Browsed by
Category: Books

The IX: Exordium of Tears by Andrew P. Weston

The IX: Exordium of Tears by Andrew P. Weston

Comments 4 comments

oie_2118595BlvQOK2dFrom his home in the Aegean, author Andrew P. Weston has sent out another blast of science fiction action (yeah, I don’t read only fantasy) with his new book The IX: Exordium of Tears, recounting the further adventures of the famous Legio IX Hispana. The preceding volume, The IX, was released last year and reviewed at Black Gate by me here.

To recap: the Roman IX Legion, their Celtic adversaries, US cavalry troopers, their American Indian foes, and a squad of British special forces operators were torn from their respective times just as they were about to be killed in battle, and teleported to the planet Arden. There, under the guidance of the planet-controlling AI “the Architect”, they were set to fight against the Horde, an endless force of energy-eating beings who had worked their way through the billions of inhabitants of the many worlds of the spacefaring Ardenese civilization. The Architect’s plan for surival is to store the genetic templates of the surviving Ardenese and revive them in the future, while using the warlike humans to destroy the Horde. In league with the survivors of previous groups of teleported humans from other timelines, guided by the super computer, and armed with such fun toys as mini-singularity bombs, the newcomers do just that. The books show their old school sci-fi roots in this bit of Campbellian human chauvinism. They also bring to mind stories by Gordon Dickson and Jerry Pournelle, a strong mark in their favor.

In the year between their victory and the start of the new book, many of the Ardenese are restored to life. Together, they and the humans are striving to restore the planet Arden to its pre-Horde state, but peace is fleeting.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks

Future Treasures: The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks

Comments 1 comment
The Nameless City-small The Nameless City-back--small

Faith Erin Hicks has had a pretty enviable career in comics, as a writer for Lumberjanes, Buffy: The High School Years and The Last of Us: American Dreams, and as an artist for Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, and Brain Camp. On her own she’s created Friends with Boys, Zombies Calling!, and the Eisner-Award winning The Adventures of Superhero Girl.

Her latest, The Nameless City, has the look and feel of epic fantasy. Built on an ancient mountain pass, cut through sheer rock by some long-lost technology, the Nameless City has been conquered so many times that its long-suffering inhabitants — a melting pot of an unknown number of previous civilizations — can’t even agree on what to call it. Thirteen year-old Kaidu, the privileged son of a tribal leader, comes to the city to meet his father, a general with the ruling Dao army, for the first time. General Andren is a kind man, but too busy to spend more than a few minutes a day with a son he’s never known.

Disappointed and lonely, Kaidu sneaks out of the protective enclave of the Palace each day to wander the city. There he meets Rat, a starving street urchin who steals his most precious possession: the ancient knife his father gave to him when they first met. Lost and humiliated, Kaidu chases Rat through the streets and across the rooftops of the city until he tackles Rat, retrieving his precious knife.

…

Read More Read More

The Refusal To Sprawl: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven

The Refusal To Sprawl: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven

Comments 1 comment

Station Eleven-smallTo peruse the book jacket of Station Eleven, one would think that this novel has a traditional main character (Kirsten). This, like the utterly misleading picture on the front –– the yellow tents and curving wall never crop up, so far as I can tell –– is a lie.

Station Eleven is akin in many ways to A Song Of Ice And Fire in that it positions a dozen main characters and asks us to follow them all, sometimes for moments, sometimes for chapters, in what amounts to a kind of prose chorale. The effort is largely successful, but it also suggests a grander canvas, one that Mandel, who surely thinks of herself as a writer of literary work, has no intention of pursuing.

Contrast with Mr. Martin: when he sets his dozen, then fifty, characters in motion, he follows every one, rabbit hole after rabbit hole. This is not to say that either approach is more valid than the other, but it’s telling; the one method begets only a single book, the other a series or even a cycle.

Once again, I find myself puzzled by the (apparently necessary) differences between genre and literary publishing tropes. I honestly don’t think Mandel even considered expanding her storylines, or following her characters farther afield. Expansion and long-form digressions are all but expected in fantasy and science fiction, and the short novel (say, Flowers For Algernon) is a rare bird these days, and getting rarer.

But in nominally literary work? One book, and you’re out. Covers closed, shelve the title. Move along, people. Nothing more to see here.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The Grimm Future, edited by Erin Underwood

New Treasures: The Grimm Future, edited by Erin Underwood

Comments 1 comment

The Grimm Future-smallNESFA Press is one of my favorite small publishers. They’ve done some of the most essential collections of the past few decades, including From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown, the massive six-volume Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, the two-volume Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, the magnificent Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell, Transfinite: The Essential A. E. Van Vogt, and dozens more. They’ve been relatively quiet recently (except for releasing a new volume in The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson every year or so, which admittedly is enough to keep anyone busy), and I admit that I was growing concerned that the once tireless NESFA machine was perhaps not as tireless as most of us thought.

