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In 500 Words or Less … Calamity by Brandon Sanderson

In 500 Words or Less … Calamity by Brandon Sanderson

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Calamity Brandon Sanderson-smallCalamity
By Brandon Sanderson
Random House (432 pages, $18.99 hardcover/$10.99 paperback, February 2016)

To begin, let’s cue the music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD2DYKR0UYE

Finally, I made it to Calamity, which concludes Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners trilogy. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while because it’s the only series of Sanderson’s that I’ve really taken to; The Stormlight Archive tired me out halfway through the second book, and I haven’t felt the urge to start Mistborn. But the Reckoners trilogy is just a blast. It’s superhero YA, pulpy and exciting and admittedly un-scientific (which is a sort of running meta-joke among the characters) but with the sort of excellent character work that I look for in fiction.

The final installment doesn’t disappoint with regard to the above. Narrator David Charleston is just as optimistic, determined and corny as before, though he’s grown out of his quest for vengeance against the super-powered Epics that destroyed the world. Now that he’s saved one (and started dating her) he’s out to save another, his friend and mentor Prof, to prove that the Epics can learn to fight their darker impulses, like Anakin turning from the dark side (except more successful, hopefully).

What seems like a pretty straightforward storyline – find Prof, save Prof, then destroy the source of the Epics’ powers – goes in some unexpected directions, eventually losing momentum. Realizing that the solution to the Epics is even more complicated and out of reach than it’s painted at the start of the novel added an extra layer of tension that kept me up one night finishing off the damn thing so I could get some sleep.

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Goth Chick News: Get Ready, Here Comes Your 2017 Binge List…

Goth Chick News: Get Ready, Here Comes Your 2017 Binge List…

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Stranger Things poster-small penny-dreadful-season-2-poster-small The Witch poster-small

Just when it seemed like the bleakness of winter would give rise to a whole lot of cabin fever weirdness, The Horror Writers Association (HWA) swoops in to save us by announcing the Preliminary Ballots for the 2016 Bram Stoker Awards.

In case you’ve got to believing that horror was the avocation of an over-imaginative (and slightly dark) few, the HWA dispels that notion by being the premier writer’s organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with over 1,300 members. They have presented the Bram Stoker Awards to a talented group of writers in various categories every year since 1987.

Like every year at this time, the list probably contains names and titles you are familiar with, along with a whole lot of new finds. For instance, I sincerely hope you’ve already discovered Stranger Things and Penny Dreadful, but perhaps you skipped The Witch; a situation you should remedy immediately.

Also, you may be familiar with the work of Elizabeth Hand (12 Monkeys, Star Wars: Bobo Fett series), but have not yet discovered Greg Chapman and his unique take on a haunted house story, Hollow House.

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Dazzling Dreamscapes: Dreams of Distant Shores by Patricia A. McKillip

Dazzling Dreamscapes: Dreams of Distant Shores by Patricia A. McKillip

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Dreams of Distant Shores
by Patricia A. McKillip
Tachyon Publications (288 pages, $15.95 in trade paperback/$7.99 digital, June 14, 2016)

I fell in love with Patricia A. McKillip’s writing the same way you fall in love with a dessert: once I had had a small taste, I craved more. And then along came Dreams of Distant Shores, a collection of enchanting short stories sure to mesmerize the reader with every turn of phrase. Every discerning reader fortunate enough to find it will find something they enjoy. They’ll likely find some old favorites as well, considering a good deal of the stories were previously published elsewhere.

In the case of “Weird,” the first story in the collection, the setting is as elsewherian as you can imagine. A boy and a girl are secluding themselves in an odd bathroom from a persistent man who keeps knocking on the door. As the nameless individual continues interrupting them, the boy and girl swap stories about the singular weirdest experiences they’ve had to date. As so often happens with loved ones, it turns out they have common knowledge of a young man in an extraordinary story shared between them. The story tumbles on down a passage of spellbinding wonder from there. I must say this is my favorite story in the collection, what with being a storyteller myself. This one will keep you engaged like a child enraptured by their first book.

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io9 on January’s Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy

io9 on January’s Must-Read Science Fiction and Fantasy

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The Last Sacrifice-small Windwitch by Susan Dennard-small The Hanging Tree Ben Aaronovitch-small

After we completed our round up of the most interesting Best of 2016 lists, I kinda got a little list happy. I started investigating all these other lists. Best Books of January! Best of 2017! Turns out there’s a lot of interesting books coming your way in the next 12 months. Like, a lot.

I can’t be expected to keep all this knowledge to myself. So here we are with another book list, in this case io9′s nicely comprehensive summary of January’s Must-Read Sci-Fi and Fantasy, written by Cheryl Eddy. It covers no less than 25 dynamite new releases, including new books from Terry Pratchett, L.E. Modesitt, Seanan McGuire, Adam Nevill, Charles Stross, Kim Newman, Ellen Klages, David Brin and Stephen W. Potts, and many others. Here’s Eddy’s take on The Last Sacrifice by James A. Moore (Angry Robot, January 3, 2017).

