses when he found the undine.

I like it. We last profiled Apex with their November Arab/Muslim issue, the October issue and in August (also featuring C.S.E. Cooney).

Apex Magazine is edited by the ethereally beautiful Catherynne M. Valente. To join the Apex Army and donate, subscribe, or help spread the word, visit their online store.

“The Word of Azrael” Selected for The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

“The Word of Azrael” Selected for The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

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yearsbest2011Matthew David Surridge’s novellete “The Word of Azrael” has been selected for The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 Edition, edited by Rich Horton.

Congratulations, Matthew!  “The Word of Azrael” has been praised in many places since it appeared in Black Gate 14. Here’s what Rich said in his Locus magazine review in the August issue:

Even better is Matthew [David] Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael.” It concerns Isrohim Vey, who sees the Angel of Death on a battlefield and as a result is spared — more a curse than a blessing — to search again for the Angel. His search almost takes the form of a catalog of sword & sorcery tropes, his many adventures told briefly but with style and an ironic edge. Surridge both celebrates and winks at the genre. It’s very entertaining, clever, and even thought-provoking.

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New Treasures: Songs of the Dying Earth

New Treasures: Songs of the Dying Earth

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sotdyWe get a lot of review copies here at the rooftop headquarters of Black Gate magazine, and it’s always a treat when the mail truck arrives. Getting free books never gets old, and we usually drop everything to tear open packages and pass around the most intriguing titles.

What is unusual is for a single book to bring all toil to a complete standstill for half an hour  (except for the tireless Howard Andrew Jones, who’s been missing in the restricted section of our pulp library for the last 48 hours). That’s exactly what happened when Songs of the Dying Earth (SotDE), edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, arrived today.

SotDE is a tribute collection; its subtitle is Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, and it contains nearly 700 pages of original fiction set in Vance’s Dying Earth — one of the great settings in all of fantasy, and home to Turjan the wizard, Rhialto the Marvellous, Cugel the Clever, and other fabulous characters. The Dying Earth is a far-future Terra, where the sun is on the verge of extinction, magic is potent and terrible, monsters roam the land, and the ruins of countless civilizations rest uneasily beneath layers of thin dust and vegetation.

dying-earth2The table of contents is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen — it read like a Who’s Who of the most influential fantasy authors of the decade, including Robert Silverberg, George R.R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Jeff VanderMeer, Tad Williams, Glen Cook, Tanith Lee, Howard Waldrop, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, Neil Gaiman, Phyllis Eisenstein, Liz Williams, Matthew Hughes, Terry Dowling, Mike Resnick, Paula Volsky, Kage Baker, John C. Wright, and others. It also includes a big new novella from Dan Simmons, an appreciation by Dean Koontz, and a preface by Jack Vance himself.

SotDE was first published in a limited edition by Subterranean Press last July; since then the book — and many of the stories — have received considerable attention. Jeff VanderMeer’s H.P. Lovecraft-inspired tale “The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod” has been turned into a novel, and SotDE was nominated for Best Anthology in the 2010 Locus Awards. Neil Gaiman’s story “An Invocation of Incuriosity” took home the Best Short Story prize at the same Awards.

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance goes on sale Dec. 7th. It is published by Tor books, in hardcover for $27.99, and gets our highest recommendation.

Crossed Genres 25 Arrives

Crossed Genres 25 Arrives

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crossed-genresCrossed Genres, the online magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy with a twist, has just published its 25th issue.

Crossed Genres is edited by Jaym Gates and Natania Barron. This issue includes five complete works of fiction, including “We Shall Overcome,” by Nicole Givens Kurtz, and “The Gift” by Christie Yant, as well as stories by Jaymee Goh, Arthur Carey and Jacob Edwards.

The wonderful cover art (left), “Balloons,” is by Margaret Hardy.

Crossed Genres is published monthly; this is the first issue with the new editorial team. The magazine was previously edited by Bart R. Leig and K.T. Holt. The first issue appeared in September, 2008.

The genre (or theme) changes each issue. The genre for the current issue is “Celebration;” the genre for issue #27 (to be released January 1, 2010) is Tragedy. Submissions for Issue #27 will be accepted until midnight December 31. The next two genres are Superhero and Mystery.

Congratulations, Jaym and Natania! Here’s to many more.

