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New Treasures: The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

New Treasures: The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

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The Trials of Apollo The Hidden Oracle-smallI was tremendously impressed to see best-selling author Rick Riordan matching $10,000 in donations made to Rosarium Publishing’s recent (and very successful) Indiegogo campaign. You don’t often see that level of small press love from someone who makes millions through a Manhattan publisher.

Rick Riordan seems like a solid all around guy, and I’m not just saying that because he said great things about my man Carlos Hernandez’s first collection, The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria. Riordan is the author of the international bestselling Percy Jackson series, as well as the Kane Chronicles, and the Heroes of Olympus. His latest series for young readers, The Trials of Apollo, kicks off with The Hidden Oracle, now on sale from Disney-Hyperion.

How do you punish an immortal?

By making him human.

After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disoriented, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus’s favor.

But Apollo has many enemies-gods, monsters, and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go… an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood.

The Trials of Apollo, Book One: The Hidden Oracle was published by Disney-Hyperion on May 3, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $19.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital edition.

Thieves Can: A review of the A Tale of the Kin series

Thieves Can: A review of the A Tale of the Kin series

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AmongThievesFantasy has a wide range of heroic archetypes, from the classic sword-wielding warrior to the wand-waving wizard, but I’ve always been fond of the characters that have at least a touch of the rogue in them. I’m pretty sure that over my decades of roleplaying, the number of characters I’ve played who could pick a lock probably outweighed those who could kick down the door by a factor of about two. From Aladdin to Bilbo, heroes that rely on skill, cleverness, and deftness over brute force have always appealed to me.

Despite that, though, I’ve rarely been drawn to stories explicitly about the criminal underworld, whether it be in fantasy or real-world fiction like The Godfather or The Sopranos. Fights over which particular thief or murderer can get the upper hand over his rival thieves and murderers have never captivated me that strongly.

That’s part of the reason why I was so surprised with how much I loved Among Thieves (Amazon), the first book in the A Tale of the Kin series of fantasy by Douglas Hulick.

“The Kin” from the series title is the underground criminal society of Hulick’s world, and it’s this rich and vibrant society that he has built that drew me in as much as anything else about the story. This isn’t a story about just some criminals having adventures, but about a people who, as a society, are as thoroughly developed as most cultures that an author has developed for their fantasy series. And, of course, as a criminal underworld, there’s also a larger society in which they exist and operate, and that society is itself fully realized.

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Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Ten, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Ten, edited by Jonathan Strahan

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The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Ten-smallHoly cats… Jonathan Strahan’s up to Volume Ten already? My oh my, how times flies.

Well, you know what the imminent arrival of the newest volume of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year means. That’s right — the Best of the Year season is upon us. Strahan kicks it off, as usual, but in the next 3-4 months we’ll see a dozen more from Gardner Dozois, Rich Horton, Paula Guran (two volumes!), Ellen Datlow, Neil Clarke, John Joseph Adams, and many others. (Have a look at the 17 volumes we covered last year here and here.)

You don’t need that many Best of the Year anthologies. But you definitely need Jonathan’s — his taste is impeccable, and this volume is one of the very best of the lot. Here’s a peek at the table of contents… 27 short stories from Kai Ashante Wilson, Vonda McIntyre, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, Genevieve Valentine, Kelly Link, Anne Leckie, Jeffrey Ford, and many others. Here’s the complete TOC.

1. “City of Ash,” Paolo Bacigalupi
2. “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson,” Elizabeth Bear
3. “The Machine Starts,” Greg Bear
4. “The Winter Wraith,” Jeffrey Ford
5. “Black Dog,” Neil Gaiman
6. “Jamaica Ginger,” Nalo Hopkinson & Nisi Shawl
7. “Drones,” Simon Ings
8. “Emergence,” Gwyneth Jones

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More Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel II edited by D.M. Ritzlin

More Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel II edited by D.M. Ritzlin

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oie_905944pvOdEQohFrom its emergence out of the hard rock genre, heavy metal has drawn from the inspiration of swords & sorcery. “The Wizard” is the second track on what is considered the first metal album, the eponymous Black Sabbath. Uriah Heep upped the ante with its albums Demons and Wizards and The Magician’s Birthday. Manowar’s epic song “Battle Hymns,” from the album of the same name, channeled all the blood and thunder of heroic fantasy into 6 minutes and 55 seconds. Behold:

Gone are the days, when freedom shone – now blood and steel meet bone
In the light of the battle’s way, the sands of time will shake
How proud our soldiers stand, with mace and chain in hand
Sound of charge into glory ride, over the top of their vanquished pride

Other bands have gone as far as spinning songs directly from actual stories and novels. The Sword, for example, has Game of Thrones-inspired “To Take the Black,” and Manilla Road drafted both the plot and title of of a Robert E. Howard story for their “Queen of the Black Coast.”

