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New Treasures: Skein and Bone by V.H. Leslie

New Treasures: Skein and Bone by V.H. Leslie

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As 2015 went by, I found myself more and more impressed with Michael Kelly and his team at Undertow Publications. They do the kind of work that no one else is doing, exemplary books like Year’s Best Weird Fantasy, Volumes One and Two, the impressive tribute anthology Aickman’s Heirs, and their acclaimed annual journal of the fantastic, Shadows & Tall Trees.

So I was pleased to see that they also publish short story collections — including the debut collection of supernatural and ghost stories from V. H. Leslie, Skein and Bone. Leslie’s stories have appeared in Black Static, Interzone, Shadows & Tall Trees, Weird Fiction Review and other places, and she was nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award in 2014, for her novelette “The Quiet Room.” She’s an up-and-coming weird fiction writer whom I’ve heard a lot about, and I’m glad to have a chance to sample some of her latest work, all in one convenient package.

Skein and Bone was published by Undertow Publications on July 17, 2015. It is 290 pages, priced at $18.99 in trade paperback. There is a digital edition available through Smashwords. The gorgeous wraparound cover is by Vince Haig. See all the details at the Undertow website.

Goth Chick News Reviews: The Box Jumper by Stoker Award Winner Lisa Mannetti

Goth Chick News Reviews: The Box Jumper by Stoker Award Winner Lisa Mannetti

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The Box Jumper-small

‘Magic’ is the operative word for this moody novella. The magic of Harry Houdini serves as an overriding backdrop here, but another kind of magic permeates these pages — the magic of fine writing. Don’t expect the usual linear plot, because there is no direct narrative. Vivid dreams, surreal images, hypnotic memories, all serve to flesh out an unsettling tale that sweeps us into a new fictional dimension.
— William F. Nolan, author of Logan’s Run

If those words from one of my favorite authors weren’t reason enough for me to immediately seek out The Box Jumper, then the prospect of Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle together again in the golden age of 1920’s séances would certainly have done the trick.

I am surprised I didn’t hurt myself in the dash.

In her latest, engagingly disturbing novella, Bram Stoker Award Winner Lisa Mannetti transports us to the post-WW I-era where Spiritualism was one of the fastest growing religions, and tricksters knew no bounds when it came to roping in the willing, the gullible and the curious.

There Mannetti introduces us to Leona Derwatt, one of Houdini’s (fictional) mistresses who was also his assistant onstage and off. Houdini takes Leona into his confidence, teaching her the intricacies and secrets of his magic, and teams with her as they confront and expose the many fraudulent psychics and mediums of the time.

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See the Table of Contents for The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One, edited by Neil Clarke

See the Table of Contents for The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One, edited by Neil Clarke

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year Neil Clarke-smallI’m always pleased to see a new Best of the Year volume join the ranks — especially when it comes from Neil Clarke, one of the most gifted editors in the field. As regular readers of Black Gate are aware, Neil is the Editor-in-Chief and publisher of Clarkesworld and Forever magazines, and he’s been awarded three Hugo Awards, a World Fantasy Award, and a British Fantasy Award. He has a keen and very discerning eye for the best in modern short fiction.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One kicks off a handsome new annual series from Night Shade. It’s a thick (512 page) volume, to be released in trade paperback and digital editions this June. It contains 31 short stories, novelettes, and novellas from Aliette de Bodard, Ann Leckie, Carrie Vaughn, David Brin, Geoff Ryman, Ian McDonald, Ken Liu, Nancy Kress, Paul McAuley, Robert Reed, Seanan McGuire, and many others. Here’s the book description.

To keep up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more — a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the inaugural volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a new yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor in chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda” that the genre has to offer.

And here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Future Treasures: The Pagan Night by Tim Akers

Future Treasures: The Pagan Night by Tim Akers

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The Pagan Night-small

Tim Akers has written some acclaimed fantasy — including The Horns of Ruin and The Burn Cycle (Heart of Veridon, Dead of Veridon, and the collection Bones of Veridon) — but epic fantasy is something new. He’s jumped in in a major way, with the impending release of The Pagan Night, the 605-page opening volume of The Hallowed War, which Booklist sums up as “high adventure, great characters, suspense, and dramatic plot shifts… an engaging, fast-paced entry in a popular subgenre.” You can read the brief book summary by clicking on the image above… by why do that when you can get the full, five-paragraph version at Tim’s website?

