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Black Gate Online Fiction: In Creepy Hollow, It’s Halloween All Year Long! An Excerpt from Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin by Erika M Szabo and Joe Bonadonna

Black Gate Online Fiction: In Creepy Hollow, It’s Halloween All Year Long! An Excerpt from Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin by Erika M Szabo and Joe Bonadonna

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Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin-small Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin-back-small

Without Erika M Szabo, this short little novel would have remained no more than the seed of an idea I had about ten years ago. Together, we wrote a heroic fantasy adventure for middle-grade children.

The story begins when Nikki Sweet and her cousin, Jack Brady, find a mysterious black pumpkin in the forest one Halloween morning, near their Grandmother’s house. A wise talking, silver wind chime in the shape of a skeleton named Wishbone Jones tells them that the ghosts of the Trinity of Wishmothers, the Guardians of the realm of Celestria in Creepy Hollow, are trapped inside the pumpkin and can’t be freed without their magic Wands. The children offer their help, so Wishbone takes them through an Ectomagic Gate to the world of Creepy Hollow, where they set out to retrieve the three wands he disguised by magic and hid in Red Crow Forest, the Tower of Shadows, and the Cave of Spooks. The witch Ghoulina, a beautiful vegetarian ghoul, and Catman, who was once a man, join them on their quest. They must face danger and conquer evil every step of the way as they search for the Wands before the wicked Hobgoblin and his henchman, a Tasmanian Devil named Ebenezer Rex, can get their hands on them.

In this excerpt from the novel, Nikki, Jack and their three companions have reached the destination of their third and final quest. The Wand they are looking for was transformed by Wishbone into a Halloween mask, in order to keep it safe. As they enter the Cave of Spooks to retrieve the mask, they are unaware that Hobgoblin and Ebenezer Rex, who murdered the three Wishmothers, are close on their heels…

Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin (Creepy Hollow Adventures #1) is a spooky Halloween story for children, ages 6 to 14. It is written by Erika M Szabo and Joe Bonadonna, and illustrated by Erika M Szabo. Published by Golden Box Books Publishing, New York on April 6, 2017. Available in paperback ($8.95), and Kindle and Nook editions ($2.99). It is the Winner of the 2017 Golden Book Judges’ Choice Award for Children’s Fantasy.

Read the complete excerpt here.

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, edited by Rich Horton

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, edited by Rich Horton

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Rich Horton Years Best SF 2017-smallThe Year’s Best season is now in full swing. Jonathan Strahan‘s volume arrived April 18th from Solaris, and Neil Clarke‘s April 4th from Night Shade. Couple that with the 2017 Nebula Awards Showcase released last week from Pyr, and you have the beginnings of a decent SF library.

So why would anyone who has those volumes need another Year’s Best?

Simple, really. Where else will you find Lavie Tidhar’s groundbreaking novella “The Vanishing Kind?” Or Paul McAuley’s “Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was?” Or Carrie Vaughn’s Hugo nominee “That Game We Played During the War?” Or Jason Sanford’s Nebula nominee “Blood Grains Speak Through Memories?” Or Cat Rambo’s almost-Nebula-nominated “Red of Tooth and Cog?”

Nowhere but in Rich Horton’s upcoming Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, coming next month from Prime Books. This is Rich’s ninth volume, and over the years he’s proven to have both excellent taste and genuine skill ferreting out future classics in out-of-the-way places (such as private Patreon feeds, and the Beloit Fiction Journal.) He may well be the most widely-read of all the Year’s Best editors, and it shows in his Table of Contents every year.

Speaking of which, here’s the impressive TOC for his 2017 volume, with fiction from Charlie Jane Anders, Ian R. MacLeod, Genevieve Valentine, Rich Larson, Kameron Hurley, Carlos Hernandez, Chaz Brenchley, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and many others.

