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Guilds, Glasses, and Galaxies: Joshua Palmatier’s 2018 Kickstarter Anthologies

Guilds, Glasses, and Galaxies: Joshua Palmatier’s 2018 Kickstarter Anthologies

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Guilds and Glaives-small Second Round A Return to the Ur-Bar-small The Razor's Edge Joshua Palmatier-small

There’s a lot of different ways to have a career in SF and fantasy. Don’t believe me? Just look at the fascinating case of Joshua Palmatier.

Over the last decade Joshua has built a formidable reputation as an author, producing both an acclaimed fantasy trilogy (The Throne of Amenkor) and a popular science fiction trilogy (Erenthrall) with DAW books. Not content with merely being an author, he partnered with Patricia Bray to co-edit a pair of DAW anthologies, After Hours: Tales from the Ur-Bar (2011), and The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity (2012). Shortly after that DAW ended their monthly anthology program. Undaunted, Joshua launched his own small press, Zombies Need Brains, and over the next three years produced half a dozen additional anthologies with editors Bray and S.C. Butler. As author, editor, and now publisher, Joshua has moved steadily from success to success.

2018 was perhaps his most ambitious and successful year yet. He delivered three complete anthologies funded with a simultaneous Kickstarter campaign, and successfully funded three more in October. I’m not much of a Kickstarter nut, but I backed the first project. Not simply due to my admiration for Joshua (which was considerable), but because one of the books, Guilds & Glaives, contained stories from no less than four Black Gate authors: David B. Coe, James Enge, Howard Andrew Jones, and Violette Malan. The others, Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar and The Razor’s Edge, were almost as appealing for different reasons, and I consider the set to be one of the best-kept secrets of genre publishing in 2018. Here’s a closer look at all three.

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James Davis Nicoll asks Who Are the Forgotten Greats of Science Fiction?

James Davis Nicoll asks Who Are the Forgotten Greats of Science Fiction?

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Apocalypses R.A. Lafferty-small West of the Sun-small The House on the Borderland-small

As we close out 2018, I’m proud to look back at the last twelve months and all the new authors we’ve championed and celebrated. Dozens of debut novels, and hundreds of new short stories, from a lively graduating class of SF and fantasy writers. Of course, Black Gate isn’t just about the new — we try to spend just as many pixels illuminating the neglected writers of the Twentieth Century, who become more forgotten with each passing year.

We published hundreds of reviews, retrospectives, and Vintage Treasures posts about the forgotten greats of the genre here at Black Gate in 2018. But some of my favorite articles appeared at other venues, including Unbound Worlds, the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, and The Verge. One of the better writers showcasing classics this year was James Davis Nicoll, who in a September article at Tor.com asked Who Are the Forgotten Greats of Science Fiction?

To answer the question he looked at the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, which he rightly laments as underappreciated (“I wish the award were more widely known, that it had, perhaps, its own anthology. If it did, it might look a bit like this.“) James did his part to promote the award by showcasing the winners, including masters such as R.A. Lafferty, William Hope Hodgson, Edgar Pangborn, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Leigh Brackett, Fredric Brown, Mildred Clingerman, and others. Here’s James on three of my favorites.

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Birthday Reviews: Connie Willis’s “D.A.”

Birthday Reviews: Connie Willis’s “D.A.”

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Cover by James Gurney
Cover by James Gurney

Connie Willis was born on December 31, 1945.

Willis has won the Hugo Award eleven times and the Nebula Award seven times. Her joint winners include the short story “Even the Queen,” the novelette “Fire Watch,” the novella “The Last of the Winnebagos,” and the novel Doomsday Book and the two-part novel Blackout/All Clear. Her Nebula only wins were the short story “A Letter from the Clearys” and the novelette “At the Rialto.” Her Hugo wins were for the short stories “Death on the Nile” and “The Soul Selects Her Own Society: Invasion and Repulsion: A Chronological Reinterpretation of Two of Emily Dickinson’s Poems: A Wellsian Perspective,” the novellas “The Winds of Marble Arch,” “Inside Job,” and “All Seated on the Ground,” and the novel To Say Nothing of the Dog. Her novel Lincoln’s Dreams won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. To Say Nothing of the Dog also won the Prix Ozone, Kurd Lasswitz Preis, and Ignotus Award. Doomsday Book also won the Ignotus and Kurd Lasswitz. Willis won additional Ignotus Awards for the stories “Even the Queen,” “Why the World Didn’t End Last Tuesday,” and in 2000, her stories “Nonstop to Portales” and “Chance” tied each other.

