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James Enge’s A Guile of Dragons Coming in August

James Enge’s A Guile of Dragons Coming in August

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a-guile-of-dragonsNice to see the print medium can still get me news in a timely fashion (even if it’s news that everybody else already knows by now).

Somewhere off the coast of Belize, on the balcony of a cruise ship about 100 miles from the nearest Internet access, I read in the latest issue of Locus magazine that Black Gate alumnus James Enge had delivered A Guile of Dragons, the first novel in A Tournament of Shadows, to Lou Anders at Pyr.

The novel is scheduled to be published on August 24. According to an interview with James at Old Game Reviewer that I dug up when I landed, it is Morlock’s origin story:

The Wolf Age did well enough that Pyr signed me to another 3-book deal. Currently I’m finishing up an origin story for Morlock. It’s called A Guile of Dragons and is due out next summer. It’s very old school fantasy in some ways — dwarves, dragons, Merlin and Nimue. (No elves, though. Everyone has to draw the line somewhere.) And it also gives us a look at Morlock’s homeland, which is a sort of anarchy where community needs are addressed by voluntary associations. It’s a sort of utopia, really — with monsters. Most utopias don’t have monsters, of course, but that’s why they lack a certain plausibility.

Pretty cool indeed. The striking cover art is by Steve Stone. Looking forward to this one.

Back on Solid Ground

Back on Solid Ground

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Our beloved founder John O'Neill, just before losing all his money at the shipboard casino.
Our beloved founder John O'Neill, just before losing all his money at the shipboard casino.

On Sunday February 5th, I returned to Chicago from a cruise with my family, my first vacation on a cruise liner and my first trip to the Caribbean.

It’s good to be home. The cruise was amazing, but poor weather and rough seas (several days of cruising through 6′ to 9′ ocean swells) eventually took their toll. Surprisingly, I never got seasick, but I did have to abandon a delicious-looking slice of tiramisu when my son abruptly turned green across the dinner table, and rush him back to our cabin. My daughter followed minutes later, looking none too healthy herself.

It wasn’t all bad weather and disappointment. The highlights were the excursions, including a sandbar 15 miles offshore of Grand Cayman where a colony of sting rays — trained by generations of fishermen who’d clean their catch in the quiet waters of the sandbar, and toss tasty fish intestines overboard — races towards any boat that approaches and cuts engines. In waist-deep water my three kids and I were mobbed by dozens of the creatures, which our guide characterized as “just like puppies.” It was an apt description. Want to know just how diverse life is on this planet? Gaze into the alien eyes of a four-foot sting ray resting in your arms before it darts off. Amazing.

My children won’t soon forget our dolphin encounter in the Honduras, either. We played with my new best friend, a 450-pound dolphin named Mauri, in the shallow waters of Anthony’s Key resort on the island of Roatan, and swam with her pod for nearly an hour. Magical. I was also taken with the Mayan ruins of Coba on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, although it was a considerable hike into the jungle to reach them. Well worth the trip.

Most of the time I spent reading, however (and checking on my queasy patients, tucked into their bunks). I didn’t finish half of the books I brought, but I was delighted to finally read The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance, and No Truce With Kings by Poul Anderson.  I was also captivated by Harry Connolly’s first novel, Child of Fire, which I read on my Kindle. If I have time, I’ll discuss more of my fiction discoveries here. But first, I have about 350 unanswered e-mail to dig through.

The Birth of Sword’s Edge Publishing

The Birth of Sword’s Edge Publishing

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SEP LogoSword’s Edge Publishing released its first product in 2004. Looking back, I think that the reason for starting the company were faulty. Not because it was self-publishing – self-publishing is considered “indy” for role-playing games and not frowned on as it is in fiction – but because myself and my initial partner in the venture wanted to publish rather than be publishers. That is an important distinction. We created SEP not because we wanted to start our own business, but because we wanted to have control over our creations. This is perhaps a laudable goal, but in hindsight I think we could have achieved artistic control without self-publishing.

