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B&N Blog on 96 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in 2017

B&N Blog on 96 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in 2017

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Witchy Eye DJ Butler-small Gilded Game Vic James-small Relics Tim Lebbon-small

The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog has gradually become one of my favorite places on the web. It’s well written, entertaining, and has a lot of content — virtually all of it focused on books. What’s not to love?

It’s not afraid of tackling big projects either. While lesser blogs may give you a peek at 10 upcoming releases and then head down to the pub, the hard-working crew at the B&N Sci-Fi Blog labor late into the night to compile a monster list of nearly 100 of the best genre books coming your way. How do they do it? Here’s Joel Cunningham with the scoop.

We asked sci-fi and fantasy editors from all the major publishing houses to share with us the books they are most excited to release into the wild in 2017. Let us just say, these editors are very excited — so excited, the list quickly ballooned to nearly 100 books. That’s 100 books that we’re really excited about too, even if the knowledge that we can’t possibly hope to read every one of them makes us lament, again, our pesky mortality.

Grab a fresh cup of coffee or your beverage of choice, and settle in. This is a big one.

Yeah, Joel’s right about that. It took a lot of work with compile this list, and I guarantee you that you’ll find something that will catch your interest. Here’s a handful of titles that I found especially intriguing.

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Steven Brust’s Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed His Life

Steven Brust’s Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed His Life

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Zelazny Lord of Light Creatures of Light and Darkness-small

Over at Tor.com, Steven Brust (The Incrementalists, the Vlad Taltos novels) talks about what may be my favorite fantasy novel, Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light (1967).

You always get asked, “When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” And, of course, there’s no answer, or a thousand answers that are all equally valid. But I usually say, “In high school, when I read Zelazny’s Lord of Light.”

You see, until then, I had never known you could do that. I never knew you could make someone feel all those different things at the same time, with all of that intensity, just by how you used 26 characters and a few punctuation marks. What was it? Well, everything: Sam and Yama were the most compelling characters I’d come across; it was the first time I’d ever stopped reading to just admire a sentence; it gave me the feeling (which proved correct) that there were layers I wouldn’t get without a few rereadings; and, above all, it was when I became of what could be done with voice — how much could be done with just the way the author addressed the reader. I remember putting that book down and thinking, “If I could make someone feel like this, how cool would that be?” Then I started reading it again. And then I went and grabbed everything else of his I could find.

Steven uses this as a springboard to discuss Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed My Life by Being Awesome, including the spiritual successor to Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969), which includes the brilliant “Madrak’s Possibly Proper Death Litany, or the “agnostic’s prayer” as it has come to be called.” Read the entire article here.

A Shaper of Myths: The Best of Cordwainer Smith

A Shaper of Myths: The Best of Cordwainer Smith

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The Best of Cordwainer Smith-small The Best of Cordwainer Smith-back-small

He and I stared at each other. Was this what culture was? Were we now men? Did freedom always include the freedom to mistrust, to fear, to hate?
— Cordwainer Smith, “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard,” p. 300

Such are the questions set in the context of Cordwainer Smith’s utopian, futuristic society where people are seeking to go back to being “human” again. But this is only one small time slice and representation of Smith’s massive mythos in The Best of Cordwainer Smith (1975). This volume was the fifth installment in Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series, and the first to be edited by someone other than Lester Del Rey (1915–1993). John J. Pierce (1941–) edits this volume and provides a very fine introduction. Pierce is a science fiction critic and was once a very outspoken pundit against the 1960s New Wave in science fiction.

Whereas the cover art of the first four volumes was done by the late Dean Ellis (1920–2009), the cover for this book was by the late Darrell Sweet (1934–2011). Sweet’s artwork here is very reminiscent of Ellis’ work on the Classic Science Fiction Series. This is interesting, seeing how Sweet’s later artwork is very different from Ellis. (See this Black Gate memorial post to Sweet for later examples of his work.) It seems Sweet was attempting to keep with the aesthetic feel that Ellis had already established.

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The Pastel City by M. John Harrison

The Pastel City by M. John Harrison

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The Pastel CityM. John Harrison, like Joan Vinge or J.G. Ballard, hails from my terra incognita of the universe of sci-fi/fantasy authors. Over the years I’ve read praises of his fiction but have never read a word of it. Searching my shelves for something to review this week, I saw a copy of the Bantam omnibus of his novels and stories of Viriconium, a city in the twilight days of Earth. I have no memory of how, when, or where it came into my possession, but there it was. So I figured it was about time to investigate its unknown literary landscapes.

