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Battles with Blades and Bows, and Creatures Charming and Terrifying: Journeys, edited by Teresa Edgerton

Battles with Blades and Bows, and Creatures Charming and Terrifying: Journeys, edited by Teresa Edgerton

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Journeys Teresa Edgerton-smallI admit it. As both a writer and a reader, I’m a sucker for a good themed anthology. The writer in me loves responding creatively to a prompt, finding inspiration in the unexpected. The reader in me is always fascinated to see the range of tales a collection of talented, thoughtful authors can tease from a shared basic notion.

Journeys, an epic fantasy anthology, edited by Teresa Edgerton and published by Nathan Hystad’s imprint, Woodbridge Press, hits the cybershelves on February 15th. For fans of sword and sorcery, of legend and myth, of quests and creatures and unforeseen narrative twists, it is a strong, at times compelling collection of short fiction from fourteen accomplished authors. The theme for the anthology is fairly simple and broad enough to allow every contributor as much freedom as possible. As Hystad put it, “Though I was asking for a common trope, the genre could be… really any fantasy style, with a journey, quest, or adventure as the central premise.”

Great anthologies often bring together a mix of established authors, and writers who are just at the start of their professional careers. On the one hand, we have well-known artists who can be counted on to build on a long personal history of excellent storytelling. We also encounter, though, the fresh voice, the writer whose name is not yet familiar, but whose talent shines through in the most surprising ways. With Journeys, Teresa Edgerton has managed to strike such a balance, bringing together authors from the UK. and the US, some with long resumés, some with only a story or two to their credit.

Among the more established names, we find John Gwynne, who draws inspiration from Celtic legend in “The Sundering,” a story of love, betrayal, and vengeance. Gail Z. Martin, who on her own and with her husband, Larry N. Martin, has penned several series ranging from epic fantasy to steampunk to urban fantasy, gives us a tale set in the universe explored by her Fallen Kings Cycle. Adrian Tchaikovsky and Juliet E. McKenna, who have enjoyed success in the U.K. as well as the U.S., give us a pair of powerful narratives. Tchaikovsky’s “The World Wound,” follows rivals who must work together to heal a rift in the fabric of the world that threatens the very existence of humanity. McKenna, in “The Road to Hadrumal,” has returned to one of her own previously explored worlds to craft a story of magic and hope.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: An Exclusive Excerpt from Soleri by Michael Johnston

Black Gate Online Fiction: An Exclusive Excerpt from Soleri by Michael Johnston

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Soleri-smallBlack Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Michael Johnston’s upcoming epic fantasy Soleri, to be published in hardcover by Tor this summer. We have the extended, “Director’s Cut” version of the prologue, entitled “The Black Sand,” which sets up the mythology of the book. Here’s a taste.

They used to be fishermen, but that night hunger made them thieves. Under a moonless sky the men set out from the island in small wooden skiffs, sailing across the ink black sea toward the distant city. They were crowded in the long thin boats, crammed shoulder to shoulder, some turned sideways or doubled over to shield themselves against the waves. Gusty wind and angry water forced a few ships to turn back, while others were lost to the surf, and those who journeyed onward kept their eyes focused on the horizon, searching for the dim silhouette of the Dromus. The great wall was hewn from cinder-grey rock and reflected no light, its jagged ridge biting at the lowhanging stars like a blacker piece of night. The skiff rolled and the boy caught sight of the desert barrier. His stomach ached, but not from nausea. He had eaten little in the past few days — stale salt cod, sea grass steeped in broth.

Up ahead, the first raiders made landfall. One by one the boats crashed into the surging whitecaps at the edge of the beach, the waves tossing the smaller ones, dashing others on the rocks, leaving the fishermen scrambling in the tide. The undertow took the unluckier of them, their bodies rolling over and over in the froth. Those who made it to shore moved quickly to conceal their arrival… The boy waited, trembling with fear and excitement as the last skiffs ground their hulls into the beach. The men were restless, eager. He felt an elbow in his side and craned his neck in time to catch the first sickle of sunlight as it lit the upper edge of the Dromus with a golden halo.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, Michael A. Armstrong, C.S.E. Cooney, Vaughn Heppner, E.E. Knight, Jason E. Thummel, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Harry Connolly, and others, is here.

Soleri is 368 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital edition. It will be published by Tor Books on June 13, 2017.

Read the complete excerpt here.

Vintage Treasures: Some Classic Science Fiction Hardcovers

Vintage Treasures: Some Classic Science Fiction Hardcovers

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Vintage Anthology collection-small

A while back I got a letter from a reader saying, “I love those photos you post of your eBay finds!” Well, that warms my heart. So here we are with another batch, a look at a lot of nine books I bought on December 11, 2016.

