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Lost Classics of the Pulps: Guy Boothby’s The Curse of the Snake

Lost Classics of the Pulps: Guy Boothby’s The Curse of the Snake

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Curse of the SnakeThe Curse of the Snake is the Guy Boothby title I have been waiting years to read. I previously covered the five books in his Dr. Nikola series as well as his 1899 novel, Pharos the Egyptian for Black Gate. Boothby is an author whose works have fallen into relative obscurity, but his influence was quite pervasive. A contemporary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker, he turned out works that stand up well against their more celebrated efforts. Most importantly, the influence of Dr. Nikola is felt heavily upon Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu series and the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld from Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Boothby’s great flaw was that he was a prolific author of serialized novels who made no effort to correct inconsistencies when his works were published in book form. This hurt his reputation and, along with the speed with which he produced new works, unfairly suggested he was little more than a hack.

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Dark Cults and Alien Mysteries: Warhammer 40,000: The Magos by Dan Abnett

Dark Cults and Alien Mysteries: Warhammer 40,000: The Magos by Dan Abnett

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The Magos Audiobook-big

I’ve gotten in the habit of listening to audiobooks as I take the train into Chicago every morning. Yes, it’s a little risky to be wearing headphones in the middle of that jostling crowd, completely caught up in tales spun by skilled narrators while blithely stepping out into traffic. Someday you may read a somber obituary that claims I was splatted by a fast-moving cab. But know that I died happy.

This morning I was enjoying the new Eisenhorn “novel” by Dan Abnett, The Magos, which is really a fat collection of short stories (plus a new novel). And I was completely and utterly caught up in Toby Longworth’s brilliant narration of “The Curiosity,” the short tale of a taxonomist who finds himself in a life-and-death hunt for an alien beast in the mist-crowded hills of a backward province. I found this brief review at Track of Words that let me know there are other tales featuring Valentin Drusher, magos biologis, and that makes me happy.

First published in 2003 in Inferno! magazine, Dan Abnett’s short story “The Curiosity” offers the first glimpse of Valentin Drusher, magos biologis… Dispatched to a bleak, distant province to investigate sightings of an unknown beast that’s left a trail of corpses behind it, it’s not long before he realises this is more than just an apex predator he somehow missed. Caught up in the hunt for the beast, Drusher is out of his league and in terrible danger…

Drusher may be an amateur sleuth rather than an inquisitor, but that just makes the situation that bit more dangerous. It’s a nicely self-contained story, complete with all the descriptive scene-setting and strong, effective characterisation that you’d expect from Abnett, and the slightly baffled, eccentric Drusher is instantly engaging. In the grand scheme of 40k the stakes are small, but away from the battlefields and in context of a simple, rural community there’s more than enough drama for this to be gripping and entirely satisfying.

The Magos is available in print and on audio, but you really haven’t experienced this story until you’ve listened to Longworth’s deep, resonant (and surprising versatile) voice bring it to life — preferably while watching Chicago slide by through a rain-slicked window. Highly recommended. The audio version is 20 hours, and sells for $22.90 on Audible.

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2019 edited by Paula Guran

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2019 edited by Paula Guran

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The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2019

Usually when I write a Future Treasures piece, it’s about a book that hasn’t been published yet. And that applies in this case. The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2019, the tenth volume in Paula Guran’s excellent anthology series, definitely ain’t out yet.

Now, the official publication date was yesterday, so this is a little frustrating. I look forward to this book every year. It’s the companion to my favorite Year’s Best volume, Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, and Paula is one of the most experienced editors in the business. She has a sharp eye for delightful and surprising fiction, and this year’s volume — with stories by Tim Powers, Jeffrey Ford, Simon Strantzas, Tim Lebbon, Naomi Kritzer, Mary Robinette Kowal, E. Lily Yu, Isabel Yap, Michael Wehunt, Steve Rasnic Tem, Brian Hodge, Robert Shearman, Angela Slatter, M. Rickert, and many others — looks like a terrific package. But despite having an official pub date of November 19, it’s listed as unavailable at every online outlet I’ve checked.

I assume this is something that the publisher, Prime Books, will sort out in the next few weeks (they usually do). In the meantime I shall wait patiently, as I look over the delicious Table of Contents with great anticipation. Here it is.

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New Treasures: Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

New Treasures: Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

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Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

Even today, too much of the fantasy that arrives every month feels very familiar, especially in setting. So novels that explore non-European and non-American settings have a special appeal for me. Kacen Callender’s Queen of the Conquered, on sale last week from Orbit, is a Caribbean-inspired historical fantasy, and that alone makes it interesting in my book.

