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Author: John ONeill

Robots, Deep Space, and Star Trek: Free RPG Day at Games Plus in Mount Prospect

Robots, Deep Space, and Star Trek: Free RPG Day at Games Plus in Mount Prospect

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Games Plus Free RPG Day-small

Free RPG Day is not something I can remember ever taking part in…. mostly because the only local gaming store here in St. Charles died ten years ago. But when I saw the Facebook announcement from Floyd at Games Plus on Friday (above), I was intrigued enough to make the 30-mile drive to Mount Prospect Saturday morning.

Games Plus is easily the best gaming store in the the Chicago area — perhaps in the entire country. It’s the home of the Games Plus auctions I’ve written about extensively for the the past 10 years. Like all retail stores, it’s struggled as a result of the pandemic, and I was overdue for a visit to show my support (and spend some money) anyway.

And several of the items in Floyd’s pic grabbed my attention, especially the Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure from Goodman Games, the Root the Tabletop Roleplaying Game adventure, and the Warhammer Wrath & Glory module. It’d be a challenge narrowing my selection down to two items, but I figured that’d be part of the fun.

So what is Free RPG Day?

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Vintage Treasures: Digits and Dastards by Frederik Pohl

Vintage Treasures: Digits and Dastards by Frederik Pohl

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Digits and Dastards Ballantine Digits and Dastards Ballantine-back-small

Digits and Dastards by Frederik Pohl (Ballantine Books, 1966). Artist uncredited.

Frederik Pohl was something of a science fiction renaissance man. He was a fan, agent, publisher, editor (of both Galaxy and If magazines, from 1969-79), and multiple Hugo Award-winning writer. His career spanned over 75 years, from his first publication (a poem in 1937) to his last novel, All the Lives He Led (2011). He received the SFWA Grand Master Award in 1993. He died in 2013, at the age of 93.

Along with Asimov, Heinlein, Campbell and Wollheim, he was such an integral part of 20th Century SF that you can honestly say that without him, the field would have been dramatically different. Like Campbell and Wollheim, he was a taste-maker, a keen-eyed editor who loved discovering talent, and he won three Hugo Awards in a row as best editor. Like Asimov, he wrote extensively about science fiction, pointing many young readers (including me) towards the folks they should be reading, and enriching the history of the field with numerous non-fiction articles.

And like Heinlein and Asimov, he was hugely respected as a writer, winning numerous awards for his fiction, including a Hugo and Nebula Award for Gateway (1977), the John W. Campbell Award for the novella collection Years of the City (1984), and the coveted National Book Award for Jem (1979). In 2010 he won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer for his long-running blog, one of the earliest (and still one of the best) SF blogs, The Way the Future Blogs. He was a pioneer in the field to the very end.

I’m very fond of Fred Pohl. Like Asimov, he wrote about science fiction not as some higher and more enlightened branch of literature, but as a quirky business practiced by a small community of highly likeable individuals who shared common roots, and a common love of and fascination with science. It was that characterization, as much of my love of the stories itself, that filled me at a young age with an enduring desire to become an SF writer.

And, very much unlike Asimov, Pohl was a high-school dropout in a genre that celebrated hard science, and that gave him– critically, I think — a refreshingly different viewpoint on what science fiction could (and should) mean to the average reader. He was also a local SF writer, a fixture at the major Chicago SF conventions, and was just as delightful in person as he was on the page. He was an entertaining and self-deprecating writer, as you can see from the following excerpt from the introduction to his 9th collection, Digits and Dastards (1966).

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New Treasures: The Shadows by Alex North

New Treasures: The Shadows by Alex North

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The Shadows-smallAlex North’s previous novel was the bestselling thriller The Whisper Man. With his new novel The Shadows he creeps into horror territory — and does it with style. Publishers Weekly calls it a “terrifying spine-tingler… impossible to put down,” and The New York Times says “This is absorbing, headlong reading, a play on classic horror with an inventiveness of its own… As with all the best illusions, you are left feeling not tricked, but full of wonder.”

It was published in hardcover two weeks ago. Here’s the description.

You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile–always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might be capable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it’s attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet — and inspired more than one copycat.

Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree–and his victim — were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together. But now his mother, old and suffering from dementia, has taken a turn for the worse. Though every inch of him resists, it is time to come home.

It’s not long before things start to go wrong. Paul learns that Detective Amanda Beck is investigating another copycat that has struck in the nearby town of Featherbank. His mother is distressed, insistent that there’s something in the house. And someone is following him. Which reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day twenty-five years ago.

It wasn’t just the murder.

It was the fact that afterward, Charlie Crabtree was never seen again…

The Shadows was published by Celadon Books on July 7, 2020. It is 336 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $13.99 in digital formats. Read an excerpt at EW.com.

See all our recent coverage of the best new releases here.

Future Treasures: Chaos Vector by Megan E. O’Keefe

Future Treasures: Chaos Vector by Megan E. O’Keefe

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Velocity Weapon-small Chaos Vector-small

Covers by Sparth

Megan E. O’Keefe’s 2019 space opera Velocity Weapon was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, and earned a bucket full of great press. The Guardian called it “A brilliantly plotted yarn of survival and far-future political intrigue,” and Booklist described it as “Full of twists, feints, and deception… [in] a visionary world rife with political intrigue and space adventure.” But my favorite review was from Kirkus:

The last thing Sanda Greeve remembers is her ship being attacked by rebel forces. She’s resuscitated from her evacuation pod missing half a leg — and two centuries — as explained to her by the AI of the rebel ship that rescued her. As The Light of Berossus — aka Bero — tells her, she may be the only living human for light-years around, as the war wiped both sides out long ago. Sanda struggles to process her injuries and her grief but finds friendship with the lonely spaceship itself. Sanda’s story is interspersed with flashbacks to the war’s effects on her brother, Biran, as well as scenes from a heist gone terribly wrong for small-time criminal Jules. The three narratives, separated by a vast gulf of time, are more intertwined than is immediately apparent. When Sanda rescues Tomas, another unlikely survivor, from his own evacuation pod, she learns that even time doesn’t end all wars….

Meticulously plotted, edge-of-your-seat space opera with a soul; a highly promising science-fiction debut.

We previously covered Velocity Weapon, and O’Keefe’s Scorched Continent fantasy trilogy.

The sequel to Velocity Weapon is one of the more hotly anticipated books of the year. Chaos Vector arrives from Orbit on July 28. It is 592 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback, and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Sparth. See all our recent coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy here.

Vintage Treasures: The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg

Vintage Treasures: The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg

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The Stochastic Man-small The Stochastic Man-back-small

The Stochastic Man (Warner Books, 1987, cover art by Don Dixon)

Back in May I started a Vintage Treasures post about Robert Silverberg’s 1975 novel The Stochastic Man, and it wasn’t long before I’d unearthed nearly a dozen different editions. Pretty soon I got distracted comparing the art and author branding for each, and that led me down a deep rabbit hole that ended up with a very long article titled The Art of Author Branding: The Paperback Robert Silverberg.

That was fun, and very satisfying. But it never mentioned The Stochastic Man.

So today I grit my teeth, committed myself to a lot more focus, and started in again. Wish me luck.

The Stochastic Man was one of Robert Silverberg’s most popular and successful novels. It was originally serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (April to June, 1975), and then published in hardcover by Harper & Row in September 1975. That year it was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Campbell Memorial Award. After that it was packaged up by many publishers in the 70s and 80s, and enjoyed a long life and fruitful life in reprint editions from Fawcett Gold Medal, The Science Fiction Book Club, Coronet Books, Gollancz, Warner Books, Gateway/Orion, and others. It was reprinted in trade paperback just last year by ReAnimus Press.

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New Treasures: Shimmer: The Best Of, edited by E. Catherine Tobler

New Treasures: Shimmer: The Best Of, edited by E. Catherine Tobler

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Cover by Sandro Castelli

How did I not know there was a Best of Shimmer anthology? Time to get some better inside contacts in the publishing biz, I think.