In truth, while there were a few companies that might have been interested in the modern military adventures for the d20 RPG market – which is what SEP was producing – none of them were “publishers” in the sense that Wizards of the Coast (producers of Dungeons & Dragons), White Wulf (Vampire) or Steve Jackson Game (GURPS) were. Most were relatively successful self-publishers that had expanded into publishing the works of others. Given that these companies were mostly publishing PDFs and that the barrier for entry into the PDF market was low, we decided to just do it ourselves. As with punk rock, DIY has a certain cachet in RPGs. It didn’t necessarily indicate quality, but DIY certainly reflects passion.

We had that.

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Selling Shadow Ops: Control Point

Selling Shadow Ops: Control Point

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shadowopsFor my next trick, I’m going to give everyone a bunch of totally contradictory advice.

My novel Latent, which eventually became Control Point was ready for prime time (i.e. good enough to win the support of the biggest agent in the business) about 6 months before I sent it to my agent. I lost those months to a miasma of self-pity, low self-confidence and ennui.

In the end, the only reason I got up the gumption to send him the manuscript was that I was heading off to Iraq and I didn’t want to get zapped and never have him see the thing.

I’ve told this story before, but I told my agent not to tell me what he thought of it, figuring that his response (positive or negative) would distract me from what I need to be doing (like fighting a WAR).

Of course, he gets the manuscript, loves it, and spends the next four months sitting on his hands waiting for me to come home.

Add that to the six months where I was too scared to send it to him and I delayed my initial publishing deal by almost a year.

Here’s the point: You have to have guts.

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I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane (and a Boat)

I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane (and a Boat)

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carnival_legendTomorrow morning my three children and I take a flight to Tampa, where we’ll board the Carnival Legend cruise ship, sailing to the Grand Cayman Islands, Cozumel Mexico, and Belize. The trip is part of a celebration for my parents 50th wedding anniversary, so we’ll be sailing with our entire extended family. Sixteen people — minus Alice, who’s staying home because she couldn’t afford to be away from school that long. (I understand. I’m leaving my laptop, and it was a close call whether I could bear to be away from it that long).

There’s no cell phone or Internet coverage on the ship. This will be the first time I’ve been away from the Internet for more than 24 hours in over a decade. I may need to be sedated.

If you’re one of the 60-100 people who e-mail me on an average day, I apologize in advance for ignoring you. If you really need to reach me because there’s a problem with your subscription, or you sent me a story during the Civil War and I haven’t responded yet, or you’re just lonely, your best bet is probably a postcard. (I’m kidding. If you really need to reach me in the next 10 days, forget it).

I’ve never been on a cruise before. My parents (and my co-worker Corey) tell me they’re wonderful. Last time I was on a ship bigger than a rowboat, I was crossing the English channel on my honeymoon. Our brief stop-over in Dover turned into a two-night stay while I recovered from near-fatal sea sicknesses.  Our trip to Ireland had to be completely scrapped (16 hours in a ferry? No thank you!). I’m hoping the cruise ship Carnival Legend will have better stabilizers. Seven days is a long time to be clinging to a balcony railing.

I’ve spent the past week agonizing over what books to bring (come on, you know you’d do exactly the same thing). I plan to be on a deck chair on the sunny side within five minutes of departure. Here’s the final list.

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Myke Cole’s Shadow Ops: Control Point On Sale Next Week

Myke Cole’s Shadow Ops: Control Point On Sale Next Week

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shadowopsMyke Cole’s “Naktong Flow,” the tale of a desperate battle in the final stages of an apocalyptic war, was one of the most well-received pieces in Black Gate 13. Brent Knowles praised it as “The kind of story that immerses you in a world… this story is strong, with an interesting protagonist. Great!”, and Tangent Online labeled it one of the best stories of the year:

Myke Cole’s prose in “Naktong Flow” is smooth, evocative, and thoroughly professional. Some years ago he won the Writers of the Future contest, and it shows. “Naktong Flow” is set in the forest-jungles of the Far East, and follows Ch’oe, his men, their ancestor-magician, and a strange, magically-imbued wooden machine as they travel up the Naktong river in pursuit of the less-than-human creatures named the bonesetters… Think Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now and you’re on the right track.

