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Future Treasures: Haunts of Horror, edited by David A. Sutton

Future Treasures: Haunts of Horror, edited by David A. Sutton

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Haunts of Horror-small Haunts of Horror-back-small

Come on, who doesn’t love a haunted house story? I know I do. So I was very pleased to stumble on David A. Sutton’s upcoming anthology Haunts of Horror, which contains six novellas that explore the idea of the haunted house — but with a modern twist. The settings include “A seaside home, a school, a fantasy castle, a lighthouse, a wooden hut, a run-down tower block — all tainted by an abnormal atmosphere.” Yes, please! Here’s the TOC.

“Today We Were Astronauts,” Allen Ashley
“The Listener,” Samantha Lee
“The School House,” Simon Bestwick
“The House on the Western Border,” Gary Fry
“The Retreat,” Paul Finch
“The Worst of All Possible Places,” David A. Riley

Editor David A. Sutton has won the World Fantasy Award, The International Horror Guild Award, and twelve British Fantasy Awards; his previous anthologies include Fantasy Tales, Dark Voices, Dark Terrors, and Horror on the High Seas. Haunts of Horror was originally published in hardcover as Houses on the Borderland in 2008, by The British Fantasy Society. The new trade paperback edition will be published by Shadow Publishing on February 26, 2016. It is 322 pages, priced at $16 (order direct here). No word yet on a digital version. The splendidly spooky cover is by Edward Miller.

Vintage Treasures: The Early Fantasy Novels of Nancy Kress

Vintage Treasures: The Early Fantasy Novels of Nancy Kress

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The Prince of Morning Bells-small The Golden Grove-small The White Pipes-small

Nancy Kress is one of the finest science fiction writers we have. She’s won the Nebula Award six times, the Hugo twice, and the John W. Campbell Award. Her novels include the acclaimed Sleepless series (Beggars in Spain, Beggars and Choosers, Beggars Ride), An Alien Light (1988), and Steal Across the Sky (2009).

But before all of that, she began her career with three fantasy novels that are still fondly remembered today.

The Prince of Morning Bells (Timescape/Pocket, 224 pages, $2.75, October 1981) — cover by Carl Lundgren
The Golden Grove (Berkley, 246 pages, $2.95, January 1986) – cover artist unknown
The White Pipes (Berkley, 218 pages, $2.95, August 1986) — cover artist unknown

The books are not connected, but their publication did signal the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy.

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The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson

The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson

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oie_82298T7OJJLQ9And so we come to the end of the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (follow the links to read my reviews of the previous two books, Lord Foul’s Bane and The Illearth War). While not an upbeat book by any degree The Power That Preserves (1977) provides a satisfying and hope-filled conclusion to a series heretofore characterized mostly by loss and despair. Those elements still figure heavily in this story, but this time around they more clearly serve to prepare Covenant for the confrontation with Lord Foul.

The events of the crushing, sorrow-filled The Illearth War have left Thomas Covenant a broken man. He is pulled back and forth by the weight of what he did and his continued disbelief in the Land’s reality. Compelled by his reawakening need for human contact, he falls into a sort of madness and takes to haunting the woods and backstreets of his town, a place from which he’s been exiled because of people’s fear of his disease. When he stops taking the meds that suppress it, his leprosy is triggered.

While trying to save a little girl being menaced by a timber snake Covenant is summoned to the Land by the new High Lord, Mhoram. Under command of the Raver-possessed Giant, Satansfist, a vast army has destroyed Revelwood and laid siege to Revelstone. For weeks Lord Foul has called down perpetual winter on the Land and sent packs of marauders to kill any who defy his will.

Covenant insists he will help the Land, but must be allowed to return home and save the girl first. He does, but is poisoned himself. Once he’s satisfied she is safe, he says, “Come and get me. It’s over now.,” and is brought back to the Land. But he doesn’t arrive back in front of the Lords and inside the besieged Revelstone. Instead, he is called back to Kevin’s Watch where he first arrived in the Land in Lord Foul’s Bane. This time he has been summoned by Triock, one-time suitor of Lena (the woman he raped), and the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower. After he helps them fight off a vicious attack on Mithil Stonedown, Covenant decides the time has finally come to take a stand.

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New Treasures: Front Lines by Michael Grant

New Treasures: Front Lines by Michael Grant

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Front Lines Michael Grant-smallMichael Grant is the author of over 150 books, many co-written with his wife Katherine. He’s the New York Times bestselling author of Gone and Messenger of Fear. His latest novel, Front Lines, is a daring alternate history that imagines World War II with female soldiers fighting on the front lines. Publishers Weekly calls it “A gripping and heart-wrenching tale,” and bestselling author Elizabeth Wein says it’s “a magnificent alternate history that feels so real and right and true it seems impossible that it wasn’t.”

World War II, 1942. A court decision makes women subject to the draft and eligible for service. The unproven American army is going up against the greatest fighting force ever assembled, the armed forces of Nazi Germany.

Three girls sign up to fight. Rio Richlin, Frangie Marr, and Rainy Schulterman are average girls, girls with dreams and aspirations, at the start of their lives, at the start of their loves. Each has her own reasons for volunteering: Rio fights to honor her sister; Frangie needs money for her family; Rainy wants to kill Germans. For the first time they leave behind their homes and families—to go to war.

These three daring young women will play their parts in the war to defeat evil and save the human race. As the fate of the world hangs in the balance, they will discover the roles that define them on the front lines. They will fight the greatest war the world has ever known.

Front Lines was published by Katherine Tegen Books on January 26, 2016. It is 576 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital version. It is the first installment of a new series.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff That Dreams are Made of

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff That Dreams are Made of

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Much of my hard boiled knowledge came from Black Lizard's editions of the classics.Last week marked the 86th anniversary of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon in book form. It had been serialized the year before in the pages of Black Mask Magazine. Hammett gets my vote for best writer of the hard-boiled genre. And I am quite the fan of Red Harvest (the uncredited source for Bruce Willis’ under-appreciated gangster film, Last Man Standing) and of the Continental Op stories (well worth reading). But I happen to think that The Maltese Falcon is the best private eye novel yet to be written. Period.

Sam Spade (who looked like a blonde Satan) also appeared in three short stories, which I wrote about in a prior post here at Black Gate. Sadly, they aren’t particularly memorable and definitely aren’t in the upper half of Hammett’s works. In 2009, Joe Gores wrote Spade and Archer, an authorized prequel. I love Gores’ Daniel Kearney Associates series of books, but I’m still saving this Sam Spade gem for a future read.

A great deal has been written about Hammett’s novel and about Spade himself, including William Maynard’s post here. It’s certainly worthy of a post all by itself. But I’m going to focus on the media Falcon: specifically the third of three filmed versions. It’s far and away the best known and I’m guessing that many people who haven’t actually read the book have seen the movie.

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Self-Published Book Review: Carnifex by D. P. Prior

Self-Published Book Review: Carnifex by D. P. Prior

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CarnifexThe self-published book review is back! As you may remember, I went on a hiatus while I worked on a new project. Now that the open reading period for Mysterion is over, I can focus my reading time on other matters. Among them, self-published books I’m reviewing. If you have a book you’d like me to review, please see this post for instructions to submit.

A while back, I reviewed D.P. Prior’s The Nameless Dwarf. At the time I complained about not being able to find the earlier books in the series. It may be, however, that the earlier books didn’t exist, as Carnifex has only been recently published, and it is very much one of the prequels that The Nameless Dwarf was missing. In fact, the title gives away the biggest secret of the original, Nameless’s original name. It is a name which is also a prophecy, as Carnifex means butcher.

The soon-to-be-nameless dwarf lives with his brother and father in Arx Gravis, the city of dwarves hidden in a ravine. No one is allowed to come or go from the city without the express permission of the council, and they never allow any dwarf to leave. The only person who can come and go at will is the human philosopher, Aristodeus.

Carnifex Thane is a member of the Ravine Guard, a police force as well as a border patrol, and given how peaceful and isolated the city is, the guard seldom has much to do. That changes quickly when a homunculus sneaks into the Scriptorium, where he may have tampered with the Archives of the dwarves’ history. This is followed by a golem invading the mines, and suddenly the city is in an uproar with the fear that there may be more coming. Lucius, Carnifex’s brother, has a solution: the Pax Nanorum. The Axe of the Dwarf Lords was lost ages ago, but may be the key to fighting the golems. But the records of its location are contradictory: is it lost in the pits of Gehenna beneath Arx Gravis, or forgotten in sunken Arnoch, city of the Dwarf Lords? Which is the true history, and which is but myth, or worse, the result of the homunculus’s tampering? The answer may be the difference between the salvation and destruction of the dwarves. Whichever is true, leaving Arx Gravis without the express permission of the council is a death sentence at the hands of the Black Cloaks, the city’s secret police, spies, and assassins. One of whom has a personal grudge against Carn.

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Future Treasures: Cthulhu Lies Dreaming edited by Salomé Jones

Future Treasures: Cthulhu Lies Dreaming edited by Salomé Jones

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Cthulhu Lies Dreaming-smallIn her article for us last February, The Making of a Dark Fantasy Anthology, Salomé Jones talked about the creation of her first fantasy anthology, the Lovecraftian volume Cthulhu Lives! Her second, Cthulhu Lies Dreaming: Twenty-Three Tales of the Weird and Cosmic, is due later this month from Ghostwoods Books.

I asked Salomé about the challenges of putting together a follow-up to a successful anthology, and she gave us a peak behind the curtain at what it took to create the eye-catching cover at right.

We had a massive amount of trouble with this cover. It’s like it was cursed. For the first book, Cthulhu Lives!, we used a photo of a special edition amulet by Jason McKittrick, Lovecraftian sculptor. We wanted to create something that would be recognizable to readers of that book, so we went back to Jason to look for a sculpture to photograph.

Because we needed a very high res image for print, I had the sculpture sent to a photographer in London. But through various contortions of fate, he wasn’t able to get a photo of it that worked. After eight months of waiting, I ordered a new copy of the sculpture, this time sent to a photographer in California. To my great surprise, months passed and still no photo. In the meantime, I started getting cold feet about the whole idea.

Gábor, our designer, contacted me and said he’d found a possibility — a sculpture by Hollywood prosthetics designer and sculptor Lee Joyner. I very nervously contacted him. He turned out to be extremely nice and we came to an agreement. And this is the result.

Pay attention, all you aspiring cover designers. This is how patience and determination — not to mention a little risk-taking — can pay off.

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John DeNardo’s February Speculative Fiction Books You Can’t Miss

John DeNardo’s February Speculative Fiction Books You Can’t Miss

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The Guns of Ivrea-smallJohn DeNardo gets it. It’s not a lack of choice that keeps us from choosing what to read… it’s that there are too many great books to choose from!

As the February lineup of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror books will prove, it’s not a lack of books that make it difficult to find something to read. If anything, there are too many books to read. Here’s a list of books to help you narrow down your selection. I’d say “choose wisely”… but all of these are sure bets. Titles this month include a serial killer, merfolk, human trafficking, illegal magic, a Lovecraftian demon, and more.

The Guns of Ivrea by Clifford Beal

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: The fates of a former thief, a pirate mercenary, and the daughter of the chief of the merfolk converge on a series of events that could mean war.

WHY YOU MIGHT LIKE IT: This is the first installment of what promises to be a swashbuckling seafaring fantasy series.

Graft by Matt Hill

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: In near-future Manchester, a local mechanic named Sol who steals car parts stumbles onto a trans-dimensional human trafficking conspiracy.DreamingDeath

WHY YOU MIGHT LIKE IT: The chase is on as Sol and a three-armed woman named Y run from their pursuers.

Read the complete article, with 16 selections of top-notch February fantasy and SF, here.

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Vintage Treasures: Worldmakers and Supermen, edited by Gardner Dozois

Vintage Treasures: Worldmakers and Supermen, edited by Gardner Dozois

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Worldmakers SF Adventures in Terraforming Supermen Tales of the Posthuman Future-small

Back in December I talked about a few of my favorite anthologies, The Good Old Stuff (1998) and The Good New Stuff (1999), which collected some of the best adventure SF from the last century, alongside Gardner Dozois’ detailed and affectionate commentary. Dozois followed up with another fine pair of anthologies focused on deep space exploration and the far future, Explorers: SF Adventures to Far Horizons and The Furthest Horizon: SF Adventures to the Far Future, both published in 2000. All four were released in trade paperback from St. Martin’s/Griffin, and the set is the equivalent of a Master’s level course in SF of the 20th Century.

In 2001/02, Dozois produced a final two anthologies in this format, exploring two more common themes in 20th Century SF, terraforming and advanced human evolution:

Worldmakers: SF Adventures in Terraforming (459 pages, December 2001, $17.95) — cover by Chesley Bonestell
Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future (463 pages, January 2002, $17.95) — cover by Nick Stathopoulos

Like the first volumes, they include Dozois’ lengthy and highly informative intros to each story. Together with the first four, these books form the basis of a very solid library of 20th Century science fiction.

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New Treasures: The Passenger by F.R. Tallis

New Treasures: The Passenger by F.R. Tallis

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The Passenger F R Tallis-smallF. R. Tallis is the author of The Sleep Room (2013), The Forbidden (2014), and The Voices (2014). He’s been nominated for the Edgar award, the New London Writer’s Award, and the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger Award. His latest supernatural thriller takes readers under the wartime seas of the stormy North Atlantic in 1942, to a German U-boat with an unnatural passenger… what’s better than the creepy mixture of Nazis and ghosts? I know what I’ll be curling up with this weekend.

1941. A German submarine, U-471, patrols the stormy inhospitable waters of the North Atlantic. It is commanded by Siegfried Lorenz, a maverick SS officer who does not believe in the war he is bound by duty and honor to fight in.

U-471 receives a triple-encoded message with instructions to collect two prisoners from a vessel located off the Icelandic coast and transport them to the base at Brest ― and a British submarine commander, Sutherland, and a Norwegian academic, Professor Bjornar Grimstad, are taken on board. Contact between the prisoners and Lorenz has been forbidden, and it transpires that this special mission has been ordered by an unknown source, high up in the SS. It is rumored that Grimstad is working on a secret weapon that could change the course of the war…

Then, Sutherland goes rogue, and a series of shocking, brutal events occur. In the aftermath, disturbing things start happening on the boat. It seems that a lethal, supernatural force is stalking the crew, wrestling with Lorenz for control. A thousand feet under the dark, icy waves, it doesn’t matter how loud you scream…

The Passenger was published by Pegasus on February 1, 2016. It is 371 pages, priced at $25.95 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version.