Shimmer was one of the best of the small press fantasy magazines. It received a Hugo nomination for Best Semiprozine last year, and editor E. Catherine Tobler was honored with a Best Professional Editor, Short Form nomination. The magazine published science fiction, fantasy, and “a dash of literary horror.” The final issue, #46, appeared in November 2018.

Shimmer was constantly interesting, and we covered over half a dozen issues as part of our magazine coverage over the years. Their greatest skill was spotting talent, and they did plenty of that. Shimmer: The Best Of contains stories by many of the brightest stars of modern fantasy, including Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Amal El-Mohtar, Karin Tidbeck, Mary Robinette Kowal, Carmen Maria Machado, Sunny Moraine, Arkady Martine, Fran Wilde, Sonya Taaffe, A. C. Wise, Sarah Gailey, Vajra Chandrasekera, K.M. Szpara, and many, many others, all packed into a massive 489-page volume.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Dorgo Returns! Mad Shadows, Book Two: Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent

Dorgo Returns! Mad Shadows, Book Two: Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent

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Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent-small Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent-back-small

Joe Bonadonna’s 2011 sword and sorcery collection Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser won the 2017 Golden Book Readers’ Choice Award for Fantasy. In his BG review William Patrick Maynard wrote:

Joe Bonadonna describes his fiction as ‘Gothic Noir’ and it is entirely appropriate… The six stories in Mad Shadows offer a mixture of traditional sword & sorcery necromancers and demons as well as werewolves, vampires, witches, and bizarre half-human mutations that H. P. Lovecraft would happily embrace.

Pulp Hero Press reissued Mad Shadows last December, in a revised second edition with a new cover, new maps, revised text, and an expanded Afterword. Now they’ve given the same treatment to the sequel, Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent. Here’s a brief snippet from Fletcher Vredenburgh’s terrific review of the original 2017 release.

I totally dig these stories and especially the world Bonadonna’s created. Tanyime is rife with magic and magical beings. Minotaurs serve as guards, a cyclops runs a gambling den, and an old satyr is one of Dorgo’s best friends. Bonadonna’s too skilled a storyteller to let his setting become overwhelmed by the possible cutesiness of it all, instead, creating a good, hardboiled world with room in it for justice…. Aside from his deep understanding of S&S and hardboiled fiction, Bonadonna knows how to write a hero… [Dorgo] is an honest-to-goodness hero looking to do the right thing,

Read a generous excerpt from Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent right here at Black Gate.

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Future Treasures: The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

Future Treasures: The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

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The Year of the Witching-smallYou know how much I enjoy a good debut. And The Year of the Witching, arriving in hardcover from Ace next week, looks very promising indeed. Publishers Weekly calls it “riveting… [it] announces Henderson as an exciting new voice in dark fantasy,” and Dhonielle Clayton says it “takes witchcraft to its very depths… horrific.” Here’s the description.

A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut.

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.

But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.

Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

There’s a lot to like about this book, not the least of which is the intriguing setting and the hints of mystery. But I was pleased to see the early reviews focus on the characters, especially the heroine. Here’s a snippet from Anuska G’s rave review at The Nerd Daily.

The Year of the Witching is exactly the kind of fast-paced, terrifying, and witchy story I needed. The premise promises a deliciously dark and twisted tale of social revolution set in a dystopian world, and Henderson does not disappoint… The Year of the Witching is the best kind of horror/paranormal fiction, and not just because the bleak, eerie setup and the graphic depiction of the horrors of the Darkwood will haunt your dreams for days to come. The true horror of this story lies in the brutally honest way Henderson describes the atrocities committed in the name of religion…

The best thing about Henderson’s debut, however, is its iron-willed, multi-layered heroine.

The Year of the Witching will be published by Ace Books on July 21, 2020. It is 368 pages, priced at $26 in hardcover and $13.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Larry Rostant. See all of our recent coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy here.

Low-stakes Fiction in a High-stakes World: A Quiet Afternoon, edited by Liane Tsui and Grace Seybold

Low-stakes Fiction in a High-stakes World: A Quiet Afternoon, edited by Liane Tsui and Grace Seybold

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GV Quiet Afternoon image 1-smallIn their recently released anthology A Quiet Afternoon, Canadian micropress Grace&Victory offer calm and gentle SFF tales for the reader who would rather curl up with a mug of tea and an afghan (or a slushie and a hammock, depending on the weather) than dart about the cosmos with lasers blasting.