A writer with that much promise generates a lot of expectation, and we’ve been waiting impatiently for Myke’s first novel for some time. Now the wait is finally over as Ace releases Shadow Ops: Control Point in paperback next week. I asked Myke to tell us a bit about the book, and here’s what he shared:

It’s ironic that mashups seem so popular lately, since I’m kind of a mashup myself. I’m a warrior-nerd blend of a military officer and committed fantasy/SF geek. I’m fortunate enough to make my living in both camps and those influences greatly inform my writing. My new novel Control Point is a fusion of influences: 3 tours in Iraq and a life spent perusing the fantasy mass-market wire racks and comic book shop display stands.

Here’s the official book blurb:

Across the country and in every nation, people are waking up with magical talents. Untrained and panicked, they summon storms, raise the dead, and set everything they touch ablaze.

Army officer Oscar Britton sees the worst of it. A lieutenant attached to the military’s Supernatural Operations Corps, his mission is to bring order to a world gone mad. Then he abruptly manifests a rare and prohibited magical power, transforming him overnight from government agent to public enemy number one.

The SOC knows how to handle this kind of situation: hunt him down — and take him out. Driven into an underground shadow world, Britton is about to learn that magic has changed all the rules he’s ever known, and that his life isn’t the only thing he’s fighting for.

I’ve been enjoying my early copy — the book opens with a bang, and doesn’t let up. It’s advertised as part of a new series, and is available in mass market paperback and Kindle format for $7.99 on Tuesday.

New Treasures: Kiss My Axe: Thirteen Warriors and an Angel of Death

New Treasures: Kiss My Axe: Thirteen Warriors and an Angel of Death

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kiss-my-axeLast summer I played around with Fraser Ronald’s RPG Sword Noir, a fun new game of hardboiled crime fiction in worlds of sword & sorcery.

Readers familiar with Fraser’s story in Black Gate 15, “A Pound of Dead Flesh,” will instantly get what Sword Noir is all about. The story centered on two legionnaires tangled up in a plot to cheat a very powerful necromancer, who quickly find themselves caught in a lethal web of secrets and betrayals. It’s a terrific sword-and-sorcery action piece, with characters who find skill with a sword is only slightly less critical to their survival than the ability to think on their feet — and quickly read a bad situation.

Sword Noir captured the same aesthetic in a wonderfully concise set of role playing rules, offering guidelines on crafting compelling adventures for players interested in unraveling labyrinthine plots in dark urban settings.

As the author described it: “Now is the time for your characters to walk down mean streets, drenched in rain, hidden in fog, and unravel mysteries, murders, and villainy.” (See Fraser’s complete overview in his most recent post for the Black Gate blog here).

Sword Noir was a wonderfully inventive system, and it was obvious Fraser had great ambitions for it. The fruit of those ambitions arrived this month: Kiss My Axe: Thirteen Warriors and an Angel of Death, a role-playing game of Viking adventure.

While it’s based on the underlying system from Sword Noir and the Sword’s Edge System, Kiss My Axe turns its attention to the heroics of the great Norse sagas, and the mechanics have been altered to provide more vivid and exciting combat.

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SF Signal reviews The Desert of Souls

SF Signal reviews The Desert of Souls

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the-desert-of-souls-tpSt. Martin’s Griffin re-released Howard’s The Desert of Souls as an attractive trade paperback last week. A new release means additional chances to capture attention and generate buzz, so I was pleased to spot a new review at SF Signal this week.

This one is by Paul Weimer, and here’s a taste:

Desert of Souls is the debut novel from Howard Andrew Jones. Howard Andrew Jones knows sword and sorcery… Jones is also the managing editor of Black Gate, a magazine devoted to adventure fiction, swashbuckling fun with brisk pacing and high imaginative action.

So, does Jones practice what he preaches in his debut novel, The Desert of Souls? You bet! … Dabir and Asim are swept into a tale right out of the Arabian Nights that takes them from the streets of Baghdad to the titular Desert of Souls.