So I was very pleased to see the release of The Grimm Future last month, an anthology collecting reimagined Grimm fairy tales by Garth Nix, Max Gladstone, Carlos Hernandez, Jeffrey Ford, Peadar Ó Guillín, John Langan, Seanan McGuire, and many others.

Blending fresh new science fiction with a futuristic dash of magic, The Grimm Future is a unique anthology of reimagined Grimm fairy tales from some of today’s most exciting authors — along with the original stories that inspired them. The Grimm Future examines our humanity and what that term might come to mean through the eyes of future generations as society advances into an age when technology consumes nearly every aspect of our lives or has ultimately changed life as we know it. How might these timeless stories evolve? Given the relentless onrush of technology, there is even greater need for fairy tales and Grimm magic in our future. Read on!

All the stories are new.

…

Read More Read More

Profound Enough to Hurt: Amal El-Mohtar on Ken Liu’s The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Profound Enough to Hurt: Amal El-Mohtar on Ken Liu’s The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Comments 2 comments

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories-smallI read a lot of reviews (no, seriously. A lot. Of reviews). But, like everyone else, I have favorite reviewers — those who’ve guided me towards books I might not have selected on my own, or whose taste aligns splendidly well with (or is a heckuva lot better than) mine.

These days one of my go-to reviewers is Amal El-Mohtar, occasional Black Gate blogger and author — whose own short story “Madeleine” is a 2016 Nebula finalist for Best Short Story. Earlier this week Amal reviewed Ken Liu’s new short story collection The Paper Menagerie for NPR… and had more to say about it on her website.

I have never been so moved by a collection of short fiction. I was at times afraid to read more. Every single story struck chords in me profound enough to hurt, whether about the love and cruelty of families; the melancholy of thermodynamics; the vicious unfairness of history and the humbling grace with which people endure its weight. Stories so often take us out of ourselves; Liu’s stories went deep into my marrow, laying bare painful truths, meticulously slicing through the layers of pearl to find the grain of sand at its heart.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories was published by Saga Press on March 8, 2016. It is 464 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital version. That origami tiger on the cover was designed, folded and photographed by Quentin Trollip. We covered the complete contents here.

See all of our coverage of the best in new fantasy book here.

Vintage Treasures: The Silistra Quartet by Janet Morris

Vintage Treasures: The Silistra Quartet by Janet Morris

Comments 6 comments
High Couch of Silistra-small The Golden Sword Janet Morris 1981-small

In the last few weeks I’ve touched on a few tales of modern writers who didn’t make it — or at least, fantasy series that never got off the ground, and died after one or two hardcover releases without even a paperback edition. To switch things up a bit, today I thought I’d look at one of the most successful fantasy debuts of all time, a series that became a huge international hit with its first release, launching the career of one of the most prolific fantasy writers of the late 20th Century: Janet Morris’ The Silistra Quartet.

The Silistra Quartet began with Janet’s first novel, High Couch of Silistra, which appeared in paperback from Bantam Books in 1977 with a classic cover by Boris (above left). Although it was packaged as fantasy, High Couch was really science fiction, the far-future tale of the colony planet of Silistra, still recovering from an ancient war that left the planet scarred and much of the population infertile. With a dangerously low birth-rate, it’s not long before the human colonists of Silistra develop a new social order, with a hierarchy based on fertility and sexual prowess.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: The Human Chord/The Centaur by Algernon Blackwood

Future Treasures: The Human Chord/The Centaur by Algernon Blackwood

Comments 5 comments
The Human Chord The Centaur Algernon Blackwood-small The Human Chord The Centaur Algernon Blackwood-back-small

I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve not read much Algernon Blackwood. But I’ve been educated on his substantial contributions to the American horror genre by my fellow Black Gate writers, especially Ryan Harvey and Bill Lengeman. In his 2009 post “The Incredible Adventures of Algernon Blackwood,” Ryan wrote:

Of all the practitioners of the classic “weird tale”…  none entrances me more than Algernon Blackwood. Looking at the stable of the foundational authors of horror — luminaries like Poe, James, le Fanu, Machen, Lovecraft — it is Blackwood who has the strongest effect on me. Of all his lofty company, he is the one who seems to achieve the most numinous “weird” of all.

