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The Funny and Frightening Tale of the Supernatural Demise of London: Magicals Anonymous by Kate Griffin

The Funny and Frightening Tale of the Supernatural Demise of London: Magicals Anonymous by Kate Griffin

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Stray Souls Kate Griffin-small The Glass God Kate Griffin-small

Catherine Webb is an extraordinary young writer. Under her own name she’s published several popular YA novels, including four novels in the Carnegie Medal-nominated Horatio Lyle mystery series, featuring a scientist and occasional sleuth in Victorian London. She writes science fiction under the name Claire North, including the Campbell Award-winning The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014) and the World Fantasy Award nominee The Sudden Appearance of Hope (2016), among many others. And under the name Kate Griffin she writes fantasy for adults.

It’s her Kate Griffin novels that interest me most — especially her Magicals Anonymous novels about an apprentice shaman (and Community Support Officer for the Magically Inclined) in London. SciFi Now said the opening volume Stray Souls (2012) “Flawlessly balances horror and humor to… pull off a funny yet frightening read about the supernatural-induced demise of London.”

So far there has only been one sequel, The Glass God (2013), but I’m hopeful there will be more. Here’s the descriptions for both novels.

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Future Treasures: Barbary Station by R. E. Stearns

Future Treasures: Barbary Station by R. E. Stearns

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Barbary Station-smallPirates, space stations, and a killer A.I… these are the promising ingredients in R. E. Stearns’ debut SF novel Barbary Station, in which two engineers hijack a spaceship to join a band of space pirates — only to discover the pirates are hiding from a malevolent AI. To join the pirate crew, they first have to prove themselves by outwitting the AI… how hard can that be? Barbary Station arrives in hardcover from Saga Press on Halloween.

Adda and Iridian are newly minted engineers, but aren’t able to find any work in a solar system ruined by economic collapse after an interplanetary war. Desperate for employment, they hijack a colony ship and plan to join a famed pirate crew living in luxury at Barbary Station, an abandoned shipbreaking station in deep space.

But when they arrive there, nothing is as expected. The pirates aren’t living in luxury — they’re hiding in a makeshift base welded onto the station’s exterior hull. The artificial intelligence controlling the station’s security system has gone mad, trying to kill all station residents and shooting down any ship that attempts to leave — so there’s no way out.

Adda and Iridian have one chance to earn a place on the pirate crew: destroy the artificial intelligence. The last engineer who went up against the AI met an untimely end, and the pirates are taking bets on how the newcomers will die. But Adda and Iridian plan to beat the odds.

There’s a glorious future in piracy… if only they can survive long enough.

Barbary Station will be published by Saga Press on October 31, 2017. It is 448 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition.

See all our recent coverage of the best upcoming SF ans Fantasy here.

Check out the Table of Contents for The Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume Four, edited by Helen Marshall and Michael Kelly

Check out the Table of Contents for The Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volume Four, edited by Helen Marshall and Michael Kelly

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The Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume 4-small The Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume 4-back-small

It’s always a delight when The Year’s Best Weird Fiction arrives, as I consistently find it one of the most eclectic and eye-opening of the Year’s Best volumes. All of them introduce me to new writers and fiction venues, but I don’t think any do it with the same regularity as Year’s Best Weird Fiction.

The series is edited by a different guest editor every year; Canadian author Helen Marshall is at the reins for 2017. The series editor is Undertow’s distinguished publisher, Michael Kelly. This year’s volume includes stories from Jeffrey Ford, Dale Bailey, Usman T. Malik, Sam J. Miller, Sarah Tolmie, Indrapramit Das, and many others. It arrived in trade paperback from Undertow Publications earlier this month.

And while we’re talking about the book, I have to say a few words about Alex Andreev’s fantastically creepy cover, which may be my favorite cover art of 2017. I’ve seen it multiple times, but didn’t notice anything particularly unsettling about it until I tracked down a high-res version for this article. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Click the image above left to view a high-resolution version, and see what I mean. Warning: not for the squeamish. (Which in this case definitely includes me. Brrrr.)

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New Treasures: Blackwater: The Complete Saga by Michael McDowell

New Treasures: Blackwater: The Complete Saga by Michael McDowell

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Blackwater The Complete Saga-back-small Blackwater The Complete Saga-small

Last year author Nathan Ballingrud dashed off a brief Facebook post about Michael McDowell’s 6-volume Blackwater series, originally published in paperback by Avon in 1983. Nathan said, in part:

I’m in the midst of reading Blackwater, by Michael McDowell. It is, you might say, as if The Shadow over Innsmouth was written as a generational family saga set in rural Alabama. It is strange, funny, warm, and frightening, and a true pleasure to read.

That triggered a lengthy quest for the books, which I chronicled here. I was never able to track down all six volumes, although I did manage to locate the Science Fiction omnibus collection of the first three. So I was very pleased to hear that the industrious folks at Valancourt Books have published a massive one-volume edition of the entire series. It was released in hardcover and trade paperback earlier this month; both editions feature a full wraparound cover by MS Corley.