The prolific fantasy author’s latest is about a warrior who becomes a hunted man when he challenges the gods who have targeted his family as their next human sacrifice.

The Last Sacrifice is the opening volume in a new epic fantasy series, Tides of War.

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Future Treasures: With Blood Upon the Sand, Volume II of The Song of the Shattered Sands, by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Future Treasures: With Blood Upon the Sand, Volume II of The Song of the Shattered Sands, by Bradley P. Beaulieu

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Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, the opening novel in Bradley P. Beaulieu’s epic fantasy series The Song of the Shattered Sands, was picked as one of the Best Books of the Year by Amazon, BuzzFeed, and the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi Blog.. And in her BG review, Kelly Swails called it “epic… a complex novel with crisp prose that is a joy to read.” Of Sand and Malice Made, a volume of linked novellas set in the same world, was released in September. And now the long anticipated second novel in the series, With Blood Upon the Sand, arrives in hardcover from DAW next month.

Çeda, now a Blade Maiden in service to the kings of Sharakhai, trains as one of their elite warriors, gleaning secrets even as they send her on covert missions to further their rule. She knows the dark history of the asirim — that hundreds of years ago they were enslaved to the kings against their will — but when she bonds with them as a Maiden, chaining them to her, she feels their pain as if her own. They hunger for release, they demand it, but with the power of the gods compelling them, they find their chains unbreakable.

Çeda could become the champion they’ve been waiting for, but the need to tread carefully has never been greater. After their recent defeat at the hands of the rebel Moonless Host, the kings are hungry for blood, scouring the city in their ruthless quest for revenge. Çeda’s friend Emre and his new allies in the Moonless Host hope to take advantage of the unrest in Sharakhai, despite the danger of opposing the kings and their god-given powers, and the Maidens and their deadly ebon blades.

When Çeda and Emre are drawn into a plot of the blood mage Hamzakiir, they learn a devastating secret that may very well shatter the power of the hated kings. But it may all be undone if Çeda cannot learn to navigate the shifting tides of power in Sharakhai and control the growing anger of the asirim that threatens to overwhelm her…

With Blood Upon the Sand will be published by DAW on February 7, 2017. It is 672 pages, priced at $26 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Donato Giancola, who painted the cover of Black Gate 15. Read more in the exclusive cover reveal at the B&N Sci-Fi Blog.

Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent by Joe Bonadonna

Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent by Joe Bonadonna

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oie_2452510XuzP2C1Joe Bonadonna’s a friend of Black Gate and, I’m proud to say, a friend of mine. He’s also a heck of a teller of hardboiled action and adventure tales. After too many years out of the toilsome fields of swords & sorcery, he returned in 2010 with a top-flight collection of short stories about one Dorgo Mikawber, dowser of magic and handy with a saber. I discovered Joe and that book, Mad Shadows (2010) here on the virtual pages of Black Gate, and reviewed it over on my site about four years ago.

After another significant hiatus he’s returned with a second collection of Dorgo’s adventures: Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent (2017). That’s a lot of title for a book that just crosses the two-hundred page mark, but it gives a nice sense of the pulpy goodness that lies betwixt its covers.

Dorgo Mikawber was raised in an orphanage, served in the army, and now makes his living as a magical investigator and finder of lost people. Last time out Dorgo’s adventures took him all over the continent of Aerlothia on the world of Tanyime. This time around his wanderings are more limited, starting in the countryside just beyond his home city, Valdar.

MS II is a fix-up. It’s made up of three separate tales, each linked to the other, weaving a larger story of Dorgo’s fight against the mysterious Order of the Serpent and its leader, Ophidious Garloo.

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Coming Soon: The Jurassic Chronicles

Coming Soon: The Jurassic Chronicles

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The Jurassic Chronicles-smallThe next installment of Samuel Peralta’s Chronicles series is set to launch on January 29th — the theme of this one is dinosaurs.

Edited by Crystal Watanabe and featuring stories from: Piers Beckley, Zen DiPietro, Ed Gosney, Laxmi Hariharan, Phillip Harris, M.J. Kelley, Stant Litore, Terry Maggert, Emily Mah (yes, that’s me), Harry Manners, Anthony J Melchiorri, Seanan McGuire, and Dinosaur Knights author Victor Milan, it offers a broad range of stories from both established veterans and new up-and-comers.

If you haven’t taken note of these anthologies, you are missing out. They feature an impressive mix of indie, hybrid, and trad pubbed authors who write science fiction and fantasy.