The point is, metal and S&S have been fist in glove for many a year now. They have the same penchant for extremes — the big gestures not the subtle, small ones. The idea that heavy metal musicians could turn their love for S&S into prose makes perfect sense.

And that’s exactly what D. M. Ritzlin has encouraged, starting with last year’s Swords of Steel, an anthology of heroic fantasy written by members of heavy metal bands. While I gave it a mixed review, I was utterly sold on the idea. The authors’ ardor was undeniable, even overwhelming weaknesses in some of the stories. Each story was illustrated with a work of hand-drawn lo-fi art that harks back to sketches on the backs of D&D character sheets and murals painted on the sides of vans. Flaws be damned, I enjoyed the book and was happy to learn that a second volume was being planned.

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Ancient Planets and Treachery at Every Turn: Rich Horton on The Ginger Star by Leigh Brackett

Ancient Planets and Treachery at Every Turn: Rich Horton on The Ginger Star by Leigh Brackett

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The Ginger Star Steranko-small The Ginger Star Boris Vallejo-small The Ginger Star Planet Stories-small

Over at his personal blog Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton reviews one of the great classics of science fantasy, Leigh Brackett’s The Ginger Star, the opening novel in the three-volume Book of Skaith.

I adore the great Brackett stories of the late ’40s and early ‘50s, particularly The Sword of Rhiannon, one of the great pure planetary romances; and other stories in the same loosely developed future (though The Sword of Rhiannon is really set in the past): “The Halfling,” “The Dancing Girl of Ganymede,” “Mars Minus Bisha,” “Shannach – the Last,” for example. Other SF was also very fine, most notably The Long Tomorrow, a post-Apocalyptic novel; but also The Big Jump and The Starmen of Llyrdis. Her slightly later story from Venture, “The Queer Ones” (aka “The Other People”) is excellent, and not terribly well known. The Eric John Stark stories fit into her Mars/Venus/etc. future – and they are quite enjoyable as well. Stark is portrayed as a nearly savage man, raised as an orphan on Mercury, and rampaging through Venus and Mars in the most prominent pieces.

The Skaith novels feature Stark as the protagonist, but they are set on a planet in another Solar System, Skaith. I had assumed that she set them there because the Mars and Venus of the earlier stories was no longer astronomically plausible, and perhaps that is the case, but it should be noted that in these books she does still portray Stark as a native of Mercury – also a highly implausible thing.

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Self-Published Book Review: Bitterwood by James Maxey

Self-Published Book Review: Bitterwood by James Maxey

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If you have a book you’d like me to review, please see this post for instructions to submit. I’ve received very few submissions recently, and I’d like to get more.

Bitterwood-coverThis month’s self-published book review is of Bitterwood by James Maxey. I’m stretching the definition of self-published in this instance, as Bitterwood was initially published by Solaris in 2007. But the version I’ve been reading is in Bitterwood: The Complete Collection, which appears to have been published by the author, and includes new material. The reason that I’m stretching definitions here is that I’ve received very few submissions recently. So if you’re interested in seeing your novel reviewed, please submit it to me.

Bitterwood is the story of a world ruled by dragons. These are not your standard fantasy dragons, though. They are four limbed — two hind claws, and two wings with foreclaws that allow manipulation — and they do not breathe fire. They’re also considerably smaller than fantasy dragons, the smaller ones being not much larger than a man, but they are considerably more civilized. They have a well-developed culture, and a hierarchy ruled by the large sun-dragons, served by the deft and scholarly sky-dragons, and the worker, earthbound earth-dragons. And beneath them all are the humans who work the fields and pay tribute. The dragon king, Albekizan, owns the entire known world, and everyone lives on it at his sufferance. The humans are considered little better than parasites, held in contempt and hunted for sport.

Except for Bant Bitterwood. Converted at a young age to a harsh form of Christianity by the wandering prophet Hezekiah, Bant was force to abandon his family by the prophet, and subsequently lost them to the dragons. Bitterwood abandoned his faith and swore vengeance, and has been hunting dragons ever since. Every dragon knows his name, and fears him as The Ghost Who Kills — a man who should be dead, who comes and goes like a ghost, and kills without mercy.

