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Series (Space) Fantasy: The Indranan War by K.B. Wagers

Series (Space) Fantasy: The Indranan War by K.B. Wagers

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Behind the Throne KB Wagers-small After the Crown KB Wagers-small

You know what long hot summers call out for? A long, satisfying space fantasy… with blasters, smugglers, deadly court intrigue — and, of course, a Space Princess. Orbit Books has just the thing. They’re launching a brand new space fantasy series next month: The Indranan War, by newcomer K.B. Wagers. Book One, Behind the Throne, arrives in trade paperback August 2.

Hailimi Bristol escaped from the suffocating court life of Indrana at the age of 19 and changed the course of her life. She became a universally feared gunrunner and, eventually, captain of her own ship. Twenty years later, though, her life is turned upside down by the death of her best friend and lover, the destruction of her ship, and her own effective kidnapping by Royal Trackers tasked with bringing her home. But why? After twenty years?

Because Princess Hailimi Bristol is the only remaining heir to the Indranan throne.

Her sisters have been killed and her mother is ill. Is it a plot by Indrana’s enemies to restart the war that killed her father? Or is it a cabal of men from within Indrana’s own matriarchal society seeking to change centuries of rule by women? For on Indrana, men are second to women and not all are as accepting of that as they seem.

Caught in a whirlwind of plots and assassination attempts, poor Hail longs for the “simple life” of running guns and smuggling. But she can’t run back to that old life. For if she runs away again, Indrana will enter an unnecessary war with the neighboring kingdoms, millions will die, and the Bristol name will disappear forever.

The next book in the series, After the Crown, will be released next year. Behind the Throne will be published by Orbit Books on Aug 2, 2016. It is 42 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Lauren Panepinto.

Future Treasures: Welcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville

Future Treasures: Welcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville

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Welcome to Deadland-smllZachary Tyler Linville won the first Nerdist Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novel Contest. His winning entry, the zombie apocalypse novel Welcome to Deadland, will be published by Nerdist/Inkshares early next month. The tale of a ragtag group of survivors who may well be humanity’s last hope, Welcome to Deadland is getting some early praise from folks like Jonathan Maberry (“Heartbreaking, compelling and highly recommended!”) and Scott Kenemore (“A powerful new voice in the horror genre… Welcome to Deadland opens doors that most of us would prefer to quietly tiptoe past.”)

A widespread disease has ravaged humanity — symptoms include: animalistic rage, violent outbursts, and a ravenous hunger for human flesh. The few people left are thrust together to fight for their lives, before the world becomes overrun by the infected. Asher, Wendy, and Rico try to reach an abandoned theme park, hoping for sanctuary. Although fear of the infected is ever-present, the group finds themselves facing some very human concerns, as well as new adversaries.

Asher is Wendy’s only friend, and she fears that she’ll lose him if he ever discovers the dark secret she’s been harboring. Reeling from heartbreak, Asher clings to Wendy as he struggles to heal. Rico is a seventeen-year-old rebel used to ditching school and partying all night — but can he outgrow his debauched behavior in order to protect a six-year-old boy who has suddenly fallen under his care? These three will have to overcome their own demons in order to save not only themselves, but the last vestiges of humanity.

Welcome to Deadland will be published by Nerdist/Inkshares on August 9, 2016. It is 414 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Girl Friday Productions.

Who Still Reads 1950s Science Fiction?

Who Still Reads 1950s Science Fiction?

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The Heinlein Juveniles-small

Over at his blog Auxiliary Memory, James Wallace Harris has posted a heartfelt and clear-eyed tribute to the science fiction of the 1950s, and asks the question: Is there more to classic SF than mere nostalgia?

Personally, I believe the best science fiction books written in the last twenty-five years are better crafted than the best science fiction written in the 1950s. Now I’m talking about writing, storytelling, characterization, plotting, and all the mechanics of creating a book… So, why bother reading old science fiction at all?… The 1960s seems to be the oldest science fiction that many modern readers discover, with books like Slaughterhouse Five, Dune, A Wrinkle in Time, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Man in the High Castle.