NASA Announces Mysterious News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

NASA Announces Mysterious News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

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imagesOkay, this is pretty cool. Freelance Black Gate operative John C. Hocking leaks word to us that NASA has announced a press conference this Thursday regarding an “astrobiology finding.” The prestigious journal Science has also “embargoed details” until the conference:

NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery;
Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2

WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

Anyone who follows these things regularly knows they usually lead to some announcement about fossilized remnants that might once have been bacteria, maybe, in some rock in the arctic that once maybe came from Mars. Lame.  They hardly ever announce that alien life is hours away from totally devouring downtown Pittsburgh, or knocking over skyscrapers in Tokyo or anything like that.

But you never know. What does “embargoed details” mean? Does it involve suited men in late model sedans, monitoring the activities of journalists who don’t respect the government’s requests to “keep a lid” on this? We can only hope. ‘Cause that would be cool.

In the meantime, the anticipation shall doubtless be far more delicious than the actual announcement, but that’s OK. We have until Thursday to dream that maybe, this time, they’ll announce that alien life has touched down in Oklahoma, and they’re willing to trade advanced tech for more Chuck Berry CDs.

Wumpus Tales Now Open to Submissions

Wumpus Tales Now Open to Submissions

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wumpustales2Attention all fiction writers looking for markets! Alexander G. Tozzi, publisher of the new magazine Wumpus Tales: A Magazine of Bizarre Fiction, tells us it is now open to submissions:

Ideally we hope to fill its pages with stories reminiscent of concepts you might find in an 80’s computer game, where aliens guzzle brain juice in a satellite cafe, wizards cheat at poker while their familiars operate pyramid schemes, and zombies delight in smashing each other’s tombstones.
       We also want stories taking place in real life, though with some element of the genres worked in, such as a girl who enchants a rival’s makeup so that it turns her into a beast. Right now we are scouring every market list we can find, trying to get added. Submissions are the only thing keeping Issue Number One from being printed, and we hope that authors will read our guidelines before sending anything.

We’re looking forward to reading those stories (especially the one with the zombies!), so all you aspiring writers, get to work.

The website and submission guidelines are here.

Subscribe to Black Gate? Get a PDF Version for just $2.95!

Subscribe to Black Gate? Get a PDF Version for just $2.95!

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black-gate-12Are you a current Black Gate magazine subscriber? If so, you’re eligible to purchase PDF copies of your favorite issues at $2 off regular price — just $2.95 per issue.

High-resolution PDF versions of Black Gate are regularly $4.95 each, and are now available in the same quantities as print subscriptions: 2 issues for $9.50, 4 for $17.95, or 6 for just $25.95.

However, subscribers to the print version can now buy PDFs for just $2.95 for single issues. Discounts are offered for subscriptions as well: $5.50 for 2 PDF issues, $9.95 for 4, and just $14.25 for 6!

Those who purchase a 4-issue print sub and a 4-issue PDF sub at the same time can now save even more, and receive the PDF subscription for just $7.95 — a $10 savings off regular price.

Issues currently available in PDF format are BG 11, BG 12, BG 13, and our big double issue, BG 14 — 384 pages, still priced at the regular cost of $4.95. Oppressed house elves are currently hard at work, painstakingly converting our earlier issues by hand, and PDF subscriptions to future issues are available as well.

You can get all the details on our subscription page. Act now, and help us afford that big Christmas office party!

Letters to Black Gate: Submission Windows, Port Iris, and Canadian Fiction

Letters to Black Gate: Submission Windows, Port Iris, and Canadian Fiction

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port-isisKerstan Szczepanski responds to our recent post on the latest issue of Port Iris magazine:

I don’t know much about Port Iris beyond what I’ve seen in issue #3. A little too alternative for my taste. Although Aidan Doyle’s Salary Ninja was pretty good (“When I was young, if a demon had a blue tooth, it meant something different.”); if that guy submits anything to you, read him right away. And the cover makes me think of Tex Avery, very cool.
I’ve been a long time subscriber to Black Gate since issue 3 or 4 or something, absolutely love the mag.

Richard Dillio asks:

I had never read your magazine until about a year ago. A friend from work brought in a copy and I burned through it in about two days (my job has a lot of down-time, heh). I am continually impressed by your organization — fantasy magazines seem to be dropping like flies lately, but you guys are hanging on. I’m glad there is a magazine out there still willing to print the sword-and-sorcery and adventure fantasy stories that are the real bedrock of the American fantasy tradition.
It seems like every time I check your guys’ webpage for when submissions are open, you aren’t accepting submissions. I realize the market is probably glutted with good adventure fantasy for you guys to choose from, but is there any reliable time when you guys are accepting submissions? Like, say, any specific time of year? If not, that’s cool too. Just curious.
Anyways, keep up the great work. I love the magazine!

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