And this one has dinosaurs. Need I say more???

Emily Mah is a writer and the owner of E.M. Tippetts Book Designs, a company that provides formatting, cover design, and editing services for independent authors and publishers. Her last post for Black Gate was an interview with German author Emily Bold.

Vintage and New Treasures: Oz’s Bag of Holding: John Sandford’s Prey Series; Stephen King’s Bill Hodges Trilogy

Vintage and New Treasures: Oz’s Bag of Holding: John Sandford’s Prey Series; Stephen King’s Bill Hodges Trilogy

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rules of prey king-audio-small

I have here a bag of holding. I am now going to pull some things out of it…

This past fall, since I do a lot of commuting to work and had become too depressed to follow my daily routine of news radio, I began listening to books on CD.

I’ve now digested 5 books in John Sandford’s popular Prey series (following detective Lucas Davenport), read by Richard Ferrone, and the first two of Stephen King’s Bill Hodges trilogy (following retired detective Bill Hodges and his friends Jerome Robinson and Holly Gibney), read by Will Patton.

Sandford, a retired Minneapolis journalist, began writing the Prey books back in the ‘80s. The series now has 27 installments, with an additional 13 spin-off books! Looks like I’ll be spending time with Lucas Davenport in my minivan for a long time to come.

Having brought these out of the bag, I’d like to discuss two specific areas of appeal of a series like Prey. First is place. Second is chronological progression (following characters as they age). Then I have an afterthought about genre “classification.” I’ll also  address “audio” vs. “printed page.” And I’ll have a few things to say about King’s foray into hardboiled detective fiction along the way.

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New Treasures: Pathfinder Tales: Reaper’s Eye by Richard A. Knaak

New Treasures: Pathfinder Tales: Reaper’s Eye by Richard A. Knaak

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Pathfinder Reaper's Eye-smallI’m not much of a fan of game tie-in fiction, to be honest, but I’ve been consistently intrigued by the Pathfinder fiction line, Pathfinder Tales.

Tim Pratt’s tales of Rodrick the thief have been called “Fafhrd-and-Grey-Mouser-style sword and sorcery adventure” (SF Signal), and Lightspeed and Nightmare Managing Editor Wendy N. Wagner has been praised for her “Pathfinder meets Lovecraft” series featuring the notorious pirate Jendara, and Black Gate‘s own Managing Editor, Howard Andrew Jones, has produced four highly regarded Pathfinder novels, including Beyond the Pool of Stars and Stalking the Beast.

The latest Pathfinder Tales novel comes from Richard A. Knaak, author of the bestselling Legend of Huma series for Dragonlance, the War of the Ancients trilogy, the Aquilonia trilogy for Age of Conan, and much more. It was published in trade paperback by Tor on December 6th.

Daryus Gaunt used to be a crusader, battling to protect civilization from the demons of the Worldwound, before a battlefield mutiny forced him to flee or be executed. Pathfinder Shiera Tristane is an adventuring scholar obsessed with making the next big archaeological discovery. When a talking weasel reveals that a sinister witch is close to uncovering a long-lost temple deep within the Worldwound, the two adventurers are drawn into the demon-haunted lands in order to stop him from releasing an ancient evil. Now both fame and redemption may be at hand… if they can survive.

From New York Times bestselling author Richard A. Knaak comes a novel of exploration, betrayal, and deadly magic, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

As an added bonus, the book also contains a chapter from Howard Andrew Jones’ upcoming fourth Pathfinder Tales novel, Through the Gate in the Sea, scheduled for release February 21st.

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Future Treasures: Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey

Future Treasures: Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey

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Miranda and Caliban Jacqueline Carey-small Miranda and Caliban Jacqueline Carey-back-small

Jacqueline Carey is the author of some 16 fantasy novels, including the bestselling historical fantasies in the Kushiel’s Legacy series, the post-apocalyptic superhero Santa Olivia novels, and the Agent of Hel contemporary fantasy series. Her latest is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, exploring the same themes of twisted love and unchecked power while delivering a fresh take on two of the most famous characters in English literature.

A lovely girl grows up in isolation where her father, a powerful magus, has spirited them to in order to keep them safe.

We all know the tale of Prospero’s quest for revenge, but what of Miranda? Or Caliban, the so-called savage Prospero chained to his will?

In this incredible retelling of the fantastical tale, Jacqueline Carey shows readers the other side of the coin ― the dutiful and tenderhearted Miranda, who loves her father but is terribly lonely. And Caliban, the strange and feral boy Prospero has bewitched to serve him. The two find solace and companionship in each other as Prospero weaves his magic and dreams of revenge.

Always under Prospero’s jealous eye, Miranda and Caliban battle the dark, unknowable forces that bind them to the island even as the pangs of adolescence create a new awareness of each other and their doomed relationship.

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