Willis won the Forry Award from LASFS in 1999 and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2011 she received the Robert A. Heinlein Award from the Heinlein Society. She was named a Grand Master by SFWA in 2012. Willis was the guest of honor at LACon IV, the 64th Worldcon, held in Los Angeles in 2006 and served as Toastmaster at the 2011 World Fantasy Con in San Diego.

“D.A.” was written for the anthology Space Cadets, published in coordination with LACon IV, the Worldcon, in 2006 where Willis was guest of honor and edited by Mike Resnick. It was selected by Jonathan Strahan for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume One and was also reprinted as a chapbook by Subterranean Press in 2007. In 2018 it was included in the Connie Willis collection Terra Incognita, published by Del Rey.

In the distant future, Theodora is a high school student whose goal is to get into UCLA, unlike most of the students in her class who hope to get an appointment to become a cadet at the Academy to go into space. Unfortunately for her classmates, only 300 people are selected for the Academy each year, so when one of the students at Theodora’s school is selected, it is a major event and a mandatory assembly is held. To everyone’s surprise, Theodora is announced as the lucky appointee, despite the fact that she never applied and didn’t go through the interview process.

The strongest points of the story are when Willis looks at Theodora’s attempts to figure out how she managed to get into the Academy and get acclimatized, or fight against getting acclimatized, to life in outer space. Her only lifeline and support is her friend Kimkim, back on Earth and using her prodigious hacking skills to open a line of communication with Theodora and try to help her work her way through the Academy.

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The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on Their Favorite Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2018

The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on Their Favorite Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2018

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Senlin Ascends-small Foundryside-small Vita Nostra-small

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and, if you’ve been paying attention at all, you’re doubtless stumbled on a few Best Books of the Year lists. I’ve seen over two dozen, and they are not all created equal. One of the best for true SF & fantasy fans is The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog list of their Favorite Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2018, which includes 25 novels, 12 “Alternate Universe” Picks, and 13 of The Year’s Best Collections & Anthologies. It was compiled by Joel Cunningham; here’s a few of his selections.

Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft (Orbit, 448 pages, $15.99 trade paperback/$4.99 digital, January 16, 2018)

Bancroft’s buzzy debut was already a self-published sensation in ebook when Orbit acquired the rights to publish in print, with three sequels to follow in short order. It’s set in a steampunk universe whose main feature is the Tower of Babel, a legendary tourist attraction that soars endlessly into the sky, shrouded in clouds. No one knows how high the tower goes, and it seems to contain an infinite number of rooms, all of them unique. Thomas, a small town schoolteacher, and his beloved wife Marya take their honeymoon at the Tower, but Thomas loses his new bride in the immense crowd milling about the base. Desperate to find her, he begins to climb the Tower in hopes of finding her. Every room he enters is a world unto itself, as detailed and deeply imagined as any described in entire novels. Thomas finds himself in a mental and physical battle with various factions and personalities as he slowly ascends the tower and learns its secrets — well, some of them, at least. Deeply strange and instantly addictive, it’s one of the most original fantasy novels in years — and book two, Arm of the Sphinx (released in May) might be even better. Read our review.

The third book in Bancroft’s The Books of Babel series, The Hod King, is scheduled to be published on January 22, 2019.

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New Treasures: Zenith by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings

New Treasures: Zenith by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings

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Zenith the Androma Saga-small Zenith the Androma Saga-back-small

I order a lot of books online, and I’m pretty procedural about it. I make regular orders from my favorite sellers, but I have a limited budget and — between novels, anthologies, video games, board games, graphic novels, and blu-rays — a lot of things that catch my eye every month. So I debate long and hard before pulling that new Andy Duncan collection out of my cart to make room for that discounted copy of Dark Souls II.

