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The Classic You Never Heard of: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

The Classic You Never Heard of: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

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Bluebear Cover
Think “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy does Adventure Time with a dash of Moomins”
Bluebear 2
Zamonia, a fantasy continent replete with baroque perils and wild adventure

The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers is… nuts.

Think “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy does Adventure Time with a dash of Moomins” and you would be on the way there.

It’s definitely a book for all ages. I read it in my 30s, before I became a dad. More than a decade later I’m reading it to my 9-year-old daughter.

It’s one of those rich works of the imagination that is somehow both compelling and a comfort read. Fairy story and fantasy adventure. Satire and parable. Tall tale and… met tall tale — there’s even a duel of lies!

It’s the autobiography of one Bluebear — a sentient blue bear (duh) and perhaps last of his kind. It recounts his wanderings in Zamonia, a fantasy continent replete with baroque perils and wild adventure — capital Atlantis (naturally) — that seems have a loose place and not entirely linear relationship to the history of our world.

Enlivening and illuminating his adventures are bonkers excerpts from Professor Abdullah Nightingale’s  “The Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs.”

The story kicks off with Bluebear’s first memory: floating in a walnut shell and then being rescued by Minipirates —

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Goth Chick News: New (Horror) Treasures – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Goth Chick News: New (Horror) Treasures – Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

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Lincoln in the Bardo-smallI sincerely appreciate when an author or screenwriter discovers folklore, a legend or a historical occurrence that is not well-known in the general public, and spins it into a new tale.   Though here at GCN we have explored ad nauseum, the disappointments caused by the Hollywood recycling machine, this is different.   Instead of telling us the same story with flashier CGI, this approach involves taking a piece of human experience or understanding which has been overlooked by pop culture, and introducing it to a modern-day audience.

Such is the creative approach to the long-awaited first novel from author George Saunders; Lincoln in the Bardo.

As outlined in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, bardo means ‘transition’ or ‘hanging in between’ and is a period of time between life and death (think something akin to purgatory).   And Lincoln is in it – though it’s more like two different Lincolns and two different bardos…

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state — called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo — a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

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New Treasures: The Atlanta Burns Novels by Chuck Wendig

New Treasures: The Atlanta Burns Novels by Chuck Wendig

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Atlanta Burns-small Atlanta Burns The Hunt-small

Chuck Wendig is the author of the Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy, the Miriam Black novels, The Heartland Trilogy, and many other fine novels. His two-volume series for Skyscape books, Atlanta Burns, piqued my interest… maybe it’s the covers, or maybe because I’m a Veronica Mars fan. Here’s Chuck’s intro to the series from his website.

Veronica Mars on Adderall. Nancy Drew meets Justified.

I wrote this book a couple years ago, and published it as two separate volumes — a novella, Shotgun Gravy, and a follow-up novel, Bait Dog. (The latter published with the help of Kickstarter.) It was a foray into young adult and crime writing at the same time, and the result was something with which I was honestly very happy. Atlanta Burns is a character after my own heart: she is a real-deal social justice warrior, an underdog who helps other underdogs — a saint to freaks and geeks, a foe to bullies and racists and other human monsters.

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Andrew Liptak on 16 SF and Fantasy Novels You Don’t Want to Miss in January

Andrew Liptak on 16 SF and Fantasy Novels You Don’t Want to Miss in January

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The Fortress at the End of Time Joe M. McDermott-small Defiant Dave Bara-small Binti Home Nnedi Okorafor-small

Good golly, we’re more than halfway through January already. How the heck did that happen? I still have over a dozen January new releases to cover!

Well, no use complaining about it… especially when I could use that energy to cheat, instead. Rather than tell you about the best new books in January myself, I could just let the distinguished Andrew Liptak do it. Over at The Verge, Andrew has jotted down his thoughts on 16 science fiction and fantasy novels you don’t want to miss in January — including new books by Carrie Vaughn, Laura Anne Gilman, Annie Bellet, Seanan McGuire, Tad Williams, Katherine Arden, Neil Clarke, and many more.

Perhaps the most intriguing book on his list is The Fortress at the End of Time, published this week by Tor.com. In a feature review published January 17th, Andrew calls it “a brilliant throwback to classic science fiction.”