Time is hard on science fiction. It doesn’t age well… The real question is: Are these old science fiction books still readable, still lovable, by later generations who have no nostalgic ties to the past? Who still reads 1950s science fiction?…

The 1950s were strange in that people thought civilization was coming to an end and hoped to expand civilization across the galaxy. What a schizoid dichotomy. And I grasped that as a kid. Maybe that’s the trip that got laid on me that I’m trying to understand. To me, the absolutely best inheritance I received from the 1950s were the Heinlein juveniles I first discovered in 1964, when I was still twelve (the Golden Age of Science Fiction). In fact, all my reading of science fiction feels like it’s been downhill ever since I first read Have Space Suit-Will Travel, Tunnel in the Sky, Time for the Stars, The Rolling Stones, Red Planet, Starman Jones, Farmer in the Sky, Between Planets, Space Cadet, Citizen of the Galaxy, The Star Beast and Rocketship Galileo. There were other young adult SF from the 1950s that I loved; books by Andre Norton, Isaac Asimov, Donald Wollheim, and the whole series from Winston Science Fiction. But the Heinlein twelve were always the pinnacle of SF for me.

Read the complete article (with plenty of gorgeous cover scans) here.

New Treasures: The Dinosaur Knights by Victor Milán

New Treasures: The Dinosaur Knights by Victor Milán

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The Dinosaur Lords-smaller The Dinosaur Knights-small

Knights riding dinosaurs! It’s so far over the top, it’s almost irresistible. The first installment in Victor Milán’s dino-chivalry mash-up was The Dinosaur Lords, which appeared in hardcover last August, to a surprising amount of critical praise (and more than a few astonished stares.) The second volume, The Dinosaur Knights, was published by Tor earlier this month.

Paradise is a sprawling, diverse, often cruel world. There are humans on Paradise but dinosaurs predominate: wildlife, monsters, beasts of burden, and of war. Armored knights ride dinosaurs to battle legions of war-trained Triceratops and their upstart peasant crews.

Karyl Bogomirsky is one such knight who has chosen to rally those who seek a way from the path of war and madness. The fact that the Empire has announced a religious crusade against this peaceful kingdom, the people who just wish to live in peace anathema, and they all are to be converted or destroyed doesn’t help him one bit.

Things really turn to mud when the dreaded Grey Angels, fabled ancient weapons of the Gods who created Paradise in the first place come on the scene after almost a millennia. Everyone thought that they were fables used to scare children. They are very much real.

And they have come to rid the world of sin… including all the humans who manifest those vices.

Emily Mah interviewed author Victor Milán for us last year, just before the release of The Dinosaur Lords — check it out here.

The Dinosaur Knights was published by Tor Books on July 5, 2016. It is 444 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Richard Anderson.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Mycroft’s Job

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Mycroft’s Job

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Mycroft_SP1One of the things I enjoy about being a Sherlockian (no, I don’t mean a fan of the BBC television show) is the way ‘one thing leads into another’ and you can explore all kinds of avenues and lanes, wandering here and there, encountering interesting stuff. That was a long sentence!

I was fortunate enough to be included in the upcoming MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – Part V. In the early part of my story, The Case of the Ruby Necklace (yes, I know, captivating title), I had cause to include a passage from A Study in Scarlet:

“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault, they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you can have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first.”

“And these other people?” I asked, regarding the many strangers that visited our rooms for private sessions with Holmes. I had wondered if he were not some kind of fortuneteller and too embarrassed to tell me so.

“They are mostly sent on by private enquiry agencies. They are all people who are in trouble about something, and want a little enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and then I pocket my fee.”

“But do you mean to say,” I said, “that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?”

“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge, which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully. Observation with me is second nature.”

 

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Lara Destiny and the Question of Identity

Lara Destiny and the Question of Identity

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61kUt9hg1UL._UX250_Dick Enos has proven himself one of the most prolific New Pulp writers since he emerged five years ago.