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Future Treasures: The Art of the Pulps edited by Douglas Ellis, Ed Hulse and Robert Weinberg

Future Treasures: The Art of the Pulps edited by Douglas Ellis, Ed Hulse and Robert Weinberg

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The Art of the Pulps Doug Ellis-small

Ed Hulse, editor and co-founder of pulp zine Blood ‘n Thunder, collector extraordinaire Robert Weinberg, and collector (and Black Gate blogger) Doug Ellis have teamed up to produce what may be my most anticipated book of 2017: The Art of the Pulps, a gorgeous 240-page celebration of the magazines that gave birth to the heart and soul of modern Pop Culture. Miss this book at your peril.

Experts in the ten major Pulp genres, from action Pulps to spicy Pulps and more, chart for the first time the complete history of Pulp magazines — the stories and their writers, the graphics and their artists, and, of course, the publishers, their market, and readers.

Each chapter in the book, which is illustrated with more than 400 examples of the best Pulp graphics (many from the editors’ collections — among the world’s largest) is organized in a clear and accessible way, starting with an introductory overview of the genre, followed by a selection of the best covers and interior graphics, organized chronologically through the chapter. All images are fully captioned (many are in essence “nutshell” histories in themselves). Two special features in each chapter focus on topics of particular interest (such as extended profiles of Daisy Bacon, Pulp author and editor of Love Story, the hugely successful romance Pulp, and of Harry Steeger, co-founder of Popular Publications in 1930 and originator of the “Shudder Pulp” genre).

With an overall introduction on “The Birth of the Pulps” by Doug Ellis, and with two additional chapters focusing on the great Pulp writers and the great Pulp artists, The Art of the Pulps covers every aspect of this fascinating genre; it is the first definitive visual history of the Pulps.

F. Paul Wilson provides the Foreword. The Art of the Pulps will be published by IDW Publishing on October 24, 2017. It is 240 pages, priced at $49.99 in hardcover. There is no digital edition.

Battlefield Looters in the Kingdom of the Dead: The Corpse-Rat King Novels by Lee Battersby

Battlefield Looters in the Kingdom of the Dead: The Corpse-Rat King Novels by Lee Battersby

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The-Corpse-Rat-King-small The Marching Dead-small

I bought Lee Battersby’s debut novel The Corpse-Rat King back in 2013, mostly because it had skeletal warriors on the cover. As a child raised on Ray Harryhausen movies, that was pretty much irresistible.

I totally missed the sequel, The Marching Dead, released in March 2013. I corrected that mistake last month, and settled in with the book last night. In this installment professional battlefield looters Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice Gerd, together with Gerd’s not-dead-enough Granny, journey across the continent to solve the riddle of why the dead have stopped dying, and to return them to the afterlife where they belong. Both books were paperback originals from Angry Robot with covers by Nick Castle; here’s the publishing deets.

The Corpse-Rat King (416 pages, $7.99 paperback/$1.99 digital, August 28, 2012)
The Marching Dead (411 pages, $7.99 paperback/$2.99 digital, March 26, 2013)

Battersby’s most recent book is the YA fantasy Magrit, published last year by Walker Books. He’s also produced one collection, Through Soft Air (Prime Books, 2006).

New Treasures: Zero Repeat Forever by G. S. Prendergast

New Treasures: Zero Repeat Forever by G. S. Prendergast

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Zero Repeat Forever-smallThe flood of YA fantasy that washes up at the foot of my big green chair every week is starting to all sound alike. The covers look alike too, all these big fonts on stark, sculptured backgrounds.

It was the strikingly different cover to Zero Repeat Forever that first drew my attention. Enigmatic and beautiful, it stood out from all the other YA books I’ve seen this month. In fact, it doesn’t look like any book I’ve ever seen. The title, nearly as enigmatic as the cover, intrigued me too, and I flipped it open to read the inside jacket flap with real curiosity. It’s the tale of the end of the world, an invasion of deadly creatures… and a sixteen year old girl who doesn’t intend to take things lying down. I like it already.

He has no voice or name, only a rank, Eighth. He doesn’t know the details of the mission, only the directives that hum in his mind.
Dart the humans. Leave them where they fall.
His job is to protect his Offside. Let her do the shooting.
Until a human kills her…

Sixteen-year-old Raven is at summer camp when the terrifying armored Nahx invade. Isolated in the wilderness, Raven and her fellow campers can only stay put. Await rescue. Raven doesn’t like feeling helpless, but what choice does she have?

Then a Nahx kills her boyfriend.

Thrown together in a violent, unfamiliar world, Eighth and Raven should feel only hate and fear. But when Raven is injured, and Eighth deserts his unit, their survival comes to depend on trusting each other…

G. S. Prendergast is the Canadian author of two novels in verse, Audacious and Capricious. This is her first prose novel.

Zero Repeat Forever was published by Simon & Schuster on August 29, 2017. It is 487 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $10.99 for the digital edition. The marvelous cover was designed by Lizzy Bromley. Read an excerpt at Hypable.