Blackwood is often referred to as a “ghost story” writer… But true ghosts rarely appear in his fiction. Blackwood liked to dance around the edge of easy classification, and as his work advanced through the 1900s and into the teens, it got even harder to pinpoint. Blackwood’s interest in spiritualism, his love of nature, and his pantheism started to overtake his more standard forays in supernatural terror. His writing turned more toward transcendentalism and away from plot. The most important precursor to this development is his 1911 novel The Centaur, which critic S. T. Joshi describes as Blackwood’s “spiritual autobiography.”

And in his 2015 review of Algernon Blackwood’s The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories, Bill Lengeman clearly agreed.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: A Cure For Cancer by Michael Moorcock

New Treasures: A Cure For Cancer by Michael Moorcock

Comments 7 comments
A Cure for Cancer Moorcock-small A Cure for Cancer Moorcock-back-small

Titan Books has been doing a marvelous service for modern fantasy fans, as they gradually reprint Michael Moorcock’s back catalog — including some of the most fondly remembered fantasy of the 20th Century. They began with his early steampunk trilogy Nomad of the Time Streams (starting with The Warlord of the Air), and continued with the complete Chronicles of Corum. This year they’ve turned their attention to the Cornelius Quartet, starring the hippest adventurer in fantasy, scientist and rock star Jerry Cornelius.

The first volume, The Final Programme (which we gave away three copies of last month) was published on February 2. Volume Two, A Cure For Cancer, arrived earlier this month. A mirror-image of his former self, Jerry Cornelius returns to a parallel London, armed with a vibragun and his infamous charisma and charm, and hot on the trail of the grotesque Bishop Beesley. Click on the cover above for the complete book description (or just to gawk at the trippin’ cover art).

A Cure For Cancer was published by Titan Books on March 1, 2016. It is 340 pages, priced at $9.95 in paperback and $7.99 for the digital version. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd.

Win One of Tor.com‘s March Releases!

Win One of Tor.com‘s March Releases!

Comments 4 comments
The Devil You Know-small Forest of Memory-small Pieces of Hate-small

I love novellas. Tor.com loves novellas. We have so much in common, I sometimes wish we could run off together. (Of course, you know how these internet infatuations end up. I’m emotionally needy, and Tor.com is such a workaholic… it would all end in tears. But you know it’d be beautiful while it lasted.)

Our love may be doomed, but there’s no reason someone shouldn’t end up happy. And I think it should be you. To help make that happen, Black Gate and Tor.com have teamed up to give away copies of all three of their March releases:

The Devil You Know, K. J. Parker (126 pages, $10.99, March 1) — cover by Jon Foster (reveal, excerpt)
Forest of Memory, Mary Robinette Kowal (88 pages, $9.99, March 8) — cover by Victo Ngai (reveal, excerpt)
Pieces of Hate, Tim Lebbon (148 pages, $12.99, March 15) — cover by Gene Mollica (reveal, excerpt)

How do you make one of them yours? Nothing could be simpler! Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “Tor.com contest,” and a one-sentence review of your all-time favorite novella.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: The Blood Red City by Justin Richards

Future Treasures: The Blood Red City by Justin Richards

Comments 3 comments
The Suicide Exhibition-small The Blood Red City-small

Justin Richards is a jack-of-all-trades. He’s written numerous books — including The Chaos Code, The Parliament of Blood, and the Time Runners series — as well as audio plays and a stage play. He’s also an editor for a media journal, with several anthologies to his credit. He’s the Creative Director for the BBC’s Doctor Who books, and has authored several himself (including Time Lord Fairytales, The Shakespeare Notebooks, and The Only Good Dalek).

None of that prepared me for his 2015 novel The Suicide Exhibition, which featured an insidious Nazis plot to use alien Vril technology to win the war, and the small band of British wartime intelligence agents who undertake a desperate mission to stop Heinrich Himmler from excavating ancient burial grounds and finding these extraterrestrial Übermenschen. Michael Moorcock said “Richards brings all his skills as a leading Doctor Who writer to this tale of wartime intelligence at odds with some of H.P. Lovecraft’s worst nightmares,” and Kirkus Reviews said “Richards’ true talent lies in crafting campy but believable dialogue which imbues the novel with a real sense of character… Part Indiana Jones, part X-Files, part Catch-22, it’s good campy fun.”

The Blood Red City, the second volume in The Never War, arrives in hardcover from Thomas Dunne before the end of the month. As the alien Vril awaken, Colonel Brinkman and his team at Station Z stuggle to solve an ancient mystery… while preparing for an imminent alien attack.

…

Read More Read More