This one is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it’s all hardcovers. Usually I spend my hard-earned collecting dollars on paperbacks, but this particular lot — a truly fabulous set of vintage anthologies from the late 70s and early 80s — was simply too tempting to pass up. Most of the books were in terrific shape, and even the ones I already owned (like The Hugo Winners — who doesn’t have a copy of The Hugo Winners?) made great replacement copies.

The other interesting thing about this lot was the price: I was the only bidder, and I won the whole shebang for just $4.95. That’s about 50 cents a book, for some of the best SF anthologies ever made. Man, that’s just criminal.

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The Dark Fairy, a Magic Carpet, and Forbidden Lovebirds: Cornelia Funke’s The Golden Yarn

The Dark Fairy, a Magic Carpet, and Forbidden Lovebirds: Cornelia Funke’s The Golden Yarn

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reckless-the-petrified-flesh-small reckless-living-shadows-small reckless-the-golden-yarn-small

In The Golden Yarn, the final (?) volume of the Reckless trilogy by Cornelia Funke, the unthinkable happens. Not in the way you would suppose, of course. After returning to the real world in search of a precious item, Jacob is accosted by Clara, his brother’s girlfriend. More’s the pity when she reveals her true identity; she’s actually an Alderelf who sees to Jacob’s incapacitation and traps the actual Clara in a sleep from which she can never awaken.

A devious Alderelf named Spieler has sent his young apprentice, along with her brother, to do his bidding. Having disguised himself as Jacob’s father, he knows Jacob and his brother, Will, all too well. He desires Jacob’s firstborn child. (Remind you of anyone?) That prevents Jacob and Fox, his beloved companion, from acting on their unbearable feelings for one another. Then there’s Will, who embarks on a quest to find the Dark Fairy, who cursed him all the way back in Book One. Of course, Jacob follows him on what ends up being the most devastating journey yet.

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New Treasures: Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell

New Treasures: Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell

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Stick around long enough in this genre, and you start to see fresh ideas repeat. Like fairy-tale retellings, for example. Do we really need another version of Cinderella?

Well, if it’s as fresh and funky as Betsy Cornwell’s New York Times bestseller Mechanica then, yeah. Maybe we do. In this version, Nicolette is a young inventor mocked by her cruel step-sisters, who finds a secret workshop on her sixteenth birthday. And when she learns of the upcoming technological exposition… well, you know there’s only one way that can play out. And I want to be onboard to see it happen. Kirkus says “A spunky mechanic stars as a steampunk Cinderella who doesn’t need rescuing… A smart, refreshing alternative to stale genre tropes,” and Amazon.com listed it among the Best Young Adult Books of 2015,

Mechanica was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books on August 2, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $8.99 in paperback and for the digital edition. The cover is by Manuel Sumberac; click the images above for bigger versions. Read an excerpt here, and learn more about the book here.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Adventures in Earth’s Prehistory: Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga, Part IV

Adventures in Earth’s Prehistory: Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga, Part IV

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The City Jane Gaskell-Orbit-smallThe previous installments in this series are:

Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga, Part I
Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga, Part II
Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga, Part III

Ostensibly the final book in Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga is The City. It is a slim volume, especially when compared to its predecessors, coming in at 190 pages.

Picking up where Atlan left off, we find our hapless heroine Cija, half-starved and sick with scurvy from a long sea voyage, deposited in the docks of a foreign land. The master of the vessel has found a loophole in his verbal contract with the bandit chief Ael – he who paid for Cija’s safe voyage away from Atlan. Unbound by any promise regarding Cija’s treatment once ashore, the master has determined to sell her into slavery.

The docks are a squalid affair, gripped by winter. Icy rime covers mounds of garbage — and worse. Even so some punters are about, and after a bit of bidding Cija is sold and led away, still dazed and begging one of the ships boys to rescue her baby, Seka.

The City is a fast paced book. One gets the feeling Ms Gaskell was in the final sprint in the series, and this book reflects it. While she does not scrimp on descriptions, there is no wastage in the narrative. In almost a different style, Cija heads off from adventure to adventure. Even portions where time passes by are quickly dealt with until the next adventure starts.

Shortly after Cjia is led away from the slave block, the ship’s boy, Eel, and some of his cronies assail her new owner and whisk her away to promised safety. Soon she is reunited with Seka at Eel’s mothers house, which Cija soon twigs is a brothel where she is due to become a new attraction. Sickened by the prospect but still weak and lost in the foreign city, all she can do is try to capitulate.

One thing about Cija, she is a survivor. Although she has seen many streaks of bad luck, she also has the occasional run of good. This is the beginning of such a run. Her first customer turns out to be a youngster with a romantic view of the world. He believes her sob story, and sets to rescuing her. Cija escapes and, along with the youngster, finds her way to the city’s suburban greens and into his home, as a servant.