Harrison came to my attention from a pair of essays he wrote on the creation of fantasy. The first, “What It Might Be Like to Live in Viriconium,” is an attack on the effort to codify and specifiy the nature of fantasy. It opens with this bold statement:

The great modern fantasies were written out of religious, philosophical and psychological landscapes. They were sermons. They were metaphors. They were rhetoric. They were books, which means that the one thing they actually weren’t was countries with people in them.

For him, any effort to delineate geographical boundaries and the like in a work of fantasy undermines what really lies at its heart. He describes his own tales like this:

“Viriconium” is a theory about the power-structures culture is designed to hide; an allegory of language, how it can only fail; the statement of a philosophical (not to say ethological) despair. At the same time it is an unashamed postmodern fiction of the heart, out of which all the values we yearn for most have been swept precisely so that we will try to put them back again (and, in that attempt, look at them afresh).

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Future Treasures: Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

Future Treasures: Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

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Wintersong-smallRemember the 80s fantasy classic Labyrinth? Of course you do. Directed by the brilliant Jim Henson and introducing a 15-year-old Jennifer Connelly, the film revolved around the efforts of Sarah to rescue her brother Toby from the clutches of the Goblin King (played with marvelous panache by David Bowie).

Labyrinth is chiefly remembered today for its terrific puppetry and Brian Froud’s ace conceptual designs. But the story it tells is a very old one, one which recurs often in fairy tales. Debut author S. Jae-Jones brings us a fresh new retelling in her novel Wintersong, coming in hardcover next month from Thomas Dunne. Roshani Chokshi (The Star-Touched Queen) says, “This was Labyrinth by way of Angela Carter. Deliciously romantic, with a nuanced Goblin King and a strong heroine, this story was rife with fairy tales, music, and enchantment.”

The last night of the year. Now the days of winter begin and the Goblin King rides abroad, searching for his bride…

All her life, Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, dangerous Goblin King. They’ve enraptured her mind, her spirit, and inspired her musical compositions. Now eighteen and helping to run her family’s inn, Liesl can’t help but feel that her musical dreams and childhood fantasies are slipping away.

But when her own sister is taken by the Goblin King, Liesl has no choice but to journey to the Underground to save her. Drawn to the strange, captivating world she finds ― and the mysterious man who rules it ― she soon faces an impossible decision. And with time and the old laws working against her, Liesl must discover who she truly is before her fate is sealed.

Rich with music and magic, S. Jae-Jones’s Wintersong will sweep you away into a world you won’t soon forget.

Wintersong will be published by Thomas Dunne Book on February 7, 2017. It is 448 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. Read a massive 44-page excerpt (in PDF format) at the Macmillan website.

Oz’s Bag of Holding: My Beef with Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials

Oz’s Bag of Holding: My Beef with Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials

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the magiciansI have here a Bag of Holding. I am now going to pull some things out of it…

Well, I did read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians back in 2011. Now that The Magicians Trilogy is generating so much buzz (consequent to the popular Syfy series now in its second season), I suppose I’ll have to say something about it. However, what I say won’t be very nice. [Here is another review by Chris Braak that appeared in Black Gate back in 2011.]

Since it had been awhile, I went back and skimmed through the final chapters of the first installment. It was enough to remind me why I did not enthusiastically delve into the second book (I did pick up The Magician King, got a chapter in and set it aside. I might go back to it, if anyone furnishes me with a compelling argument that the trilogy as a whole manages to ameliorate the criticism I am about to level against the first book.)

It is well written. The thinly-veiled pastiches of Narnia, Hogwarts, and other beloved fantastical realms are, on the whole, perceptively done. Grossman manages both to evoke the sense of wonder of those books and to convincingly portray characters sensitive to the special draw of Faerie — kindred spirits who, deep down, wish they could escape our world into those imaginary places. Grossman is clearly no stranger to the deep affinity such works can stir in the receptive reader. And he gets great mileage (meta-mileage?) out of having the characters allude to and reference J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien and all the other fantasy authors they grew up with.

But, like Philip Pullman with the His Dark Materials trilogy, Grossman seems to feel some obligation to poop on that to which he is ostensibly paying homage.

