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Ghostly Corners in a Fictional London: Where Shadows Gather by Michael Chislett

Ghostly Corners in a Fictional London: Where Shadows Gather by Michael Chislett

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WHERE SHADOWS GATHER ~ MICHAEL CHISLETT-smallWhere Shadows Gather
Michael Chislett
Sarob Press (224 pages, £33.95/$60.00 [including shipping], July 2019)
Cover by Paul Lowe

Following his previous, acclaimed Sarob Press collection In the City of Ghosts Michael Chislett provides another bunch of ghostly tales, mostly set in the fictional London borough of Milford and the suburb of Mabbs End. Five stories are brand new, whereas eight have previously appeared in genre magazines (especially the excellent Supernatural Tales).

Chislett has a knack for creating creepy urban atmospheres, depicting sinister encounters and eerie experiences. Although, in my opinion, not up to the level of his previous collection, the present volume confirms his ability to create elegantly written, disquieting stories.

Among my favorite pieces are: “In the Garden,” an unusual story of botanical horror, where an ordinary garden of a London suburban house becomes the venue for ancient pagan forces, “Downriver,” an atmospheric tale where a walk along the Thames turns into a veritable nightmare and “The Raggy Girl”, a modern, disturbing ghost story revolving around a frightening apparition among the ruins of an old apartment building now being demolished.

A couple of stories are actually taking place overseas, such as the gloomy “The Coast Guard” set on the Baltic shore, hosting strange foxes and other horrific creatures.

The two highlights of the book are  “Mara,” an excellent, dark tale of vampirism featuring a beautiful but deadly vixen and an equally dangerous gentleman, and the outstanding “Endor,”a powerful, intoxicating mix of witchcraft, eroticism and possession.

A warning to the potential reader: if you’re interested in this book hurry up and order a copy. As usual, Sarob Press volumes have a limited print run and become quickly unobtainable.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Get a Free Sword & Sorcery Anthology from DMR Books!

Get a Free Sword & Sorcery Anthology from DMR Books!

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The Infernal Bargain and Other Stories

DMR Books, helmed by the tireless Dave Ritzlin, is one of the more exciting modern publishers of science fiction & fantasy. Bob Byrne and I shared a table with Dave at the Windy City Pulp & Paper show here in Chicago last year, and we got to see first hand how enthusiastically modern readers respond to his books.

Last month DMR released a free sample book with stories from DMR’s previous releases, upcoming titles, and a few you won’t find anywhere else. The Infernal Bargain and Other Stories contains eleven thrilling tales of swords and sorcery by Clifford Ball, Nictzin Dyalhis, Howie K. Bentley, and many others. How are the stories connected? In each one, “Mighty warriors do battle with foul demons, nefarious wizards and strange monstrosities!” Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

“The Infernal Bargain” by D.M. Ritzlin
“Thannhausefeer’s Guest” by Howie K. Bentley
“Into the Dawn of Storms” by Byron A. Roberts
“Grumfobbler” by Gael DeRoane
“The Mountains Have Eyes and the Woods Have Teeth” by Harry Piper
“The Sapphire Goddess” by Nictzin Dyalhis
“The Gift of the Ob-men” by Schuyler Hernstrom
“The Thief of Forthe” by Clifford Ball
“Black Genesis” by Mark Taverna
“Adventure in Lemuria” by Frederick Arnold Kummer, Jr.
“The Heaviest Sword” by Geoff Blackwell

Get your free digital copy right here.

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Future Treasures: The Warrior Moon by K Arsenault Rivera

Future Treasures: The Warrior Moon by K Arsenault Rivera

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The-Tigers-Daughter-small The-Phoenix-Empress-small The Warrior Moon-small

Cover art by Jamie Jones

I’ve gotten in the comfortable habit of not starting trilogies until all three books are published. It’s served me well (very well) over the years. But what happens when the third book in a series appears and you’re not sure it’s a trilogy? What if you waited all this time and and there’s still a damn cliffhanger??

I guess a life of literary ambition is never truly free of risk. The third novel in K Arsenault Rivera’s maybe-trilogy Ascendant series arrives in bookstores September 24 and, hidden on the author page of the copy the publisher sent me is a novel called Sixteen Swords (listed as “forthcoming.”) But I’ve waited impatiently to start this series ever since Liz Bourke gave a rave review to the first two novels at Tor.com.

The Tiger’s Daughter recounted the adventures of their youth from Shefali’s perspective, including Shefali’s infection the blackblood plague — the first person ever to be infected and survive, albeit changed — culminating in their marriage and Shefali’s exile by Shizuka’s uncle, the emperor. Shefali may only return to the lands ruled by the empire once she has completed an impossible quest: acquire and bring back a phoenix feather.