“Seven Ways of Looking at the Sun-Worshippers of Yul-Katan” by Maggie Clark (Analog)
“All that Robot Shit” by Rich Larson (Asimov’s)
“Project Empathy” by Dominica Phetteplace (Asimov’s)
“Lazy Dog Out” by Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s)

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Black Gate Online Fiction: The First Chapter of The Wreck of the Marissa

Black Gate Online Fiction: The First Chapter of The Wreck of the Marissa

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M Harold Page The Wreck of the Marissa (Eternal Dome of the Unknowable 1)
Read the rest on Kindle…

Trust me, I’m a doctor. Some people need killing.

OK, yeah, Doctor of Archaeology but that gives me the long view. (Professor James Brandistock Ph.D. at your service, by the way, but you can call me “Jim”.)

Where was I?

Some people need killing.

It’s true! History turns out better when certain individuals are removed from it.

Case in point? His Royal Highness Prince George, galactic playboy and hereditary ruler of the Planetary Principality of Badland. Now he was a man who’d make your trigger finger tense even if you’d never fired a blaster.

I can tell you this because I was groundside during the ’34 Badland Revolution, avoiding looters and opportunists as I negotiated the streets of Fortunata — that’s the planetary capital.

The smug little f–ker popped up on every TV screen in every bar and cafe, and — I assume — every home. He called for calm, promised to see justice done and grievances met.

And he didn’t bother to keep the smirk off of his jowly face.

Prince George didn’t need to. His bullshit was just box-ticking in case the Empire was paying attention: “I reached out to them, Your Excellency, truly I did. Mass murder was a last resort. I wept when I gave the order…”

See, the real message — the reason for Prince George’s smirk — was the Devastator. They’d set up the TV camera so you had a good view of it through the Prince’s study window. The alien super weapon has its own pinnacle above the Citadel Rock — imagine a clenched fist making a thumbs up — so I guess the study was built with that view in mind. They’d also taped the speech at the right time of day so that harsh white sunlight flashed off the thing’s weird tubes and dishes as the gun crew swept it left and right, showing off its field of fire.

Look, Prince George was saying, I have a literal gun to the city’s head.

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Keep Up With the Latest Releases from Black Gate Authors

Keep Up With the Latest Releases from Black Gate Authors

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Soverign Silk ElizaBeth Gilligan-small Black Mask Spring 2017-small All Systems Red The Murderbot Diaries-small

One of the things readers frequently ask me for is updates on their favorite Black Gate authors. We published hundreds of writers in the decade-plus the magazine was alive, and at least as many in the 10 years that we’ve been running the blog… that’s a lot of talented authors to keep tabs on!

Nevertheless, we do our best. Here’s a quick snapshot of the current and upcoming releases from some of your favorite Black Gate writers.

ElizaBeth Gilligan (“Iron Joan,” BG 3) releases Sovereign Silk, the long-awaited third novel in her Silken Magic series, from DAW on June 6
Bob Byrne, our Monday morning blogger (and resident Sherlock expert), has a story in the Spring 2017 issue of the revived Black Mask magazine
Martha Wells (the Giliead and Ilias tales in BG) published All Systems Red, the first book in The Murderbot Diaries, through Tor.com on May 2
Ellen Klages (“A Taste of Summer,” BG3) had her second collection Wicked Wonders come out from Tachyon Publications on May 9
James Enge (the Morlock stories) released his latest Kindle volume Iris Descends on January 15.
Derek Kunsken’s debut SF novel The Quantum Magician (“Ocean’s Eleven meets Guardians of the Galaxy“) will be published by Solaris Books in October 2018
Howard Andrew Jones has a brand new Dabir & Asim tale, “The Black Lion,” in the latest issue of Skelos magazine

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io9 on 20 Amazing New SF and Fantasy Books in May

io9 on 20 Amazing New SF and Fantasy Books in May

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Wicked Wonders Ellen Klages-small Thick as Thieves Megan Whalen Turner-small River of Teeth-small

Over at io9, Cheryl Eddy takes a look at 20 of the most intriguing titles arriving this month, including a whole bunch of novels, collections and anthologies we haven’t gotten around to yet. Her list features titles from Robin Hobb, Haruki Murakami, Timothy Zahn, M.R. Carey, Foz Meadows, Martha Wells, Robert Jackson Bennett, Marie Brennan, Kit Reed, and others.