What else does it have going for it? A lot of positive early buzz, for one thing. Jason Heller at NPR says it has a “stunning, satisfying conclusion,” and Alex Brown at Tor.com tells us it’s “nothing short of remarkable… it absolutely must be read.” Here’s a snippet from the starred review at Kirkus.

In a grimly plausible political fantasy–turned–murder mystery, a young woman faces the bloody consequences of her choices. Centuries ago, the pale-skinned Fjern conquered a group of Caribbean-like islands and enslaved its dark-skinned inhabitants. The islander Sigourney Rose was the sole survivor of the slaughter of her family by Fjern conspirators resentful that her mother, Mirjam, a freed slave married to a wealthy landowner, was invited to join the king’s inner circle of advisers. Resolved to revenge herself and to seize the regency, Sigourney poisons her cousin for his political position and uses her “kraft,” magical psychic abilities, to manipulate the failing mind of an orchestrator of the conspiracy… But once Sigourney reaches the royal island of Hans Lollik Helle, where the king will make his choice, nothing is as it seems… A fascinating exploration of how power corrupts and drives a person toward self-betrayal.

Queen of the Conquered is the opening novel of Islands of Blood and Storm. It was published by Orbit on November 12, 2019. It is 359 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Lisa Marie Pompilio. See all of our recent New Treasures here.

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry Harrison

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry Harrison

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Cover by Keith Roberts
Cover by Keith Roberts

Cover by Richard Powers
Cover by Richard Powers

Cover by Alan Aldridge
Cover by Alan Aldridge

An award called The Prix Jules Verne would seem to be presented in France, and, in fact, such a literary prize was given out in France from 1927 to 1933 and 1958 to 1963 for fantasy and science fiction by French authors.  However, the Prix Jules Verne that was presented from 1975 to 1980 was a Swedish award about which little is known. The first one was given to Roland Adlerberth. Rolf Ahlgren, Eugen Semitjov, and Lars-Olov Strandberg for their service to Swedish science fiction.  Subsequent awards were presented to individual authors for specific novels. The first novel to win the award was Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.  The last award before it was discontinued was presented to Harry Harrison for Make Room! Make Room!.

Make Room! Make Room! is best known for being the inspiration for the 1973 Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson film Soylent Green, although there are significant differences between the film and the novel. The novel is an interesting and atypical work.  While the protagonist, Andy Rusch, is a police detective tasked with tracking down the murderer of Big Mike O’Brien and discovering if there are political implications in Big Mike’s death, it is not a police procedural and the crime and investigation often take a back seat. Harrison also provides the identity of the killer, as well as telling parts of the story from his point of view, throughout the book.

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Vintage Treasures: Re-Birth (The Chrysalids) by John Wyndham

Vintage Treasures: Re-Birth (The Chrysalids) by John Wyndham

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Cover by Michael Herring

In the 1950s, Ballantine Books reprinted much of John Wyndham’s science fiction in the US with memorable covers by Richard Powers, including The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955), Tales of Gooseflesh and Laughter (1956), Trouble with Lichen (1960), and The Infinite Moment (1961). In the process they also made up new names for it, because, you know, America. So The Kraken Wakes became Out of the Deeps, and The Chrysalids became Re-Birth.

In the mid-70s, which was when I was discovering John Wyndham, Del Rey repackaged four of Wyndham’s most popular novels with brand new modern covers. They were:

The Midwich Cuckoos (June 1976)
Trouble with Lichen (August 1977)
Out of the Deeps (December 1977)
Re-Birth (April 1978)

Wikipedia calls The Chrysalids “the least typical of Wyndham’s major novels, but regarded by some as his best.” In a ridiculously short 3-sentence review Kirkus said it was “SF on the fantasy side.” A far more reliable reviewer, Jo Walton at Tor.com, called it, “My favourite of his books… [it] set the pattern for the post-apocalyptic novel.” It’s is my favorite as well…. but mostly because it’s the only one set in Canada (Labrador, that strange slip of Quebec that belongs to Newfoundland). Here’s a snippet from Jo comments.

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A Psychological Thriller in a Canola Field: Foe by Iain Reid

A Psychological Thriller in a Canola Field: Foe by Iain Reid

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Cover by Laywan Kwan

Foe
By Iain Reid
Gallery/Scout Press (288 pages, $16 in trade paperback/$11.99 digital, July 2, 2019)
Cover by Laywan Kwan

Junior loves the wide-open space and solitude that the country provides. He’s content sharing a cup of hot, black coffee with his wife Henrietta (Hen), feeding the chickens and putting in a good day’s work at the mill. Life is good. Until it’s unexpectedly, incredibly, not.