The Phoenix Empress is essentially two stories at once. It is the story of Shefali and Shizuka, rediscovering each other after eight years apart, facing the deep problems of their potential destinies—and it’s the story that Shizuka tells to Shefali to explain how she’s changed. Why Shizuka drinks so much and wakes nightly from nightmares, and why she has no tears to cry…

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New Treasures: Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

New Treasures: Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

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Do You Dream of Terra-Two-small Do You Dream of Terra-Two-back-smll

Cover design by Krista Vossen

I’ve recently signed up for Audible, Amazon’s downloadable audiobook service, and it’s totally changed my daily commute to downtown Chicago. I’ve finished three audiobooks in the past two weeks, and enthusiastically filled up my queue with titles from my to-be-read pile. Sure, it’s a little irritating to pay for audio versions of books I already own, but the satisfaction of finally making progress on that towering pile more than makes up for it.

If anything can interrupt that victorious clearing of the dusty pile on my night table, it’s a highly acclaimed debut. There have been a few in the last two months, and one of the most compelling is Temi Oh’s Do You Dream of Terra-Two?, which NPR calls “Gorgeous. Thoughtful. Contemplative.” And Colleen Mondor at Locus reviewed it warmly, saying:

This book is a doorstop, but it’s also an incredibly unique and realistic space novel that will give read­ers a lot to think about and should not be missed… various space agencies have been working on various plans to reach a distant planet, Terra-Two, and have begun a colonization project. As humans have already been to Mars and there are other missions slightly beyond that point, reaching Terra-Two is not im­possible. The problem is that it will take over 20 years to get there, and so the first astronauts need to be very young when they depart. The solution is a space academy for teenagers and a selection of six of them to launch, with four older, experi­enced astronauts, when the younger “beta” group is under 20 years old….

In most space operas, there is an attack or some other horrific drama brought upon the people traveling in space. There certainly is, eventually, something dramatic that happens to the crew of the Damocles (spoiler alert: no aliens), but most of the narrative involves itself with the quieter dramas involved in the reality of this great commitment the young crew has made… once on Damocles, once they have settled into what will become a years-long rhythm of life and work, then the proverbial wheels start to come off the bus… Do You Dream of Terra-Two? is not the usual sort of space novel; it’s an investment in relation­ships, a look at how complicated the social aspects of interstellar space travel will likely be. Temi Oh takes big risks with this big novel, and I think she accomplishes some big things. It’s not what you expect but, in every important way, it’s what you really need to read.

I haven’t decided yet if Do You Dream of Terra-Two? will displace any of the titles on my Audible queue, but I did pick up a print copy. It was published by Saga Press on August 13, 2019. It is 532 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback and $7.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Krista Vossen. See all our recent New Treasures here.

Of Horizons and Common Sense Lost

Of Horizons and Common Sense Lost

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51G8TVzla+L._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_I recently got around to reading Gerry Conway’s introduction to Marvel’s Deadly Hands of Kung Fu Omnibus, Volume One for a forthcoming article. If there was a retroactive Astounding Award for Best Self-Loathing Writer of 2016, Mr. Conway would surely be a contender. There is nothing wrong with a writer looking back in some embarrassment over past work or even admitting their good intentions now seem naive from the vantage point of the present, but Mr. Conway apologizes so profusely for several thousand words one would be forgiven for thinking he committed a capital crime.

Truth be told, Mr. Conway’s unforgivable sin was his cultural appropriation in daring to cast people of color as heroes in his fiction of the 1970s. For you see, by some cruel twist of fate, he had the misfortune to be born to a white family and raised in a white neighborhood in the 1950s. Personally, I thought his having created diverse characters to appeal to minority readers and encourage tolerance among all readers in the decade following the Civil Rights movement is something he should be proud of, but apparently not so.

What’s more, all of his wailing and grinding of teeth is in the form of an introduction to a volume reprinting the work he is so ashamed of. One wonders what the purpose is of writers telling readers who just spent money buying reprints of their work how truly offensive those same works are. Given that Mr. Conway spent much of his career at Marvel Comics channeling Stan Lee’s voice, one wonders why Stan Lee isn’t likewise condemned for cultural appropriation for creating Black Panther and the Utopian nation of Wakanda. Of course, logical thinking isn’t advisable in a society that feeds off emotional reactions to maintain a constant state of division.

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Vintage Treasures: Minds Unleashed, edited by Groff Conklin

Vintage Treasures: Minds Unleashed, edited by Groff Conklin

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Minds Unleashed-small Minds Unleashed-back-small

Minds Unleashed, Tempo Books, 1970. Cover by, well, no one really knows.

You know what I try hard to do every day? Not sit around and talk about the good ‘ole days. It takes effort, let me tell you.

Not that everything was better in the good ‘ole days, Lord knows. But you could get terrific original anthologies in spinner racks at the supermarket for under a buck, and let’s face it, that’s what really matters.

Anthologies like Groff Conklin’s Minds Unleashed (Tempo, 1970). Just look at that gorgeous cover. A big red brain with a glowing blue ball representing… I dunno? The super brainpower we’d all have fifty years in the future, probably? I love it. I don’t love that Tempo Books was such a low-budget operation that they couldn’t afford to tell you who painted the damn cover, but these are the burdens we live with. Mind you, if you do the math, that far-off future fifty years after 1970 is… the year 2020. Which means my blue floaty brainball should show up any day now. Come on, future brainpower.