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Future Treasures: The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Future Treasures: The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

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The Stars Are Legion-smallKameron Hurley made a splash with her very first science fiction novel, God’s War (Night Shade, 2010), a “bugpunk” novel set on a desert world where technology is based on insects. It was nominated for a Nebula Award, and was followed by two more books in the Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy. The Mirror Empire (Angry Robot, 2014), the first novel in her grimdark epic fantasy trilogy The Worldbreaker Saga, was a 2015 Locus Award Finalist and Gemmell Award Nominee.

Her standalone space opera novel The Stars are Legion is one of the most highly anticipated novels of 2017. It arrives in hardcover from Saga Press on February 7, 2017.

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars.Here in the darkness, a war for control of the Legion has been waged for generations, with no clear resolution.

As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

Zan wakes with no memory, prisoner of a people who say they are her family. She is told she is their salvation – the only person capable of boarding the Mokshi, a world-ship with the power to leave the Legion. But Zan’s new family is not the only one desperate to gain control of the prized ship. Zan finds that she must choose sides in a genocidal campaign that will take her from the edges of the Legion’s gravity well to the very belly of the world.

Zan will soon learn that she carries the seeds of the Legion’s destruction – and its possible salvation. But can she and the band of cast-off followers she has gathered survive the horrors of the Legion and its people long enough to deliver it?

The Stars Are Legion will be published by Saga Press on February 7, 2017. It is 380 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. The eye-catching cover is by Stephen Youll.

Tor.com on the Most Intriguing SF and Fantasy Books of 2017

Tor.com on the Most Intriguing SF and Fantasy Books of 2017

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Revenger Alastair Reynolds-small A Closed and Common Orbit-small Winter Tide Ruthanna Emrys-small

No sooner do we wrap up all the 2016 Best of the Year lists than we’re deluged with 2017 Best Upcoming Books lists. Well, if it’s our lot in life to read all these lists and dutifully report the best to you here, we shall carry our burden stoically.

As usual, Tor.com is first out of the gate, with a generous survey of a dozen SF and fantasy titles coming in 2017 that they want to read right now. It includes new novels by Nnedi Okorafor, Mur Lafferty, George Saunders, Kameron Hurley, Catherynne M. Valente, N. K. Jemisin, and many others. There’s lots on their list that appeals to me — like Revenger by Alastair Reynolds, coming in paperback from Orbit on February 28, 2017.

Captain Rackamore and his crew’s business is to find the tiny, enigmatic worlds which have been hidden away, booby-trapped, surrounded by layers of protection – and to crack them open for the ancient relics and barely-remembered technologies inside. But while they ply their risky trade with integrity, not everyone is so scrupulous.

As Molly Templeton writes, “Space! Pirate! Sisters! Is this a movie yet? I want to read it and watch it.”

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The Killingest Book I Know: The Twelve Children of Paris by Tim Willocks

The Killingest Book I Know: The Twelve Children of Paris by Tim Willocks

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“It is night and the night has no end.”

Matthias Tannhauser

I have read all sorts of hyper-violent books: thrillers; crime; horror; even some fantasy. Nothing, and I mean absolutely, utterly nothing, comes close to Tim Willocks’ The Twelve Children of Paris (2014). Seven years after his adventures during the Great Siege of Malta chronicled in The Religion (and reviewed here), Matthias Tannhauser, ex-Janissary and current Knight of St. John, comes to Paris in search of his wife, Carla. It is August 23rd, 1572, just hours before the start of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

The massacre was the result of the tremendous instability the Reformation had caused to France. During the ten years preceding the massacre, France had fought the first three of the Wars of Religion. Primarily a struggle between two noble houses, the Calvinist House of Conde and the devoutly Catholic House of Guise, the kings strove to maintain a balance between them and avoid bloodshed. When it seemed the Protestants had gained too much power and threatened that of King Charles IX, he authorized twenty-four hours of killing. The plan was to eliminate the leaders of the Protestant cause, many of whom had come to Paris for the wedding of Charles’ sister, Margaret, to the Protestant Henry of Navarre. Not counted on was the terrible enmity the strongly Catholic Parisians held for the Protestants. Instead of a day, the carnage lasted for several days and spread out into the countryside. Estimates vary from five to thirty thousand dead.

Into this brewing hellstorm Matthias Tannhauser rides. Carla, noblewoman and renowned player of the viol da gamba, has been summoned to play at a concert for the royal wedding. Though eight months pregnant, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse a royal summons. Tannhauser, away on business in North Africa, has returned to France and ridden to Paris to join his wife. Upon hearing of an assassination attempt on Protestant leader Admiral de Coligny and the consequent cancellation of the musical performance, Tannhauser decides he must find his wife and remove her from a city on the brink of civil collapse. Unfortunately, he has only the slightest idea of where she might be.

