Black Gate

Back in May, during her annual trip to C2E2 here in Chicago, Goth Chick reported on a fascinating fall release she discovered at the Quirk Books booth.

Finally, a trip to C2E2 would not be complete without a stop at the Quirk Books booth… You’re probably familiar with some of their more popular recent titles including Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children and the legendary Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

We’ve found some personal favorites through Quirk including The Resurrectionist and last year’s find, My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. As it happens, Mr. Hendrix has another gem on the market entitled Paperbacks from Hell.

Billed as “The twisted story of ’70s and ’80s horror fiction,” Paperbacks from Hell takes readers on a tour through the horror paperback novels of the 1970s and ’80s. Page through dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs. Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate. Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby. It’s an affectionate, nostalgic, and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of two iconic decades, complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles.

Frankly, I couldn’t have found a more perfect beach read.

Paperbacks from Hell will finally be released next month. It is lavishly illustrated, with color pics of countless 70s and 80s paperback covers. Here’s a few examples.

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We’re nearing the end of our Kickstarter for Mysterion 2, the second volume of our anthology of Christian-themed speculative fiction.  With only a week left, we’re still a ways from our funding goal. Since Kickstarter is all or nothing, if we do not make our goal, we do not receive any money, and Mysterion 2 will not happen.

While that would be unfortunate — we believe that Mysterion is a unique market, paying professional rates for speculative fiction with Christian characters, themes, or cosmology — we decided to use Kickstarter for exactly this reason.

For the first volume, we used Patreon. Patreon’s normal campaign is as a monthly subscription, but it can also be set so that the patron pays for every post you mark as a paid post. You can put up multiple paid posts per month, or you can put up none. This allowed us not to charge our patrons anything until we delivered an anthology. We felt this was necessary since we were first time anthologists. My wife and I had no idea whether we would receive enough good stories to make a worthwhile anthology. Even if we did, did we have what it took to select the best stories, edit them, format them, put the book together in an attractive package, and deliver an actual book that we would be proud of? We thought we could, but given that we didn’t actually know, we decided not to take anyone’s money until we had the book ready.

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There’s plenty of interesting books arriving this month, and one of the imminent new arrivals that has me most intrigued is An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors, a debut novel from Curtis Craddock featuring Isabelle Des Zephyrs, the Polymath Princess, and her faithful musketeer Jean-Claude.

Charles Stross calls it “A grand tale of intrigue, adventure, and gaslight fantasy in the tradition of Alexander Dumas,” and David D. Levine (Arabella of Mars) calls it “A thrilling adventure full of palace intrigue, mysterious ancient mechanisms, and aerial sailing ships!” It is the opening volume in a new trilogy, and arrives in hardcover from Tor in three weeks.

In a world of soaring continents and bottomless skies, where a burgeoning new science lifts skyships into the cloud-strewn heights, and ancient blood-borne sorceries cling to a fading glory, Princess Isabelle des Zephyrs is about to be married to a man she has barely heard of, the second son of a dying king in an empire collapsing into civil war.

Born without the sorcery that is her birthright but with a perspicacious intellect, Isabelle believes her marriage will stave off disastrous conflict and bring her opportunity and influence. But the last two women betrothed to this prince were murdered, and a sorcerer-assassin is bent on making Isabelle the third. Aided and defended by her loyal musketeer, Jean-Claude, Isabelle plunges into a great maze of prophecy, intrigue, and betrayal, where everyone wears masks of glamour and lies. Step by dangerous step, she unravels the lies of her enemies and discovers a truth more perilous than any deception.

An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors will be published by Tor Books on August 29, 2017. It is 416 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Thom Tenery, Get more details (including a cool map reveal!) at the author’s website.

See all of our recent coverage of the best upcoming fantasy here.