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Andrew Liptak on 33 SF and Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2017

Andrew Liptak on 33 SF and Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2017

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The Collapsing Empire John Scalzi-small Luna Wolf Moon-small The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Theodora Goss-small

I don’t know about you, but given the choice between reading the best books of 2017 and the ones everyone’s talking about…. I think I’d go with the latter. Because books that aren’t talked about are soon forgotten, and forgotten books are irrelevant books. And who wants to waste their time on irrelevant books?

Fortunately, we’re here to talk about the 2017 books that are already generating a lot of buzz. Today’s arbiter of excellence is Andrew Liptak who, in an article for The Verge, has compiled a list of 33 SF & fantasy titles that will dominate the conversation over the next year. His list includes novels by Mur Lafferty, Nnedi Okorafor, Kameron Hurley, Chuck Wendig, V. E. Schwab, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ada Palmer, Allen Steele, Timothy Zahn, Cory Doctorow, Brian Staveley, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robin Hobb, Yoon Ha Lee, Max Gladstone, Peter V. Brett, N.K. Jemisin, Ann Leckie, and many others.

Here’s a look at some of the most interesting titles on Andrew’s list, starting with The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi.

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New Treasures: Department Zero by Paul Crilley

New Treasures: Department Zero by Paul Crilley

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I don’t know much about this Paul Crilley fellow. He’s a South African writer who’s written a previous series for Pyr, the steampunk Tweed & Nightingale Adventures, a Daredevil prose novel, several YA titles, and much of the Bioware game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

His newest novel, Department Zero, is a beast of a different stripe, however. It’s the tale of a single dad who works cleaning up crime scenes… and who accidentally stumbles upon universe-hopping gates that connect a hidden multiverse of alternate realities. There he meets Havelock Graves, the top cop in the Interstitial Crime Department…. and discovers that a sinister cult is planning nothing less than to awaken Cthulhu from his slumber in the Dreamlands. (That’s another thing Harry discovers: “Everything H.P. Lovecraft wrote is true, Like, everything.”)

As you can probably tell, the book is not entirely serious. Publishers Weekly says it’s “Fast-paced and fun… The humor is on point… Lovecraft fans might have a lot of fun with this one.” Yeah, I bet I might. Department Zero was published by Pyr on January 24, 2017. It is 301 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cool cover art is by Patrick Arrasmith. Click the images above for bigger versions.

A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison

A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison

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oie_701145jxuo14zKNine years, another novel, and ten short stories after the publication of The Pastel City (read last week’s piece on that here), M. John Harrison returned to the world of the city of Viriconium in A Storm of Wings (1980). Its title taken from a line in the previous book, A Storm of Wings largely recycles the plot of the that novel as well. Once again, alien forces are threatening the city of Virconium and only a ragtag band of heroes has a chance of staving off destruction. Other than setting and basic similarity of narratives, this second novel in the series exists on a whole different plane of storytelling, both in style and intent.

A new religion has risen up in and around the city of Viriconium, the Brotherhood of the Locust. Its origins are a mystery and its teachings appear to have arrived from beyond mortal thoughts.

Who knows exactly where it began, or how? For as much as a century (or as little as a decade: estimates vary) before it made its appearance on the streets, a small group or cabal somehwere in the city had propagated its fundamental tenet — that the appearance of “reality” is quite false, a counterfeit or artefact of the human senses.

This creed stands at the nucleus of A Storm of Wings, both the story on the page, and at what Harrison has to say about fiction. As the “world” of Viriconium comes under attack from a force that twists and alters its “reality,” we are, page by page, reminded any stability the “land” has comes from its creator and can be wiped away with a tap of the backspace key.

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Lawrence Ellsworth’s New Translation of Dumas’ The Red Sphinx

Lawrence Ellsworth’s New Translation of Dumas’ The Red Sphinx

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Dumas The Red Sphinx

Lawrence Ellsworth (known to gaming fans as Lawrence Schick, creator of White Plume Mountain, and the lead writer for The Elder Scrolls Online), has written many popular articles for Black Gate over the years, including one of our top posts of 2015, “The “Known World” D&D Setting: A Secret History,” and more recently his fabulous Silent Screen Swashbucklers series.

In addition to his renowned gaming work, Lawrence is also a popular author and translator in his own right. His most recent release is a brand new translation of a nearly forgotten novel by the great Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. (That’s Lawrence above, showing off both his new book and his dashing wardrobe.)

The Red Sphinx, a sequel to The Three Musketeers that picks up where that book ended, is a massive 837-page tome that Michael Dirda calls “As fresh as ever… excellent, compulsively readable” in the Washington Post. It was published in hardcover by Pegasus Books on January 3.

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