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Launched! The Future Chronicles

Launched! The Future Chronicles

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The Jurassic Chronicles-smallThe Jurassic Chronicles is live, and $0.99 for a limited time! This is the latest installment in Samuel Peralta’s Future Chronicles anthology series, and was edited by Crystal Watanabe. Hugh Howey states: “The best place to discover new SF authors, I think, is any of the anthologies coming from Samuel Peralta.” Don’t just take his word for it, though. Check out the authors and stories included in this one:

“Fatal Mutation” (Anthony J Melchiorri)

A Baltimore beat cop is called to check out screams coming from a run-down laboratory. But when she answers the seemingly routine call, she finds herself embroiled in a deadly race to solve a terrifying mystery compounded by two hundred million years of evolution.

“Noble Savage” (Terry Maggert)

Other worlds are possible through the massive engine of The Point project, but where it leads will reveal that humanity is the alpha predator only as long as it remains on Earth. With the promise of unlimited power, one woman will make the decision to match wits with beings who are not our equal. They’re better.

“An Implant and a Hard Place” (Zen DiPietro)

To achieve her dream of becoming a cyberneticist, Brak had to fight everything it means to be Briveen. Now, she has to wrestle with her morals. Can she disregard them in order to help other people?

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Black Gate Online Fiction: An Excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna

Black Gate Online Fiction: An Excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna

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Mad Shadows 2 cover by Erika M. Szabo-small MAD SHADOWS 2 BACK Cover-small

Joe Bonadonna’s Dorgo the Dowser novelette “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” part of Joe’s first swords and sorcery collection, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, is one of the most popular pieces of fiction ever posted at Black Gate. Joe’s other contributions to the Black Gate Online Fiction library include an exclusive excerpt from Waters of Darkness, his supernatural pirate dark fantasy novel co-written with David C. Smith, and his recent story “Queen of Toads,” an old-fashioned pulp horror tale.

Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Part Three of Mad Shadows II — Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent, published in trade paperback and digital formats this month.

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Books and Craft: The Power of Point of View

Books and Craft: The Power of Point of View

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Today, I begin a new column here at Black Gate. I’ve been toying with the idea for “Books and Craft” for some time now. As an avid reader, a professional author, a writing mentor and instructor, and a lifelong student of craft, I have long been interested in what it is about certain books that capture our imaginations and elicit our passions. Why do we return again and again to certain stories? What qualities define “classic” novels and “must-read” new ones?

In this column, I hope to address those questions. I plan to look at a variety of fantasy novels, and science fiction as well, with an eye toward identifying an element of craft that contributes to their success. Sometimes the books will be familiar — those classics of the genre we know so well. Sometimes they’ll be more obscure titles — hidden gems that you might not know, but ought to. And sometimes they’ll be new works that demand our attention.

Let me be clear: I am not so presumptuous as to suggest that the specific craft element I identify is necessarily THE single factor in a given book’s success. Just because I might focus on, say, world building in Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana, that doesn’t mean his character work (or his prose, or his pacing) isn’t spectacular as well. My articles are intended to be illustrative and even instructive, but certainly not definitive. Whether as readers or as writers, we have something to learn from the work of successful artists. My hope is that these articles will help you see aspects of storytelling that you might not have noticed previously.

And so…

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Future Treasures: A Perfect Machine by Brett Savory

Future Treasures: A Perfect Machine by Brett Savory

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A Perfect Machine Brett Savory-smallBrett Savory is co-Publisher (with Sandra Kasturi) of the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Award-winning ChiZine Publications, one of the finest small press publishers out there. He’s also an accomplished writer, with over 50 short stories two novels (In and Down and The Distance Travelled) to his credit.

His newest novel is set in a future city where Runners and Hunters carry out a sacred ritual chase every night. Runners survive being shot and grow more and more metallic. But when two Runners transform into something much more (or less) than human, their worlds will change forever. Paul Tremblay calls it “A destabilizing gutshot of science fiction, crime, and existentialism that will leave your head spinning,” and Paul Goat Allen says it’s “An existential horror story featuring a monster robot — the illegitimate lovechild of David Cronenberg and Isaac Asimov.” Sounds edgy to me! It arrives in paperback from Angry Robot next month.

Henry Kyllo is a Runner, a member of a secret society called the Inferne Cutis. Every day he is chased through the city by Hunters whose goal is to fill him with bullets. It is a secret war steeped in history, tradition, and mutual fear.

Rumours abound about what happens when a Runner achieves ascension, but it has supposedly never happened before, so no one knows for sure. Except that it has happened before. And it is happening again.

This time, to Henry Kyllo.

A Perfect Machine will be published by Angry Robot on February 7, 2017. It is $7.99 in paperback, and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Erik Mohr. Read more details at Tor.com.