On the other hand, my bi-weekly trip to Barnes & Noble is a lot more fun, because it’s all about the impulse buy. I’ve brought home a lot of exciting discoveries that way, simply because I give myself the freedom to buy those books that leap off the shelves into my hands.

I usually make a beeline for the SF books. But last month I parked myself in the Young Adult section, three huge and very colorful bookcases, and took the time to browse the latest. Because I already had a decent stack of magazines, I limited my take to a single book.

It was tougher than I expected. When you really take the time to browse, there’s a whole lot to interest the SF and fantasy fan in the YA section, believe me. In the end, my selection surprised me. The book that won out over all the others was an instant New York Times bestseller by two popular YA writers, a tale of an all-girl crew of space privateers getting caught up in “a dark and complex sci-fi drama” (Library Journal), and it just screamed fun. Young Adult it may be (and a romance, to boot), but this book is currently on the top of my TBR pile. Way to go, space girls.

Zenith, the first novel in The Androma Saga, was published by Harlequin Teen on July 31, 2018. It is 556 pages, priced at $9.99 in trade paperback and $1.99 in digital format. The cover was designed by Mark Luna. Read an excerpt at USA Today.

Fantastical Crime Noir for the New Year: Crazy Town edited by Jason M. Waltz

Fantastical Crime Noir for the New Year: Crazy Town edited by Jason M. Waltz

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Crazy Town cover-small

Jason M. Waltz may be our favorite independent publisher. His publishing house Rogue Blades Entertainment, newly relocated to Texas, is celebrating its first 2018 release: Crazy Town: A Dark Anthology of Fantastical Crime Noir, and it looks very good indeed.

Jason earned his rep with top-notch titles such as Return of the Sword (2008), Rage of the Behemoth (2009), Demons (2010), and Writing Fantasy Heroes (2013), with original contributions from Brandon Sanderson, Howard Andrew Jones, James Enge, E.E. Knight, Glen Cook, Orson Scott Card, Steven Erikson, Bill Ward, Mary Rosenblum, C.L. Werner, Brian Ruckley, Andrew Offutt, Richard K. Lyon, Cat Rambo, Janet and Chris Morris, and many others.

His latest book is a dark anthology of fantastical crime noir, with a forward by Peter McLean (Drake, Priest of Bones) and new and reprint tales from Jay Caselberg, Michael Ehart, Milo James Fowler, Julie Frost, Matthew Chabin, and many others. Jason has scoured far and wide for the best tales of dark urban adventure, and Crazy Town includes stories from Bards & Sages Quarterly, Dark Wisdom, Damnation and Dames, Liquid Imagination, David M. Donachie’s collection The Night Alphabet, and other fine publications, plus half a dozen pieces original to this book.

Here’s the back cover text and full TOC.

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In 500 Words or Less: Short Fiction Roundup #2!

In 500 Words or Less: Short Fiction Roundup #2!

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Rich-Horton-Years-Best-SF-2017-medium The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017 Rich Horton-small

To round out the calendar year, I decided it’s high time I wrote up another Short Fiction Roundup. I will freely admit I read way more novels than short fiction, but here are some of my recent reads that I want to spotlight:

The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 Edition

Yes, I realize we’re at the end of 2018, and yes, this edition means stories from 2016. Best Of anthologies are always hit or miss with me, since critic appeal and mass market appeal don’t always mean the same thing. But I was pleasantly surprised here.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Dress Rehearsal” starts with a theater troupe escaping a dangerous patronage and takes a wild turn involving devilish creatures given a furlough from Hell. In “All That Robot Shit,” my Ottawa buddy Rich Larson provides a post-apocalyptic Castaway setting featuring robots that’s equal parts touching and hilarious (which is consistent with Rich). And Charlotte Ashley’s story of honor and respect between paired nemeses in “A Fine Balance” is coupled with the thrills of master warriors hunting each other in the streets. (Oh, and check out Charlotte’s Archipelago project, too!). There are a bunch of other engaging stories here, and I’ll be checking out Rich Horton’s 2018 edition for sure.

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Birthday Reviews: George Zebrowski’s “Lords of Imagination”

Birthday Reviews: George Zebrowski’s “Lords of Imagination”

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Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts

Cover by Bob Eggleton

George Zebrowski was born in Austria on December 28, 1945. He is married to author Pamela Sargent.

