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The Novels of Michael Shea: The Mines of Behemoth

The Novels of Michael Shea: The Mines of Behemoth

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The Mines of Behemoth-smallThe last two Michael Shea novels we discussed, The Extra and Attack on Sunrise, took his career in an intriguing and very different direction. But I still admit a greater fascination with his Nifft the Lean novels, Nifft the Lean (1982), The Mines of Behemoth (1997), and The A’rak (2000). Baen Books published the last two in attractive paperback editions, with covers by Gary Ruddell, and I’ve always thought they were some of the most eye-catching sword-and-sorcery on the market.

We lost Michael last month, but very fortunately for us, he left a fine body of work behind to remember him by, including The Color Out Of Time (1984), In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985); and his highly acclaimed collections Polyphemus (1987), The Autopsy and Other Tales (2008), and Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (2010).

Nifft the Lean, and his companion-at-arms, Barnar Hammer-Hand, were often lucky. Enroute to working Costard’s sap mine — very dangerous, and sometimes nauseating work far below ground — they were shipwrecked. But this proved fortuitous, when they met Bunt, who had been seeking just such as they. If they would work the sap mine, but also bring back twenty gills of fluid, he would make them exceedingly wealthy. So it was settled. They would suck the sap from the servants of the monstrous insectile queen — and they would bring back some of the ichor that she alone exuded — and they would be rich. It seemed relatively easy. They wouldn’t have to go to hell at all, for instance.

Of course, the best laid plans sometimes do go a little astray.

The Mines of Behemoth was published in 1997 by Baen Books. It is 256 pages, with an original price of $5.99 in paperback. It is out of print and there is no digital edition.

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New Treasures: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

New Treasures: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

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Cruel Beauty Rosamund Hodge-smallRosamund Hodge’s story “Apotheosis” from Black Gate 15, was a brilliant and wholly original tale of three brothers who undertake a dangerous voyage to find a new god for their small village. She’s also been published in Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Lightspeed Magazine.

Cruel Beauty, her first novel, arrived in January, and has already received wide acclaim. I finally acquired a copy last month and it looks gorgeous. I plan to settle in with it this weekend and find out what just what wonders Rosamund has accomplished with her fairy tale source material.

The romance of Beauty and the Beast meets the adventure of Graceling in a dazzling fantasy novel about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom, Nyx has always known her fate was to marry him, kill him, and free her people from his tyranny.

But on her seventeenth birthday, when she moves into his castle high on the kingdom’s mountaintop, nothing is as she expected — particularly her charming and beguiling new husband.

Nyx knows she must save her homeland at all costs, yet she can’t resist the pull of her sworn enemy — who’s gotten in her way by stealing her heart.

Cruel Beauty was published by Balzer + Bray on January 28, 2014. It is 352 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Jon Sprunk’s Blood and Iron, Volume One of The Book of the Black Earth, on Sale Today

Jon Sprunk’s Blood and Iron, Volume One of The Book of the Black Earth, on Sale Today

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Blood and Iron Jon Sprunk-smallJon Sprunk’s highly anticipated Blood and Iron, the first book in his new series, The Book of the Black Earth, finally goes on sale today. We gave you the scoop on the book last month; last week Jon peeled back the curtain on the book’s origins in a guest post at Fantastical Imaginations.

The Book of the Black Earth series is set in the same secondary world as my Shadow Saga, but in a different region far to the east of Caim’s adventures. It follows three people as they struggle for freedom in an ancient land called Akeshia, where magic is worshipped and powerful God-Kings (and –Queens) hold the power of life and death over a vast race of people.

Horace is a shipbuilder and sailor who embarks on a Great Crusade for his country, but winds up shipwrecked on the shores of his enemy. Taken captive and made a slave, he discovers a hidden talent for sorcery, and thereby comes of the attention of the local ruling queen. Alyra is a slave. As one of the queen’s handmaidens, she is lovely, intelligent, and obedient. She is also a spy in the service of a foreign government, sent to turn the greedy eyes of the Akeshians away from her homeland. Jirom is a former mercenary turned gladiator. Dragooned into the queen’s army, he joins a group of subversive slaves who crave freedom…

One of the things I really wanted to tackle in this series was an original magic system. I played around with a few concepts until I hit on one that fit my world and my story. It plays on the basic “elemental” magic (earth, air, fire, and water) with a few twists of my own.