While we’re waiting, we can all can help prepare our superbrains by reading great science fiction stories about “the potential of human imagination and the range of strength of human intelligence” by Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, Murray Leinster, Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Eric Frank Russell, Isaac Asimov, William Tenn, and many others. Let’s have a look at the table of contents.

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Debut Novels

The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Debut Novels

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Cover by Ian Wright
Cover by Ian Wright

Cover by Larry Kresek
Cover by Larry Kresek

Wereblood
Wereblood

Taking a break from award winners, several authors published their first novels in 1979.  Some of these authors had previously published short stories and one notable one was active in radio and television and wound up winning several awards for work done in 1979 (Douglas Adams).  Here is a look at some of the debut novels of 1979.

Perhaps the biggest splash for a debut novel in 1979 was Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, although it was really a novelization and abridged version of his radio show of the same title, which had previously aired in 1978. The novel, of course, sparked a series of five novels by Adams, plus one more by Eoin Colfer, and adaptations for stage, television, screen, and upcoming, a streaming service. A satire on the tropes of science fiction, the absurdity of the situations and responses in the books hit a nerve with the public and have expanded beyond the genre, with people who haven’t read science fiction at least recognizing that the number 42 is a cultural touchstone.

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New Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019, edited by Rich Horton

New Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019, edited by Rich Horton

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The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019-smallThe latest volume of Rich Horton’s Year’s Best snuck up on me. I know, I’m supposed to be on top of these things. For some reason I was expecting it later in the year, but it popped up in my Amazon cart last week, in stock and everything.

Rich produces my favorite Year’s Best every year, but hasn’t always seemed totally comfortable with all the trappings of being an editor. He hasn’t shown the same enthusiasm for lengthy introductions or Yearly Summations that Gardner Dozois famously did, for example. But in the last few years Rich seems to have really found his voice, and these days I find I really enjoy his intros. He avoids Gardner’s critical edge, for example, focusing instead on the collegial nature of the science fiction community.

This year he gives an affectionate shout out to his nominal competitors for your Best of the Year dollars, including editors Jonathan Strahan, Ellen Datlow, Neil Clarke, and even Gardner, who passed away last year, shortly before his Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection was released, ending an era. Have a look.

There are a lot of Best of the Year volumes in our field, and frankly I recommend them all. One of the features of SF in 2018 is how much of it there is. There’s enough short fiction that the Hugo shortlist can very nearly ignore men, and still be mostly full of strong stories. (There are a couple of duds, but so it always was.) There’s enough that both the Hugo and Nebula shortlists can completely ignore the traditional print SF magazines (F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog, and Interzone, let’s say), and still be mostly full of strong stories. How then to resolve that issue? Read as many of the Best of the Year volumes as you can, I say! (And, hey, why not subscribe to one of the print magazines, if that’s possible? And try some original anthologies as well.)

The main distinction, of course, for each of these books is the editor’s individual tastes. (Or so Hannibal Lecter tells us)… if I think my book is the best — and I do! — it’s for the obvious reason that my personal taste aligns pretty closely with the editor’s! But that said, I am abashed year after year to realize that Jonathan or Ellen or Neil or one of the other editors, (or, sigh, Gardner!) has chosen a gem or two I really should have taken myself.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents for the 2019 volume of The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy.

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Vintage Treasures: Strange Invasion by Michael Kandel

Vintage Treasures: Strange Invasion by Michael Kandel

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Strange Invasion-small Strange Invasion-back-small

Bantam Spectra Special Edition (1989), cover by Edwin B. Hirth, III

Michael Kandel began his career translating Stanislaw Lem’s Polish novels into English, including The Futurological Congress, The Cyberiad, and The Star Dairies. He was twice nominated for a National Book Award for his efforts. In 1989 he published his first novel with Bantam Spectra, Strange Invasion, followed quickly by In Between Dragons (1990), Captain Jack Zodiac (1991), and Panda Ray (1996). Since then he’s been writing mostly short fiction, most recently two stories in Gordon van Gelder’s 2017 anthology Welcome to Dystopia.

At the time Strange Invasion appeared, Bantam Spectra was the most prestigious imprint in the business. Founded by Lou Aronica when he was just 27 years old, its first release was David Brin’s Startide Rising (1983), which claimed a Hugo and a Nebula award. Spectra followed up with multiple hits, including Neal Stephenson’s debut Snow Crash (1992) and bestsellers from Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Raymond Feist, William Gibson, and Neil Gaiman — and, in 1996, a little book called A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin. His acclaimed Full Spectrum anthology series ran for five volumes. Before he left Bantam in 1994, Aronica acquired five consecutive Nebula Award winners. In recent years the imprint has become moribund, and I believe it is now dead.

Strange Invasion came in 5th in the annual Locus Award for Best First Novel. But it has never been reprinted, and hasn’t seen a lot of modern attention. In some quarters it is still considered a modern classic, however. For example, here’s Don Web’s review at Bewildering Stories.

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The Dawn of Comics in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

The Dawn of Comics in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

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It isn’t often that comic books are a legitimate topic in works of literature, or that when they are, the book in question wins a Pulitzer. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon, is such a novel. It was published in 2000 to near universal acclaim. It tells the story of two Jewish cousins from 1939 to 1953.

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