Grace&Victory team members Victoria Feistner (co-founder and graphic designer), Laura DeHaan (slush reader and morale officer), Liane Tsui (chief editor), and Grace Seybold (co-founder, second editor and legalities wrangler) get together today to share their thoughts on low-stakes fiction in a high-stakes world.

You’ve talked about low-stakes fiction, which you call “Low-Fi.” What does that mean to you?

LD: Stories that are comfortable to read, that don’t excite feelings stronger than warm fuzzies or faint melancholy. Which might not sound terribly flattering, I know. I imagine most authors want their stories to sear a flaming brand across the brains of the readers and leave them shaken and awed by the majesty of the prose, but really what I’m looking for is instant nostalgia. I want to think back on the story fondly, I want to revisit it in the way you enjoy pulling on an old sweater or a tatty pair of shoes.

VF: When I am stressed out, sometimes relaxing with a good book – if the book is full of action, violence, tension – only serves to stress me out more. In such times I often turn to different genres – literary, travel memoir, biography, and the like – for escape into gentler adventures. And yet, when I do, a part of me misses my spec elements. Low-Fi is about bringing the mundane and slice-of-life stories prevalent in other genres into the SF fold. SF has long been about larger-than-life heroes and do-or-die plots, but here and there are stories where the stakes are much lower. Ursula LeGuin’s Changing Planes comes to mind, as does Natasha Pulley’s The Watchmaker of Filigree Street.

So how is Low-Fi different from existing subgenres? Should it be considered its own sub-genre or merely a “tag”?

LD: I think it’s more about tone than anything else. A queen is near death in “An Inconvenient Quest,” there’s deadly traps and adventure in “Hollow,” “Of Buckwheat and Garlic Braids” has a potentially murderous strigoi, but because of the tone we never feel like anyone’s really in danger. I think as well there’s a definite refusal of violence as a solution and an emphasis on conversation as the way to problem-solve. Again, “Hollow” is an adventure story where the characters cast spells and shoot arrows, but in the end it’s a conversation that resolves the situation.

It’s not something we actively set out to enforce, but it seems fitting that Low-Fi also avoids salty language. And while we have a couple smooches, anything beyond that probably wouldn’t be appropriate for Low-Fi.

So I’d say sure, make it a new sub-genre!

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What if King Harold had Prevented the Norman Conquest: After Hastings by Steven H Silver

What if King Harold had Prevented the Norman Conquest: After Hastings by Steven H Silver

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Cover designed by Laura Givens

Steven H Silver is one of Black Gate‘s most prolific contributors. He produced many reviews for the print magazines, sold me the terrific short story “The Cremator’s Tale” back in 2013, and has written an astonishing 471 articles for the blog.

Steven’s many accomplishments don’t end with Black Gate, however. He’s an acclaimed editor, co-editing three DAW anthologies with Martin H. Greenberg (Wondrous Beginnings, Magical Beginnings, and Horrible Beginnings), and the two volume Selected Stories of Lester del Rey for NESFA Press. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace (June 2019), co-edited with Joshua Palmatier. From 2004-2012 he was the publisher and editor of ISFiC Press, and his annual fanzine Argentus has been nominated for the Hugo Award multiple times. In fact Steven has received 17 Hugo nominations over the years.

Last week Steven’s writing career entered an exciting new phase with the publication of his long-awaited debut novel After Hastings, a masterfully constructed alternate history from one of the field’s true experts. I asked Steven to say a few words about it for BG readers, and this is what he shared:

After Hastings is an exploration of a world in which King Harold of England successfully beats back the Norman Conquest but finds himself facing other enemies, both domestic and foreign, leading him to jump start the reformation four hundred years early.

After Hastings was published by Ring of Fire Press on July 10, 2020. It is 347 pages, priced at $15.99 in paperback and $5.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Laura Givens. Order copies here.

See all our coverage of recent releases by Black Gate staff here.