Jon Sprunk is the author of the Shadow Saga (Shadow’s Son, Shadow’s Lure, and Shadow’s Master) and a mentor at the Seton Hill University fiction writing program. He is a regular blogger for Black Gate. Blood and Iron was published by Pyr Books on March 11, 2014. It is 445 pages and is available in trade paperback for $18.00 ($11.00 for the digital version). Learn more at Pyr Books or read our exclusive excerpt here.

Dabir and Asim Return in Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters

Dabir and Asim Return in Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters

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Kaiju Rising Age of Monsters-smallYou want to know my three favorite things? (It’s a rhetorical question; you don’t actually have to email an answer. Seriously, don’t.) Dabir, Asim, and Kaiju. Sometimes Kaiju is #2, ’cause Asim is occasionally kind of a lunkhead.

So how awesome would it be to have Howard Andrew Jones’s Arabian adventurers Dabir and Asim in the same volume as some of the most diabolical Kaiju of the decade? (Again, rhetorical question. Stop e-mailing me stuff.) For the record, if would be thoroughly awesome.

Well, I think you can tell where this is going. Kaiju Rising, the Kickstarter-funded anthology we pulled the lid back on last September, has finally landed — and left a Godzilla-sized footprint on the industry. The Kickstarter campaign was a rousing success, raising $18,562 against a $10,0000 goal, and one of the unlocked stretch goals was a new Dabir and Asim story from the distinguished Mr. Jones. Here’s what Howard had to say about his contribution:

Monsters turn up a lot in my fiction, and Kaiju style critters wandered across the stage in the first two Dabir and Asim novels. In true Ray Harryhausen fashion, The Bones of the Old Ones features a titanic battle between a Roc (the giant predatory bird of Arabian Nights fame) and a huge spirit wolf fashioned of snow and ice.

Given my interests, I naturally jumped at the chance to create a story for Kaiju Rising. In one or two of the Dabir and Asim stories I’ve referenced a deadly encounter the boys had on the ocean, and now I’m finally setting the tale down.

Howard’s story is “The Serpent’s Heart,” and it appears alongside 22 other stories focused on the theme of gargantuan creatures in the vein of Pacific Rim, Godzilla, and Cloverfield. The authors include Larry Correia, James Lovegrove, Gini Koch (as J.C. Koch), James Maxey, C.L. Werner, Joshua Reynolds, Jaym Gates, Shane Berryhill, Natania Barron, Paul Genesse & Patrick Tracy, and many others. Howard’s tale isn’t the only one to draw on existing characters; Edward M. Erdelac’s story is set in the world of the Dead West and James Swallow contributes a Colossal Kaiju Combat tie-in.

Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters was published February 9, 2014 by Ragnarok Publications. It is a massive 493 pages, priced at $4.99 for the digital version. The print version is forthcoming; its price has not yet been announced.

Michael Shea, July 3, 1946 – February 16, 2014

Michael Shea, July 3, 1946 – February 16, 2014

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Michael Shea-smallFor all of the many obituaries I’ve written, I’ve been fortunate enough to have to write only two for Black Gate contributors: prolific short story writer Larry Tritten, and Euan Harvey, taken from us too young. So it is with a heavy heart that I report the death of Michael Shea, BG contributor and one of the most acclaimed sword & sorcery and horror writers of the last four decades.

In the early 70s, Michael picked up a battered copy of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth novel The Eyes of the Overworld in a hotel lobby in Juneau, Alaska. Four years later, he tried his hand at fan fiction, writing a novel-length sequel to Vance’s classic titled A Quest for Simbilis. Not knowing what else to do with it, Shea submitted it to Donald Wollheim at DAW Books. Jack Vance graciously granted permission for it to be published (and declined any share in the advance), and Wollheim released it in paperback in 1974. It was a finalist for the British Fantasy Award and launched Michael’s career — a career that produced some of the most acclaimed fantasy of the past four decades.