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The Omnibus Volumes of Cassandra Rose Clarke: Magic of Blood and Sea and Magic of Wind and Mist

The Omnibus Volumes of Cassandra Rose Clarke: Magic of Blood and Sea and Magic of Wind and Mist

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Magic of Blood and Sea-small Magic of Wind and Mist

Angry Robot is one of the most innovative (and successful) new genre publishing houses in the last decade. Not every aspect of its journey has been equally successful, however. Its Strange Chemistry imprint, launched in 2011 to publish young adult SF and fantasy, shut down in 2014… but not before publishing highly acclaimed new work by Martha Wells, Jonathan L. Howard, and three early novels by Cassandra Rose Clarke: The Assassin’s Curse (2012) and its sequel The Pirate’s Wish (2013), and The Wizard’s Promise (2014). A fourth novel, The Nobleman’s Revenge, the sequel to The Wizard’s Promise, was never published.

Clarke was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award for her first novel for adults, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, in 2013, and late last year Saga Press reprinted the book in a new trade paperback edition. Now they’re doing the same with Clarke’s Strange Chemistry novels. The Assassin’s Curse series will be reprinted in a handsome omnibus edition, Magic of Blood and Sea, arriving in hardcover in early February. And The Wizard’s Promise and the previously unpublished The Nobleman’s Revenge will appear in Magic of Wind and Mist in 2018.

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New Treasures: Lords of Dyscrasia by S.E. Lindberg

New Treasures: Lords of Dyscrasia by S.E. Lindberg

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Lords of Dyscrasia-smallI met Seth Lindberg at the World Fantasy Convention back in October. He co-moderates the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group, one of the rare groups that pays a lot of attention to genre magazines, like Cirsova and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He also maintains a fairly active (and excellent) blog — check out his recent reviews of Joe Bonadonna’s Mad Shadows II, and Skelos issue #1.

He’s also an acclaimed S&S author in his own right. Joe Bonadonna wrote a rave review of his first novel Lords of Dyscrasia here at Black Gate last year. Here’s Joe.

Lords of Dyscrasia (an abnormal or disordered state of the body or of a bodily part) is touted as “Graphic Sword and Sorcery,” but to me it has more in common with the dark fantasy of Clark Ashton Smith and the gothic tones of Mervyn Peake’s first two Gormenghast books. There is some nice Lovecraftian shading to this novel, as well, with a touch of Edgar Allen Poe to lend it a feverishness of tone, and even a psychedelic flavor in style.

While Lindberg channels his influences with a deft hand, he has mapped out a beautifully grotesque world that is truly his own unique creation. This book was described to me as being part of the Grimdark subgenre of dark fantasy, and it is indeed a grim, dark tale….

This is a complex and well-written novel, very difficult to describe. The settings and the atmosphere are rich in color and texture, and story’s pace is almost relentless: it rushes along like a bullet train, with very few stops along the way. Although Lysis Endeken is the main character, it is the weird and wonderful Doctor Grave who really rises above all others.

I bought a copy of this novel from Seth at the convention, and I’m glad I did. It’s become the foundation of a popular new S&S series, and the second volume, Spawn of Dyscrasia, was published in 2014.

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Download Some of the Best from Tor.com 2016 For Free Before January 17th!

Download Some of the Best from Tor.com 2016 For Free Before January 17th!

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Some of the Best from Tor.com 2014-small Some of the Best from Tor 2015-small Some of the Best from Tor 2016-small

Every year since 2011 Tor.com, one of the top short fiction markets in the industry, has compiled a collection of some of their finest short fiction into a digital anthology. And this year they’re making the latest edition completely free on their website — but only until January 17th. Act now to grab your free copy today!

We are very excited to offer a free download of the 2016 edition of Some of the Best from Tor.com, an anthology of 25 of our favorite short stories and novelettes from the last year. The ebook edition will be available as a free download here until January 17th, it will also be made available wherever ebooks are sold for the duration of 2017.

Of course, you can always enjoy all of our free weekly short stories by visiting Tor.com’s fiction index.

These stories were acquired and edited for Tor.com by Ellen Datlow, Ann VanderMeer, Carl Engle-Laird, Liz Gorinsky, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Justin Landon, Diana Pho, and Miriam Weinberg. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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