What sets Dick apart from many of his contemporaries is his unwavering vision to create original pulp characters. Until recently, I was only familiar with Rick Steele, the adventurous 1950s test pilot who has appeared in seven novels thus far. Rick is cut very much from the mold of the classic newspaper strip, Steve Canyon and OTR and Golden Age of Television favorite, Sky King.

I was vaguely aware that Dick had launched a second series featuring an original character, a female private eye called Lara Destiny. I immediately thought of Max Allan Collins’ Ms. Tree and Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski. Female private eyes were a rarity in hardboiled circles thirty years ago, but what could Enos offer in the way of a new twist? The fact that Lara Destiny was born Lawrence Destiny is a good starting point.

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Future Treasures: Red Right Hand by Levi Black

Future Treasures: Red Right Hand by Levi Black

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Red Right Hand Levi Black-smallRed Right Hand is the debut novel from Atlanta writer Levi Black. Jonathan Maberry calls it “A perfect blend of old-school horror and modern storytelling sorcery… absolutely riveting!”

Charlie Tristan Moore isn’t a hero. She’s a survivor. Already wrestling with the demons of her past, she finds herself tested as never before when she arrives home one night to find herself under attack by three monstrous skinhounds straight out of a nightmare. Just as hope seems lost, she is saved by a sinister Man in Black, dressed in a long, dark coat that seems to possess a life of its own and wielding a black-bladed sword in his grisly red right hand.

But her rescue comes at a cost. The Man in Black, a diabolical Elder God, demands she become his Acolyte and embrace a dark magick she never knew she possessed. To ensure her obedience, he takes her friend and possible love, Daniel, in thrall as a hostage. Now she must join The Man in Black in his crusade to track down and destroy his fellow Elder Gods, supposedly to save humanity from being devoured for all eternity.

But is The Man in Black truly the lesser of two evils – or a menace far more treacherous than the eldritch horrors she’s battling in his name?

I first heard of it at the B&N blog, in Jeff Somers’s post “The Long Arm of Lovecraft: 8 Books That Probe the Mythos,” which also examines Ruthanna Emrys’ The Litany of Earth, Jacqueline Baker’s The Broken Hours, and Nick Mamatas’ I Am Providence. On Red Right Hand, Jeff says:

Charlie… survives an attack by a trio of monstrous skinhounds thanks to the intervention of the Man in Black, whose long coats swirls with a mind of its own and whose grisly red right hand clutches a black blade. The Man in Black is in fact an Elder God, and he enlists Charlie’s help in destroying his peers, claiming to be trying to save mankind. Charlie dives into the fray, unsure if there’s such a thing as the “lesser of two evils” when it comes to Lovecraftian creatures. Readers will be sucked in by the bravado writing.

Red Right Hand will be published by Tor Books on July 26, 2016. It is 304 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition. Read an excerpt here.

Dorsai and Secret Psi Powers: Rich Horton on The Genetic General/Time to Teleport by Gordon R. Dickson

Dorsai and Secret Psi Powers: Rich Horton on The Genetic General/Time to Teleport by Gordon R. Dickson

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The Genetic General-small Time to Teleport-small

Over at Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton turns his attention to an author who’s rapidly being forgotten in the 21st Century: Gordon R. Dickson.

So this time an Ace Double featuring a pretty significant novel in SF history, by a pretty significant writer. The Genetic General is much better known as Dorsai!, the title under which it was serialized in Astounding in 1959… Dorsai! was the first major story in Dickson’s central series, called The Childe Cycle… The Genetic General is about a young man of the Dorsai people, from the planet called Dorsai, orbiting Fomalhaut. The Dorsai are mercenaries, and Donal Graeme, as the book opens, is a very young man just ready to go out into the wider human civilization and take on his first assignment. Immediately he encounters a beautiful but scared woman, Anea, the Select of Kultis, one of the Exotic worlds. She has taken a contract to be an escort for the powerful merchant William of Ceta, and wants Donal to get rid of it. He of course realizes that would be a crime and a mistake, and so refuses, but he is set on a collision course with William…

It’s early Dickson, not as well done as some of his later work. But it is quite exciting, and Donal’s military feats make good stories. And Dickson’s ambition is quite apparent — he is interested in deeper themes than just good adventure. I quite enjoyed the book.