Future Treasures: Vallista by Steven Brust

Future Treasures: Vallista by Steven Brust

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Vallista-smallI read Jhereg, the first book in Steven Brust’s long-running Vlad Taltos series, when my brother Mike thrust it on me in 1983. It was fun, fast-paced, and totally different from anything I’d ever read before.

Steven Brust was a fast-rising literary star in 1983, but Jhereg, and the series it spawned, established him as a major name. He’s produced numerous popular and acclaimed novels in the intervening years — including To Reign in Hell (1984), Brokedown Palace (1985), The Phoenix Guards (1991), and his ongoing Incrementalists series with Skyler White — but it’s the Vlad Taltos series that he remains most closely associated with. There have been thirteen additional novels in the series since Jhereg appeared 34 years ago, and this month marks the arrival of the fifteenth, Vallista, a deep dive into the mysteries of the world of Dragaera.

Vlad Taltos is an Easterner ― an underprivileged human in an Empire of tall, powerful, long-lived Dragaerans. He made a career for himself in House Jhereg, the Dragaeran clan in charge of the Empire’s organized crime. But the day came when the Jhereg wanted Vlad dead, and he’s been on the run ever since. He has plenty of friends among the Dragaeran highborn, including an undead wizard and a god or two. But as long as the Jhereg have a price on his head, Vlad’s life is…messy.

Meanwhile, for years, Vlad’s path has been repeatedly crossed by Devera, a small Dragaeran girl of indeterminate powers who turns up at the oddest moments in his life.

Now Devera has appeared again ― to lead Vlad into a mysterious, seemingly empty manor overlooking the Great Sea. Inside this structure are corridors that double back on themselves, rooms that look out over other worlds, and ― just maybe ― answers to some of Vlad’s long-asked questions about his world and his place in it. If only Devera can be persuaded to stop disappearing in the middle of his conversations with her…

The entire series has been kept in print by Ace in deluxe trade paperback omnibus editions — pretty extraordinary for a series that’s over three decades old.

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Self-published Book Review: A History of Magic by Scott Robinson

Self-published Book Review: A History of Magic by Scott Robinson

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I’m back from my failed Kickstarter, and I’ll be looking for more books to review soon. If you have any, send them my way.

AHistoryOfMagicA History of Magic is the second book in Scott Robinson’s series about Rawk, the last great hero. I reviewed the first novel, The Age of Heroes, two years ago here at Black Gate.

Rawk is retired, but that doesn’t stop the exots–exotic monsters from other worlds–from randomly appearing in his city of Katamood. Technically, this should be his friend Weaver’s problem, as he’s the prince of the city, but the city guard that Weaver employs can’t be everywhere at once. And if a monster appears right in front of Rawk, he has to fight it. It’s expected, to judge from the crowds that materialize whenever that happens. But Rawk is getting slower, and he can’t save everyone, not even his audience, which doesn’t always have the good sense to keep its distance.

New heroes have been showing up from all over the world to fight the monsters. But heroes are lazy sorts, and they tend to hang out in taverns waiting for word of the monsters to come to them, and only then head out to kill the beast and collect the bounty. And very few of them have any interest in finding out where the monsters are coming from and stopping it–that would cause the bounties to dry up quick.

It must be caused by sorcerers, to judge from the magical portals producing the monsters. Weaver’s solution would be to send his guards from door-to-door hunting down sorcerers–real or imagined–but Rawk would rather avoid that. So he recruits Sylvia, half-elven sorceress and former enemy, current healer, to help him out. Together, they track down various sorcerers who have little real magic between them, trying to discover who’s behind the exots. Clearly, none of these sorcerers could light a candle with magic on their own, but if enough of them worked together . . .

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Tempus Takes Manhattan: Janet and Chris Morris’ Tempus Unbound

Tempus Takes Manhattan: Janet and Chris Morris’ Tempus Unbound

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Tempus Unbound-small Tempus Unbound-back-small

“Was this the Lemuria of antiquity, or that of times to come? Once you’d ridden the storm clouds of heaven from the edge of time, anything was possible.”

Few are the writers who can successfully take their characters out of their “ancient setting” and transplant them in a story set in modern and even futuristic times, fighting numinous enemies, inimical foes and a capricious and dangerous theomachy. In my opinion, Janet and Chris Morris have brilliantly achieved just that with Tempus Unbound. This novel takes place after the events in City on the Edge of Time, and before those of Storm Seed, and it’s quite a departure from the other novels in starring Tempus the Black, Niko, Strat and the other warriors of The Sacred Band. It’s also quite a wild ride — an adventure that never lets you pause for breath.

The story begins after Tempus leaves the City at the Edge of Time and heads for Lemuria. But is this the Lemuria before or after the Fall of Man? Is it the Past or is it the Future? As events later play out in the novel, we find that out. Tempus is on a quest to find Cime, the Mage Killer who may or may not be his sister, who was forced into a marriage to Askelon, the Lord of Dreams. Cime has gone missing from Meridian, Askelon’s dream realm, and Tempus rides to Lemuria looking to find her. He suspects she’s gone after some mage who needs killing, and hopes she has her magical diamond rods with her, for without them she’s powerless.

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