Desert of Souls slides easily from Historical Fantasy to sword and sorcery in surprisingly short order (with the appearance of an animated monkey) and never loses its mise-en-scene of the 8th century Middle East. Here, the characters never take the dark magic and dark doings for granted as everyday occurrences…

In addition to entertaining action that never flags — Jones seems to have taken Van Vogt’s dictum about throwing a changeup at every turn to heart — the novel’s strength is the relationship between scholar Dabir and guard captain Asim… I enjoyed this book immensely. It had me constantly invoking the opening theme song of Aladdin in my head, and the action and adventure kept me turning the pages to find out what was going to happen next. I would be extremely interested in finding out what else Dabir and Asim get up to after the events of The Desert of Souls.

If Paul were a regular Black Gate reader, he’d know that Dabir & Asim will return this August to face shape-changing assassins, a treacherous Greek necromancer, a dangerous cabal seeking ancient magical tools of tremendous power, and a vengeful spirit intent on sheathing the world in ice for a thousand years, in The Bones of the Old Ones. Life is good.

You can read Paul’s complete review here.

Tangent Online Recommended Reading List 2011

Tangent Online Recommended Reading List 2011

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Art for Jamie McEwan's "An Uprising of One," by Jim and Ruth Keegan (from Black Gate 15).
Art for Jamie McEwan's "An Uprising of One," by Jim and Ruth Keegan (from Black Gate 15).

Over at Tangent Online long-time editor and founder Dave Truesdale has posted his annual Recommended Reading list of the best short fiction of the year, compiled from selections made by eighteen Tangent reviewers.

Tangent Online reviews virtually every science fiction and fantasy short story published annually, combing the big print magazines (including Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, and Analog), semi-professional outlets (such as Cemetery Dance, Interzone, Black Static, Weird Tales, Postscripts, On Spec, Bull Spec, Redstone SF, Albedo One, and Murky Depths), the leading online periodicals (Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Subterranean magazine) and the best anthologies published this year (Eclipse 4, Life on Mars, Like Water for Quarks, Triangulation: Last Contact, and Welcome to the Greenhouse). Just like Rich Horton, but requiring more caffeinated beverages.

This year’s list includes a total of four stories from Black Gate 15 — including two with their coveted three-star rating, their highest ranking:

  • “An Uprising of One” by Jamie McEwen (Two Stars)
  • “Into the Gathering Dark” by Darrell Schweitzer (Two Stars)
  • “Roundelay” by Paula R. Stiles (Three Stars)
  • “Purging Cocytus” by Michael Livingston (Three Stars)

Congratulations to Jamie, Darrell, Paul and Michael! The complete table of contents of Black Gate 15 is here, and you can still buy print copies through our online store for $18.95 (or as part of a bundle of two back issues for just $25). The PDF version is just $8.95.

The Kindle version, with enhanced content and color graphics, is also available through Amazon.com for just $9.99.

The complete 2011 Tangent Online Recommended Reading List  list can be found here. Last year’s list is here.

Patty on Podcastle!

Patty on Podcastle!

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bgpatty2Don’t you love it when alliteration works out like that? I do.

You know what else I love? Patty Templeton’s story, “Fruit Jar Drinkin’, Cheatin’ Heart Blues.” On Podcastle. Right now.

Templeton is one of our bold and bonny bloggers here at Black Gate Magazine. (Here is her recent interview with Jeff VanderMeer.) Templeton herself was recently interviewed about her story “Fruit Jar Drinkin’, Cheatin’ Heart Blues” (which title I will repeat as often as possible, because isn’t it a FRIKKIN GREAT TITLE???) on Silver Goggles.

“Fruit Jar Drinkin’, Cheatin’ Heart Blues” is one of fifteen “thrilling and ingenious tales” in the new anthology Steam-Powered II. I can’t say too much about the anthology; after all, Yours Truly is one of the authors featured therein, so you’ll never be able to believe a word I say!

Just kidding — it’s great! Of course it is! Patty’s in it!  So is S.L. Knapp, Jaymee Goh, Sean Holland, Jeannelle Ferreira, A.M. Tuomala, Nisi Shawl, Stephanie Lai, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Rebecca Fraimow, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Shveta Thakrar and Zen Cho. What’s not to like, man? Or, more appropriately in this case: WOMAN?