The second volume in the series, The Iron Hound, is scheduled to be released in January of next year, and The Winter Vow in January 2018. In the meantime, you can find the opening volume at your favorite bookstores on January 19, courtesy of Titan Books. It is 605 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Alejandro Colucci, and the interior maps (yay, maps!) are by David Pope.

Part Gothic, Part Sword and Sorcery, and Part Horror: Andrew P. Weston’s Hell Bound

Part Gothic, Part Sword and Sorcery, and Part Horror: Andrew P. Weston’s Hell Bound

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Hell Bound-smallHell Bound
By Andrew P. Weston
Perseid Press (464 pages, $23.85 paperback/$8.90 digital, November 5, 2015)
Cover art and design by Roy Mauritsen

Hell Bound is the latest novel by Andrew Paul Weston, best-selling author of The Guardian series, The Cambion Journals, and The IX, (which I reviewed for Black Gate here.) Hell Bound is also the latest novel in the Heroes in Hell shared-world universe, created by author/publisher Janet Morris.

The main character in Hell Bound is Daemon Grim, Satan’s bounty hunter, also known as the Reaper. Not only does he hunt down any damned soul in Hell who gets on the wrong side of His Satanic Majesty, he has the power to visit our world and harvest those who belong in Hell, souls Satan wants in Hell now. Grim can travel between Earth and Hell using a special sickle or scythe that can open portals between the two realms. This scythe also possesses a powerful weapon called God Grace’s, which gives Grim the ability to utterly destroy souls. Since there’s no death in Hell as we know it, (the Damned are already dead) there is instead Reassignment, a twisted version of resurrection handled by an unsavory character known only as the Undertaker. However, there is Oblivion — total obliteration into non-existence. Grim’s weapon gives him the power to send souls howling into eternal nothingness.

The plot concerns Grim’s mission to track down Doctor Thomas Neill Cream, the English physician who in real life was the brilliant and infamous Lambeth Poisoner. Cream has been stealing long-hidden relics and angelic weapons from the Time of the Sundering, when Satan and his followers were cast out of Heaven. All history and knowledge of the Sundering is banned in Hell, but Cream may have illegal access to Satan’s bureaucratic network.

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Vintage Treasures: Wasp by Eric Frank Russell

Vintage Treasures: Wasp by Eric Frank Russell

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Wasp 1959-small Wasp 1959 back-small

Eric Frank Russell is one of my favorite early SF writers. His prose sparkles, and his stories have genuine warmth and humor. His first novels, including Sinister Barrier (1939), Dreadful Sanctuary (1948), and Sentinels from Space (1953), made him instantly popular in the United States and his home country, the UK.

His fifth novel, Wasp (1957), is the story of a human saboteur, sent to the home planet of a hostile race during an interstellar war. All alone, he wages a campaign of terrorism to bring down a vast alien empire.

Like virtually all of Russell’s work, it remained in print for decades. Its first paperback appearance in the US was in February 1959, from Perma Books (above; click for bigger images). It was 170 pages, priced at 35 cents. The cover was by Art Sussman.

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Haunted Bushes, Serial Killers, and Mysterious Strangers: Algernon Blackwood’s The Listener and Other Stories

Haunted Bushes, Serial Killers, and Mysterious Strangers: Algernon Blackwood’s The Listener and Other Stories

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The Listener and Other Stories-smallThe Listener and Other Stories
By Algernon Blackwood
1907/1917

The Listener and Other Stories was Blackwood’s second fiction collection. It was published a year after the first one, The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories. It contains “The Willows,” a novella that’s arguably one of his best known works and one whose reputation is well deserved. The rest of the collection doesn’t come off quite as well as the previous one but it has some good moments.

“The Listener”

An understated story, as with so much of Blackwood’s fiction. As the story progresses the narrator, who lives in a boarding house that isn’t exactly the Ritz, has various odd experiences and seems to be coming apart at the seams. Well done, but for some reason it didn’t really work for me.

“Max Hensig — Bacteriologist and Murderer”

No supernatural or weird content in this one but it’s not a bad effort. Max Hensig is a sort of prototype of the Hannibal Lecter type of serial killer, who happens to like poisoning people. Plays out as a cat and mouse game between the killer and a reporter.