Eight years later, Michael published one of the most important works of modern sword and sorcery: Nifft the Lean, a collection of four linked novellas published in paperback by DAW in 1982. It won the World Fantasy Award and was followed by two sequels: The Mines of Behemoth (Baen, 1997) and the novel The A’rak (Baen, 2000). His other novels include The Color Out Of Time, the sequel to Lovecraft’s 1927 story “The Colour Out of Space;” In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985); and The Extra (2010) and its recent sequel Assault on Sunrise (2013). His highly acclaimed collections include Polyphemus (1987), The Autopsy and Other Tales (2008), and Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (2010).

I had the good fortune to meet Michael at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 2007. We hit it off and a few months later, I found an original novelette of Lovecraftian horror by Michael in my inbox. I was proud to publish “Tsathoggua” as part of the Black Gate Online Fiction line.

I was shocked and dismayed to find that Locus Online reported today that Michael Shea died unexpectedly on February 16, 2014. He was 67 years old. He will be sorely missed.

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Adventure On the Page: Genre Fiction vs. Joyce Carol Oates

Adventure On the Page: Genre Fiction vs. Joyce Carol Oates

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36314The more I write, the more opprobrium I feel for categorical definitions of fiction, notably “genre fiction” and “literary fiction.” I like to think I practice both, and that most readers read both. Crazier still –– lunacy, truly –– I suffer the apparent delusion that often the two categories cannot be separated, except by book vendors aiming to simplify or streamline the shopping experience.

Not long ago, I delved back into Joyce Carol Oates’s introduction to a delicious anthology, Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, and I came across this passage:

However plot-ridden, fantastical or absurd, populated by whatever pseudo-characters, genre fiction is always resolved, while literary fiction makes no such promises; there is no contract between reader and writer for, in theory at least, each work of literary fiction is original, and, in essence, “about” its own language; anything can happen, or, upon occasion, nothing.

Now –– and I say this as a long-time and self-avowed fan of your work, Ms. Oates –– them’s fightin’ words.

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Humor, Evocative Images, and Just the Right Touch of Pathos: I.F Rowan’s Welcome To The Underworld

Humor, Evocative Images, and Just the Right Touch of Pathos: I.F Rowan’s Welcome To The Underworld

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Welcome to the Underworld-smallThere are many pleasures involved in running a magazine. But nothing like watching the talented young writers you’ve published and nurtured move on to even greater success and acclaim.

Iain Rowan is a fine example. I published four of his delightful adventure fantasies in Black Gate, all featuring the clever con man/accidental exorcist Dao Shi. Since those early days, Iain has gone on to great success as a crime novelist, with his debut novel, One of Us, shortlisted for the UK Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger award. He followed that with the YA novel Sea Change, about haunted, folklore-ridden England, and two collections, Nowhere to Go and Ice Age.

He’s also published over thirty short stories, been reprinted multiple times in Year’s Best anthologies, and won a Derringer Award.

But his clever and funny Dao Shi stories — “Looking for Goats, Finding Monkeys“ (BG 6), “The Turning of the Tiles” (BG 8), “Welcome to the Underworld” (BG 10, selected for Rich Horton’s 2007 Best of the Year), and “From the Heart of the Earth to the Peaks of the Sky“ (BG 11, selected for Dave Truesdale’s 2007 SF & Fantasy Recommended Reading List) — remain my favorites. What can I say?

Now Iain has finally collected all four stories in a single volume, with an entertaining afterword discussing the tales. Published under the name I.F. Rowan — presumably to differentiate it from his crime work — Welcome to the Underworld offers a compact and economical way to read all four tales, nearly 40,000 words of adventure fantasy.

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Confessions of a Reluctant Self-Publisher — Now with extra Giveaways!

Confessions of a Reluctant Self-Publisher — Now with extra Giveaways!

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Forever In The Memory Of God-smallI’ll be giving away copies of my mini-ebook-collection Forever in the Memory of God and Other Stories to the first five commenters who ask for one. But why should you bother? Read on!

Here is a list of things I want to do: Write; make a living with my pen.

And a list of the things I don’t want to do: marketing; selling; formatting; cover design; manual reading; forum perusing; guru worshipping; elbowing my way through the pack; self-publishing…

And yet, here we are.

Once upon a time, it was all so very different. I wrote a book and the first agent I sent it to loved it. So did a large number of publishers and in no time at all, they were clawing each other’s eyes out to get access to my manuscript. Then, exactly as it had happened in all my dreams, editors were engaged in an auction for the right to publish me. Me!