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New Treasures: Shadow’s Blade, Book III of the Case Files of Justis Fearsson by David B. Coe

New Treasures: Shadow’s Blade, Book III of the Case Files of Justis Fearsson by David B. Coe

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Spell Blind David B Coe-small His Father's Eyes David B Coe-small Shadow's Blade David B Coe-small

David B. Coe’s adventure fantasy “Night of Two Moons” was one of the most popular tales in Black Gate 4. Over the last two decades he’s had a stellar career in fantasy — his LonTobyn trilogy and five-book Winds of the Forelands established him as a leading voice in adventure fantasy; and under the name D.B. Jackson he also writes the Thieftaker Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy for Tor. Shadow’s Blade, the third volume in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, a contemporary urban fantasy featuring a hardboiled, magic-using private detective, was released by Baen last week.

Justis Fearsson is a weremyste and a private detective. He wields potent magic, but every month, on the full moon, he loses his mind. His battles with insanity have already cost him his job as a cop; he can’t afford to let them interfere with his latest case.

Phoenix has become ground zero in a magical war, and an army of werecreatures, blood sorcerers, and necromancers has made Jay its number one target. When he is hired to track down a woman who has gone missing with her two young children, he has a hunch that the dark ones are to blame. But then he’s also brought in by the police to help with a murder investigation, and all the evidence implicates this same woman. Soon he is caught up in a deadly race to find not only the young family, but also an ancient weapon that could prove decisive in the looming conflict. Can he keep himself alive long enough to reach the woman and her kids before his enemies do? And can he claim the weapon before the people he loves, and the world he knows, are lost in a storm of flame, blood, and darkest sorcery?

We cover the second volume in the series, His Father’s Eyes, here. David is a sometime blogger for Black Gate; his most recent article series for us discussed last year’s Hugo Award controversy.

Shadow’s Blade was published by Baen on May 3, 2016. It is 320 pages, priced at $26 in hardcover, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Alan Pollock. Read a sample chapter at David’s website.

The 2016 Locus Award Finalists

The 2016 Locus Award Finalists

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Karen Memory-smallerWith all the hubbub surrounding the Hugo Awards this week, I almost overlooked the 2016 Locus Award Finalists, announced on Tuesday. There’s plenty of terrific reading on this list, and the nomination process is done with an open online poll.

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation sponsors the awards, and the winners are selected by the readers of Locus magazine. The awards began in 1971, originally as a way to highlight quality work in advance of the Hugo Awards. The winners will be announced during the Locus Awards Weekend in Seattle WA, June 24-26, 2016. In addition to creators, the Locus Foundation also honors winning publishers with certificates, which I think is kind of neat.

The finalists are:

FANTASY NOVEL

Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear (Tor)
The House of Shattered Wings, Aliette de Bodard (Roc)
Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand (Open Road)
The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Del Rey)

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Future Treasures: Company Town by Madeline Ashby

Future Treasures: Company Town by Madeline Ashby

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Company Town-smallMadeline Ashby is the author Vn and its sequel iD, the first two novels in the The Machine Dynasty trilogy from Angry Robot. She lives in Toronto and writes articles for my hometown paper, the Ottawa Citizen, which automatically makes her cool in my eyes.

Her third novel Company Town, a near-future mystery, is getting a lot of early attention. Locus calls it “Worthy of the best Heinlein…. a terrific ride,” and Chuck Wendig says “This is brave, bold, crazy storytelling.” Charlie Stross says “Madeline Ashby bludgeons cyberpunk to death with this post-climate change thriller about life aboard a gas platform, confronting an uncomfortable new future.” I’m sold.

New Arcadia is a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd.

Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bio-engineered enhancements. As such, she’s the last truly organic person left on the rig — making her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. Still, her expertise in the arts of self-defense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?

Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city’s stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa’s front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to be — but now, the danger is personal.

A brilliant, twisted mystery, as one woman must evaluate saving the people of a town that can’t be saved, or saving herself.

Company Town will be published by Tor Books on May 17, 2016. It is 341 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital version. The cover is by ChiZine’s genius designer Erik Mohr.

One More Time(Piece)

One More Time(Piece)

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Robinson Kill EditorIn my last post I talked about John D. MacDonald’s The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything, and today I’d like to take a look at Spider Robinson’s homage to that classic story, Kill the Editor.

I should begin by telling you that Kill the Editor was published separately as a limited edition (1991) but also appears as the first two thirds of his longer Lady Slings the Booze (1992), which is in itself a follow-up (avoiding the dreaded “s” word) to Callahan’s Lady. In Lady Slings Robinson tips his hat to several other mystery/crime writers in his acknowledgements, but it’s MacDonald’s watch that interests me here.

As you’ll recall if you read my last post, Kirby Winter inherited a watch that would stop time for the person holding it. A ton of other people wanted to get his secret from him – most without knowing exactly what the secret was – and defending himself and defeating the bad guys constitutes the plot of that story. (Or the plot of pretty much any story, I suppose.)

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