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The Series Series: The Girl with Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson

The Series Series: The Girl with Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson

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The Girl with Ghost Eyes-smallHere’s a great problem to have:

Your first novel just appeared in bookstores a couple weeks ago, and you’re getting ready to host an author event. It’ll be a night of martial arts movies that inspired your story of a Daoist exorcist priestess battling malevolent ghosts in 1890’s San Francisco Chinatown. You’ll have a full house. You’re all set to give opening remarks, to field questions, and to sign autographs. Lots and lots of autographs. There’s just one problem.

The book has sold out.

Not just at all your local bookstores. Not just at the local warehouses of the big distributors. At the offices of the press that published you, and at all of Amazon, too.

Your word of mouth is so strong, an entire print run’s worth of readers couldn’t wait for author events or the holidays. They had to have your book right now. Your publisher is scrambling to print a second run to satisfy all that glorious demand, but it won’t come in time for this night’s autographing.

Man, I would love to have a problem like that. But if it couldn’t happen to me, I’m delighted that it did happen to my longtime friend M.H. Boroson.

I want to tell everybody at Black Gate how awesome The Girl with Ghost Eyes is, but I can’t pretend to objectivity about this book or its author. How can I be objective about a friend who’s been important to me since we met at 14 in a writing summer camp? I’ll have to let Publishers Weekly, and all those other review outlets that are notoriously stingy with starred reviews, do that whole objectivity thing in my stead. Brilliant, dazzling, wonderful, thrilling, say various objective reviewers who haven’t known Matthew for two-thirds of their lives. Glad they got that all those adjectives checked off for me, because really, those words do belong in any review of The Girl with Ghost Eyes.

What I can do is tell the readers who gather here why this book they might not immediately realize is for them is exactly the kind of book Black Gate readers love.

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New Treasures: Conspiracy of Angels by Michelle Belanger

New Treasures: Conspiracy of Angels by Michelle Belanger

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Conspiracy of Angels-smallMichelle Belanger is something of a celebrity with modern vampire subculture. She was featured on five seasons of A&E’s Paranormal State as an advocate for the “vampire community” (whatever that is), and she wrote several of its foundational texts, including The Black Veil, an ethical guide for vampires. If you’re a vampire nut, she’s your girl.

Closer to our interests, she’s also the editor of several horror anthologies for Llewellyn Publications, including Vampires in Their Own Words: An Anthology of Vampire Voices (2007) and Walking the Twilight Path: A Gothic Book of the Dead (2008). Late last year she released her debut novel, Conspiracy of Angels, the first of the Novels of the Shadowside.

When Zachary Westland regains consciousness on the winter shores of Lake Erie, his memories are gone. All he has are chaotic visions of violence and death… and a business card for Club Heaven. There Zack finds the six-foot-six transexual decimus known as Saliriel, and begins to learn what has happened.

Alarming details emerge, of angelic tribes trapped on Earth and struggling in the wake of the Blood Wars. Anakim, Nephilim, Gibburim, and Rephaim — there has been an uneasy peace for centuries, but the truce is at an end.

With the help of his “sibling” Remiel and Lilianna, the lady of beasts, Zack must stem the bloodshed before it cannot be stopped. Yet if he dies again, it may be for the final time.

Conspiracy of Angels was published by Titan Books on October 27, 2015. It is 426 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the print and digital editions. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd.

Future Treasures: This Census-Taker by China Miéville

Future Treasures: This Census-Taker by China Miéville

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This Census-Taker-smallChina Miéville is one of the most acclaimed modern fantasy writers on the market. His novel The City & the City won the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards in 2010, and his novels Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council were all nominated for both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. That’s a damned impressive record.

His latest book is a long novella that’s been called “A thought-provoking fairy tale for adults” (Booklist). It will be released in hardcover by Del Rey next week.

In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a profoundly traumatic event. He tries — and fails — to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape.

When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over.

But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether?

Filled with beauty, terror, and strangeness, This Census-Taker is a poignant and riveting exploration of memory and identity.

This Census-Taker will be published by Del Rey on January 12, 2016. It is 224 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition.

See all our coverage of the best in upcoming fantasy here.