A flash of sinister green headlights surprises Junior and Hen, and turns out to be a harbinger of an unusual visitor who turns their quiet life upside down. Junior has been chosen as one of the first travelers to help colonize a new community in outer space. He’ll be gone for years, but to keep Hen company they’ve provided her with very familiar company.

Set in the near future in (what I interpreted as) middle America, Foe is a masterfully woven tale of suspense. Reid creates a psychological thriller in the middle of an innocuous canola field.

Each chapter brings more questions and more unease through a brilliant use of punctuation and prose. It’s a short book, thank God, as it’s hard to put down once begun. Some chapters are only two pages, and for the small amount of words used, Reid spins a deliciously complicated plot.

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: “Mackintosh Willy,” by Ramsey Campbell

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: “Mackintosh Willy,” by Ramsey Campbell

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Cover by Mark Berghash
Cover by Mark Berghash

The World Fantasy Awards are presented during the World Fantasy Convention and are selected by a mix of nominations from members of the convention and a panel of judges. The awards were established in 1975 and presented at the 1st World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island. Traditionally, the awards took the form of a bust of H.P. Lovecraft sculpted by Gahan Wilson, however in recent years the trophy became controversial in light of Lovecraft’s more problematic beliefs and has been replaced with a sculpture of a tree. The Short Fiction Award (sometimes called short story award) has been part of the award since its founding, when it was won by Robert Aickman for “Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal.” In 1980, the year Campbell received the award for the story “Mackintosh Willy,” the convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland. Campbell tied for the award with Elizabeth A. Lynn for the story “The Woman Who Loved the Moon.”

Ramsey Campbell’s story “Mackintosh Willy” was initially published in the Charles L. Grant anthology Shadows 2. It is the story of a young boy who is finding his way in the world and even the familiar can have a sinister feel to it.  In this case, the homeless man who appears to live in one of the shelters in the park near where he lives causes caution in all the children in the area, although it is not clear that the man is doing anything to gain the reputation he has.

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Tor.com on Six-Guns and Strange Shooters

Tor.com on Six-Guns and Strange Shooters

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It’s been a very good year for science fiction, horror, and dark fantasy, and overall I am content. But, you know, I’m never totally content, because really, what’s the point of that? This year my crankiness originates from a near total lack of Weird Westerns. It’s like the genre dried up and blew away in the wind in 2019.

At least there are a few Weird West books, movies and comics to fall back on. Earlier this year at Tor.com Theresa DeLucci shared her picks of some of the best in Six-Guns and Strange Shooters: A Weird West Primer, and she managed to point out more than a few I haven’t tried yet, including Emma Bull’s fantasy retelling of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Territory, and the 1990 film Dust Devil. And she reminded me I need to read more Jonah Hex. Here’s what she said about everyone’s favorite creepy gunslinger.

Forget the terrible movie. (You know Josh Brolin wishes he could.) The original 1977 DC comic is considered one of the first popular representations of the Weird West. The bounty hunter marked by a demon’s brand seeks out the West’s worst and also, sometimes, less earthly quarry. He also sometimes time travels and gets into a gun-fight with a T-Rex. Jonah Hex‘s best and creepiest run was written by east Texan horror master Joe R. Lansdale and come highly recommended.

Theresa also showcases The Etched City by K.J. Bishop, the Golgotha novels by R. S. Belcher, the great Deadlands: Reloaded RPG, and much more. Check out her article here.

See all our coverage of the best of the Weird West here.

New Treasures: The New Voices of Science Fiction edited by Hannu Rajaniemi & Jacob Weisman

New Treasures: The New Voices of Science Fiction edited by Hannu Rajaniemi & Jacob Weisman

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The New Voices of Fantasy-small The New Voices of Science Fiction-small

Covers by Camille André and Matt Dixon

Two years ago Tachyon published the groundbreaking anthology The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman. It contained fiction by Sofia Samatar, Sarah Pinsker, Amal El-Mohtar, Hannu Rajaniemi, Carmen Maria Machado, and many others, and won the 2018 World Fantasy Award, beating out some very stiff competition. (See the complete TOC here.)

Since then I’ve been wondering when the companion volume would appear, and it has finally arrived. The New Voices of Science Fiction, edited by Hannu Rajaniemi & Jacob Weisman, contains 20 stories published in the past five years by the rising stars of SF, including the Hugo award winner “The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer, Nebula winner “Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker, and Hugo and Nebula winner “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse, plus stories by Kelly Robson, Amal El-Mohtar, Rich Larson, Sam J. Miller, Lettie Prell, E. Lily Yu, and many others.

This looks like one of the major anthologies of the fall, and it has vaulted near the top of my TBR pile. It has already received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Here’s a quick look at some of that early praise.

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