The list includes the latest collection from Black Gate author Ellen Klages, Wicked Wonders.

The author of The Green Glass Sea presents her second short-story collection of “lyrical stories with vintage flair” (topics include: life on Mars, gambling with fairies), with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler.

Wicked Wonders was published by Tachyon Publications on May 9. It is 240 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.

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Derek’s Ridiculously Late 2016 Year in Review, or Book Deal!

Derek’s Ridiculously Late 2016 Year in Review, or Book Deal!

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The Quantum Magician - Cover 2, May 2017
Cover art! By Justin Adams

Black Gate readers were very supportive when I reported the start of my 2-year experiment as a more present parent and as a full-time writer in June of 2015. I am happy to announce some of the fruits of that experiment 23 months into this leave from work.

First of all, my son is now 12 years old and is a wonderful human being. He cares about others, listens more, has more self-possession and seems successful enough socially that girls keep calling him. I can of course, only take half the credit for that, but even if the only thing I accomplished in the last 23 months was my contribution to raising a responsible person, I would have called it a very successful sabbatical.

However, while he was at school, I went to the library to write or edit, and some good things have come of that too.

Last night, at 7:30pm, 6 May, while I was reading at Ad Astra, Toronto’s premier fan convention, a very dedicated but surely sleepy-eyed gentleman in Oxford was posting the press release announcing my first novel! The world English rights to the The Quantum Magician sold to Solaris Books in the UK in November, via my excellent agent Kim-Mei Kirtland, but the news has been under embargo for the last six months while cover art was being developed by the extremely talented Justin Adams.

The Quantum Magician is an sf heist story, basically Ocean’s Eleven meets Guardians of the Galaxy. I took many of the elements of hard sf and aliens that are found in my short fiction pieces “The Way of the Needle,” “Persephone Descending,” “Pollen From a Future Harvest,” “Schools of Clay” and “Flight From the Ages” and found something I’m really excited about: stealing things.

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Skelos 2 Now Available

Skelos 2 Now Available

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Skelos 2-small Skelos 2-back-small

When we folded the print version of Black Gate, I took some solace in the fact that there would be new magazines that came along eventually and picked up the banner of weird fiction and adventure fantasy. And you know what? I was right. In particular, I’ve been very encouraged by the ongoing success of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and the recent launches of the excellent Occult Detective Quarterly and the promising Cirsova.

But the magazine that I think Black Gate readers will be most excited about is Skelos, edited by the triumvirate of Mark Finn, Chris Gruber, and Jeffrey Shanks. In its first two issues, it’s published new fiction by Keith Taylor, Scott Oden, Arianne “Tex” Thompson, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Milton Davis, Robert M. Price, Adrian Cole, and others — including a brand new Dabir & Asim tale from Howard Andrew Jones in the second issue!

The magazine is gorgeously illustrated by professional artists, with full-page art accompanying many of the stories and even the poetry. And the magazine feels substantial in your hands. Issue #2, cover-dated Winter 2017, is 200+ pages in heavy pulp-sized format. It’s the kind of thing you can sink into your chair with for hours, as it transports you to worlds dark and mysterious.

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New Treasures: The Choice Series by Paul McAuley

New Treasures: The Choice Series by Paul McAuley

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Something Coming Through Paul McAuley-small Into Everywhere Paul McAuley-small

Paul MaAuley was an early contributor to Black Gate, with a review column titled On the Edge. His first novel, Four Hundred Billion Stars (1988), won the Philip K. Dick Award; his 1996 novel Fairyland won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel. His latest is a pair of contemporary SF novels about an enigmatic alien race who make an equally enigmatic gift to mankind… Alastair Reynolds calls the first one, Something Coming Through, “as tight and relentlessly paced as an Elmore Leonard thriller… the freshest take on first contact and interstellar exploration in many years.” Here’s the description for Something Coming Through.

The Jackaroo have given humanity fifteen worlds and the means to reach them. They’re a chance to start over, but they’re also littered with ruins and artifacts left by the Jackaroo’s previous clients. Miracles that could reverse the damage caused by war, climate change, and rising sea levels. Nightmares that could forever alter humanity — or even destroy it.