Dorsai! was a major installment in a highly popular multi-novel sequence from Dickson, and it remained in print for decades. As Rich noted, it originally appeared in Astounding, serialized across three issues (May, June, and July) in 1959.

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An Introduction to B.C. Bell’s The Bagman

An Introduction to B.C. Bell’s The Bagman

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Tales of the Bagman-small Tales of the Bagman-back-small

Author B. Chris Bell is one of the bright lights of the New Pulp world. For Airship 27 Productions he’s written stories appearing in Secret Agent X, The Green Ghost, Jim Anthony Super-Detective, Gene Fowler: G-Man and many others. His wonderful story, “How Pappy Got Five Acres Back and Calvin Stayed on the Farm” was a winner in SFReader.com’s 2007 Annual Short Story Contest. He made the Horror Writer’s Association Reading List for 2012. His Kindle novel, Bi-Polar Express, is a wild ride of genres, almost impossible to label with its mix of the true-to-life horrors of addiction, rehab wards, hospitals, and post-apocalyptic science fiction.

Chris Bell was born and raised in Texas, and now lives in Chicago. I was born and raised in Chicago, and still live here. But Bell writes about Chicago as if he were born and bred to the mean streets of the Windy City. Heck, he knows so much about 1930s Chicago that you swear he’d grown up during the Depression. And that’s the period in which he’s set his wonderful Tales of the Bagman (Vol. 1): 1933 Chicago, during the last days of Prohibition.

The Bagman is one Frank “Mac” McCullough, a one-time courier and thug for a crime family during the Great Depression. At an early age Mac’s life took a major turn when he became an orphan, spent time in a reformatory, and then later got involved in the rackets. But he’s always had a core of decency and honesty buried in his heart. So when he chooses to help and old family friend who got in hock to the Mob, Mac turns his back on crime and his Boss, Slots Lurie, and suddenly finds himself taking another turn on the road of life. In a last-minute decision to conceal his identity from the wise guys he’s hunting, Mac dons a paper bag over his head, and soon he’s known as the mysterious Bagman. (Later he acquires a mask more appropriate to being a man of mystery and a crime-fighting avenger.) And then, in the first part of this origin story, he becomes a fugitive wanted by both the Mob and the police.

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New Treasures: Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone by G.S Denning

New Treasures: Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone by G.S Denning

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Warlock Holmes-smallBob Byrne, our Monday blogger who posts under The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes byline, is our go-to Holmes guy. But even can’t report on all the Sherlockian developments these days, which is why I’m here to tell you about G.S Denning’s new book Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone, released in trade paperback by Titan Books in May. Robert Brockway (The Unnoticeables) give us the details:

What if Sherlock Holmes wasn’t a brilliant detective, but an awkward magician with prophetic fits? What if Scotland Yard was staffed by vampires and ogres? And above all, what if it was funny? Warlock Holmes should have you from the title alone, but if it doesn’t, know that it’s full of charm, humor and demons. Lots of demons.

Humor is hard — and especially humor at length. I can count the number of truly funny novels I’ve read on one hand. But I enjoy a good parody, and this collection of humorous Sherlock pastiches with a dark fantasy twist looks like it would fit the bill nicely.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius who uses the gift of deduction and reason to solve the most vexing of crimes. Warlock Holmes, however, is an idiot. A good man, perhaps; a font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart flatmate. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety… and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

An imaginative, irreverent and addictive reimagining of the world’s favorite detective, Warlock Holmes retains the charm, tone and feel of the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle while finally giving the flat at 221b Baker Street what it’s been missing for all these years: an alchemy table.

Reimagining six stories, this riotous mash-up is a glorious new take on the ever-popular Sherlock Holmes myth, featuring the vampire Inspector Vladislav Lestrade, the ogre Inspector Torg Grogsson, and Dr. Watson, the true detective at 221b. And Sherlock. A warlock.

Warlock Holmes: A Study in Brimstone was published by Titan Books on May 17, 2016. It is 336 page, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital version.