In 1999 Zebrowski’s novel Brute Orbits won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. In 2000 he and Sargent were presented with the Service to SFWA Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He has also been nominated for the Nebula Award for Short Story three times, for “Heathen God,” “The Eichmann Variations,” and for “Wound the Wind.” Zebrowski has collaborated on fiction with Sargent, Charles Pellegrino, Jack Dann, Gerald Hull, and Grant Carrington. He has co-edited anthologies with Thomas N. Scortia, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, Dann, and Gregory Benford.

Zebrowski first published  “Lords of Information” in the Spring 1990 issue of Science Fiction Review, edited by Elton Elliott. He substantially reworked the story and retitled it “Lords of Imagination” for its reprinting in his collection Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts in 2006.

“Lords of Imagination” is not just a rumination on the role of science fiction in the world of the future once aliens discover Earth and make it a protectorate, but is also a look at the role science fiction plays in our own time, partly, according to Zebrowski’s character, as a means of preparing mankind for the eventual discovery of alien species, and, by extension, technological and cultural advancement as well.

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Vintage Treasures: Strange Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson

Vintage Treasures: Strange Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson

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Strange Dreams Stephen R Donaldson-small Strange Dreams Stephen R Donaldson-back-small

Bantam Spectra cover by Gervase Gallardo

Twenty-five years ago oversized trade paperbacks fantasy anthologies were few and far between. Today they’re the default, but in the early 90s, when original anthologies routinely appeared as mass markets paperbacks, you had to be something special to warrant the deluxe trade paper format. (Nowadays, of course, the mass market anthology is long dead, but that’s a subject for a different post.)

Strange Dreams was something special. In the early 90s Stephen Donaldson was one of top-selling fantasy writers on the planet, with the bestelling Mordant’s Need and Chronicles of Thomas Covenant to his credit. In his introduction he relates how the book came about as a result of a conversation with master anthologist Martin H. Greenberg.

We were discussing the basis on which I might be willing — or indeed able — to pull together a collection, and I quickly dismissed the traditional anthological fundaments: Historical Development (where fantasy came from and how it grew); Defense of Genre (why fantasy is written); Technical Display (how fantasy can be written); and Thematic Modulation (what fantasy has to say about X and Y)… once all these bases have been diminished, why bother to do a collection at all?

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Birthday Reviews: Keith Taylor’s “Sepulchres of the Undead”

Birthday Reviews: Keith Taylor’s “Sepulchres of the Undead”

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The Secret History of Vampires
The Secret History of Vampires

Keith Taylor was born on December 26, 1946 in Tasmania.

Taylor has won the Ditmar Award twice. His first win was in 1982 for his short story “Where Silence Rules.” He won a second time in 1987 for his novel Bard III: The Wild Sea. He has been nominated for four additional Ditmar Awards as well as an Aurealis Award.

“Sepulchres of the Undead” appeared in the anthology The Secret History of Vampires, edited by Darrell Schweitzer, in 2007. The story has never been reprinted.

The great pyramids of Egypt have held a fascination for people for millennia. In “Sepulchres of the Undead,” Taylor explains that they are not simply vast monuments to the egos of the early Pharaohs, but actually served an important purpose. After Menkhaf kills a large bat on one of the pyramids, he learns that the pharaohs and their families are actually a separate race from most Egyptians. They are all, to some extent, vampires, and the great tombs are designed to ensure that their corpses are protected from humans and nature, for as long as their corpses remain, the vampires will retain the ability to change shapes and terrorize the population.

Menkhaf is warned that having killed a vampire, and specifically Pharaoh Khufu’s mother, he is a marked man. He joins the Brotherhood of Ra, a group dedicated to destroying the vampires among them. At the same time Prince Hemiunu, the pharaoh’s nephew and a partial vampire, is also out to destroy the vampires. The two vampire killers allow Taylor to play with different tactics, but they also muddy the waters of the story since he never really knits their plans, attacks, or stories, together. In fact, Menkhaf seems to be forgotten by the author as Hemiunu’s plans come to fruition. The resulting story has some interesting ideas regarding both vampires and Egyptian history, but doesn’t quite pull them together.

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