Chloe Millar works in London, mapping changes caused by imported scraps of alien technology. When she stumbles across a pair of orphaned kids possessed by an ancient ghost, she must decide whether to help them or to hand them over to the authorities. Authorities who believe that their visions point towards a new kind of danger. And on one of the Jackaroo’s gift-worlds, the murder of a man who has just arrived from Earth leads policeman Vic Gayle to a war between rival gangs over possession of a remote excavation site.

Something is coming through. Something linked to the visions of Chloe’s orphans, and Vic Gayle’s murder investigation. Something that will challenge the limits of the Jackaroo’s benevolence …

Something Coming Through was published by Gollancz on June 21, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $12.99 in paperback and $1.99 for the digital edition. The sequel, Into Everywhere, was published in paperback by Gollancz on June 14, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $19.99 in paperback and $5.99 for the digital edition.

Premiere issue of New Pulp Magazine Broadswords and Blasters, Now Available in Print and Kindle

Premiere issue of New Pulp Magazine Broadswords and Blasters, Now Available in Print and Kindle

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Broadswords and Blasters 1-smallEditors Matthew X. Gomez and Cameron Mount have launched a new sci-fi/fantasy magazine into the fray, touting it as a “pulp magazine with modern sensibilities.” The debut issue is available on Kindle for $2.99 or in a print edition for $6.99. They have also been posting regular mini-essays called “Pulp Appeal” on their website, spotlighting seminal pulp authors and characters like Conan, John Carter, Elric, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Here is the back copy from the first issue:

The editors of Broadswords and Blasters are proud to present the first issue in a new line of pulp fiction serial publications. The stories in this issue blew us away when we read them, and the overall response confirms what we’ve always suspected: Action-oriented short fiction is still a hot commodity in the 21st Century.

In this, our debut issue, you will encounter subterranean horrors, time traveling lovers, two-fisted private investigators, space Mafiosi, and torturers turned political rabble-rousers, and that’s just a sampling of the great cast of characters you’ll meet along the way. Join us in celebrating the art that is pulp fiction. And tell your friends.

Here is the complete Table of Contents.

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Guile by Constance Cooper Now Available in Paperback

Guile by Constance Cooper Now Available in Paperback

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Guile Constance Cooper paperback-smallWe’re always proud when a Black Gate author breaks out to wider success in the publishing world. That happened with Constance Cooper’s Guile, her debut novel set in the same world — and drawing on the same characters — as her acclaimed story “The Wily Thing” from Black Gate 12.

Guile was published in hardcover by Clarion Books last year. Here’s Sarah Avery from her BG review.

In the town of Wicked Ford, an orphan girl with a secret claim on high town respectability but a history in a bayou stilt village lives under an assumed name and a false claim. Yonie makes her living as a pearly, an assessor of magical objects… she’s a self-taught antiquarian with a brilliant eye for detail, but to detect and diagnose magic, she needs the help of her business partner the talking cat…

Guile is a remarkable layerwork of mysteries. From the seemingly trivial and isolated mysteries about enchanted lockets and street signs that Yonie and LaRue solve for their daily subsistence, a larger pattern emerges that demands investigation. Mysteries of personal origin run beneath them, and every relationship Yonie has with kin, allies, friends, and suitors will be changed one way or another by the end of the book. Deepest of all runs the mystery of the river’s magic and the fallen civilizations that once understood it.

Constance Cooper’s debut novel delighted me from start to finish. The worldbuilding feels thoroughly lived in, as if we could step ahead of Yonie around any corner or shrub and something amazing would already be there for us to find. The characters are richly imagined individuals, and together they add up to a social world that is both kinder and more dangerous than Yonie ever guessed. The plot runs like the river delta it’s set in, its streams parting and rejoining and braiding around obstacles until it runs clear to its conclusion.

Read Sarah’s complete review here..

The paperback edition of Guile is now avaiable from HMH Books. It was published on March 14, 2017. It is 384 pages, priced at $9.99 for both the trade paperback and digital editions.