My agent used to ring me once or twice a day, cackling with glee over the latest rise in the price and the shameless favours being offered, until finally, we had hitched ourselves up to a brilliant and famous editor. How could it go wrong?

Oh, it didn’t! Not yet! Because, next came foreign language publishers from every corner of the globe. They too pledged undying love for a li’l ole book called The Inferior, and what they said about the story and the characters made me blush in parts of my body that few cameras have ever seen.

I’m sick of this boasting. Can we get to the bad part?

Yes, let’s start the dive now. Or “death-spiral,” if you prefer.

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Announcing the Winners of Advance Reading Copies of Jon Sprunk’s Blood and Iron

Announcing the Winners of Advance Reading Copies of Jon Sprunk’s Blood and Iron

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Blood and Iron Jon Sprunk-smallLast month, we announced a contest to win one of two advance reading copies of Jon Sprunk’s highly anticipated fantasy epic Blood and Iron, compliments of Pyr Books. What’s that? You don’t recall the announcement? Strange — it was in the third paragraph of the post on our exclusive fiction excerpt of Blood and Iron, which we debuted right here.

You’re right. Perhaps that was a little sneaky. But plenty of readers fans did spot the contest, and we received a surprising number of entries. Attentive folks, those Sprunk fans.

The deadline for entries was February 28th. And so, early this morning, we carefully inscribed the names of each entrant on a numbered clay tablet, and then used the only scientifically-proven method of pure random number generation to select two random winners: D&D dice. Without further ado, we’re very pleased to announce the winners of two rare advance reading copies of Blood and Iron:

Travis Bingaman
Shauna Kosoris

Congratulations to the winners! It’s too late to enter the contest, but it’s not too late to discover Jon’s unique brand of heroic fantasy. Visit his blog here or stop by Black Gate every Wednesday to read his regular column.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and to Jon Sprunk and Pyr Books for sponsoring the contest. Blood and Iron will be published by Pyr Books on March 11. Read an exclusive excerpt here.

New Treasures: Shadow Ops: Breach Zone by Myke Cole

New Treasures: Shadow Ops: Breach Zone by Myke Cole

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Shadow Ops Breach Zone-smallApparently, Myke Cole never gets tired of being awesome. He wrote the awesome short story “Naktong Flow” for Black Gate 13 and all that awesome spilled over into his first novel Shadow Ops: Control Point, which Peter V. Brett called “Black Hawk Down meets the X-Men.” He was awesome when our roving reporter Patty Templeton interviewed him (totally awesome!), and in his essay “Selling Shadow Point,” which busted open a lot of myths about publishing your first fantasy novel. His second book Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier was, guess what, awesome, and he was even awesome last month at ConFusion (according to Howard Andrew Jones, who knows all about being awesome.)

Now here he is with his third novel, Shadow Ops: Breach Zone. And it’s awesome. Next time you run into Myke, do yourself a favor and ask how you, too, can become awesome.  On top of everything else, Myke’s a very gracious guy and I’m sure he’ll give you some pointers. And I bet they’ll be awesome.

The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Across the country and in every nation, people began “coming up Latent,” developing terrifying powers — summoning storms, raising the dead, and setting everything they touch ablaze. Those who Manifest must choose: become a sheepdog who protects the flock or a wolf who devours it…

In the wake of a bloody battle at Forward Operating Base Frontier and a scandalous presidential impeachment, Lieutenant Colonel Jan Thorsson, call sign “Harlequin,” becomes a national hero and a pariah to the military that is the only family he’s ever known.

In the fight for Latent equality, Oscar Britton is positioned to lead a rebellion in exile, but a powerful rival beats him to the punch: Scylla, a walking weapon who will stop at nothing to end the human-sanctioned apartheid against her kind.

When Scylla’s inhuman forces invade New York City, the Supernatural Operations Corps are the only soldiers equipped to prevent a massacre. In order to redeem himself with the military, Harlequin will be forced to face off with this havoc-wreaking woman from his past, warped by her power into something evil…

Shadow Ops: Breach Zone is the third novel in the Shadow Ops series. It was published on January 28, 2014 by Ace Books. It is 370 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions.