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New Treasures: Rooms by Lauren Oliver

New Treasures: Rooms by Lauren Oliver

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Rooms Lauren Oliver-small Rooms Lauren Oliver-back-small

Ah, October. When suddenly you’re not the only one on your block reading ghost stories. It’s the one month a year when my reading choices actually feel normal.

Lauren Oliver is the author of a series of bestselling YA novels, including Vanishing Girls, Before I Fall, and the Delirium Trilogy. Her latest, Rooms, is something very different: an adult ghost story in the tradition of The Lovely Bones and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, a tale of family, ghosts, secrets, and mystery. Caroline and her two children move into the home of her ex-husband after his death, but what they find is not what they expected… including the ghosts of two long-dead strangers, Alice and Sandra, with secrets of their own.

Rooms was published in hardcover by Ecco in September 2014, and reprinted in trade paperback on September 15, 2015. It is 320 pages and priced at $14.99, or $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Jeffrey Alan Love. Click on the above images for bigger versions.

Future Treasures: My Loaded Gun, My Lonely Heart by Martin Rose

Future Treasures: My Loaded Gun, My Lonely Heart by Martin Rose

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Bring Me Flesh I'll Bring Hell-small My Loaded Gun My Lonely Heart-small

I missed the first novel in Martin Rose’s new undead private investigator series, Bring Me Flesh, I’ll Bring Hell (Talos, October 2014), and that’s beginning to look like a mistake. An intriguing mix of Raymond Chandler and George Romero, the first novel introduced us to “pre-deceased private investigator” Vitus Adamson, kept ambulatory only by hourly administrations of a powerful drug, who finds himself hot on the trail of a missing boy… one who bears a more-than-uncanny resemblance to his own long-dead son. Scott Kenemore called the novel “The shot in the arm that the zombie genre needs… Vitus Adamson shambles on the scene as an undead Sam Spade of the very best sort.”

As the second novel opens, Adamson is still picking up the pieces from the events of the first — not least of which is an unexpected return to the land of the living.

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Vintage Treasures: The Cú Chulainn Novels of Gregory Frost

Vintage Treasures: The Cú Chulainn Novels of Gregory Frost

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Tain Gregory Frost-small Remscela Gregory Frost-small

Celtic fantasy has always been a popular sub-genre, but it really exploded in the 80s, in the capable hands of writers such as Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, C.J. Cherryh, Katharine Kerr, and R.A. MacAvoy, and with bestsellers like Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon.

In 1986 new writer Gregory Frost — whose debut novel Lyrec had been published by Ace two years earlier, and been well received — retold the great Irish epic Tain Bo Cuailnge (“Cattle Raid of Cooley”), the tale of the hero of Ulster, Cú Chulainn, Ireland’s greatest champion, who at the age of 17 single-handedly defended his people against the invading army of the sorceress queen Maeve. This began a two-book cycle retelling many of the tales of Cú Chulainn: Tain, published in 1986, and its sequel Remscela, which appeared in 1988.

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Lionsgate Wins Bidding War for Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle

Lionsgate Wins Bidding War for Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle

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Patrick Rothfuss-smallAs we reported in July, several major Hollywood studios — including Warner Bros., MGM and Lionsgate — were in a pitched bidding war for the rights to Patrick Rothfuss’ bestselling fantasy series The Kingkiller Chronicle. Now The Hollywood Reporter, and Rothufuss’ blog, are ‎reporting that Lionsgate‬ has won the rights to develop the series for film, TV, and video game platforms.

Lionsgate has closed a complex multi-platform rights deal picking up The Kingkiller Chronicle, the best-selling fantasy book series by Patrick Rothfuss. The deal sets up the simultaneous development of movies, television series and video games with the goal to adapt the many stories across the mediums at the same time.

It also caps off interest and dealmaking that has gone on since mid-July, when Rothfuss met with studios such as Warner Bros., MGM and Lionsgate, among others, at Comic-Con.

Robert Lawrence, whose credits include 1990s classic Clueless as well as the Mark Wahlberg vehicle Rock Star and the drama The Last Castle, will produce. Lawrence was an early chaser of the Kingkiller series and stayed on the series even when it was temporarily set up at Fox Television.

Terms were not disclosed. Read the report at The Hollywood Reporter here, and at Rothfuss’ blog here.

New Treasures: The Incorruptibles and Foreign Devils by John Hornor Jacobs

New Treasures: The Incorruptibles and Foreign Devils by John Hornor Jacobs

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The Incorruptibles-small Foreign Devils John Hornor Jacobs-small

John Hornor Jacobs’ first novel was Southern Gods (2011), which was shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award. His new fantasy series began with The Incorruptibles (2014), and the second volume, Foreign Devils, was just published by Gollancz in the UK. Both novels feature the mercenaries Fisk and Shoe, in a fantasy western setting that mixes ancient Rome, savage elves, the wild west, daemons, and the Autumn Lords’ Empire, which hides a terrible truth at its heart.

Here’s Black Gate author Myke Cole on the first volume:

The Incorruptibles gives us the very thing we read fantasy for: something new. The Incorruptibles joins Red Country in what I hope will become a new sub-genre, the fantasy western. Westerns are American stories, and Jacobs’ Arkansas roots show in his gritty, hard-bitten tone. The Incorruptibles shakes like a rattlesnake, sings like a bullet, whispers like a tumbleweed dancing over hardscrabble.

And Pat Rothfuss on the same volume:

One part ancient Rome, two parts wild west, one part Faust. A pinch of Tolkien, of Lovecraft, of Dante. This is strange alchemy, a recipe I’ve never seen before. I wish more books were as fresh and brave as this.

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A Few Thoughts on Jack Cady’s The Off Season

A Few Thoughts on Jack Cady’s The Off Season

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The Off Season Jack Cady-smallI have not read all of Jack Cady’s novels (one is socked away in a cache of books meant for a time when I can enjoy more leisure reading), but I’ve read most of them and The Off Season is my favorite.

One reason is because I edited the book and twenty years later, I have only good memories of the experience. Perhaps the file for the book, somewhere in the basement of the Flatiron building in Manhattan, is full of contentious correspondence, but if so, those memories are buried deeper than that basement. I don’t remember any difficult negotiations, no spats over editing the book or the cover design. The Off Season was not a book that made anybody rich, but the experience of publishing it was one of many small joys.

(I do, by the way, remember a wonderfully cranky letter Jack sent me concerning copyediting. He said something to the effect of, “I’ve gone on the record of saying how much I hate the city of Chicago. Hate the weather, hate the architecture. When I was driving, I’d go miles out of my way to avoid that city. But my feelings for Chicago pale in comparison with my hatred for The Chicago Manual of Style.” I’m pretty sure, however, that Jack sent me that letter in regard to another work.)

There are other reasons why The Off Season is my favorite, but first, let me tell you a bit about Jack.

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Future Treasures: The Stephen King Companion: Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror by George Beahm

Future Treasures: The Stephen King Companion: Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror by George Beahm

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The Stephen King Companion Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror-smallI believe I’ve read more novels by Stephen King than by any other writer. King has done more to promote and publicize the horror genre — and, by association, his fellow horror writers — than any other person in the last half-century. His books are highly collectible, and he’s produced such an enormous body of work, some of it connected in enigmatic and cool ways, that he makes a fascinating study.

No surprise then that there have been many books about King. But I think George Beahm’s massive new volume The Stephen King Companion, an authoritative look at King’s personal life and professional career, from Carrie to The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, is something special. It’s mind bogglingly complete, with lengthy chapters dedicated to each of his major works, and crammed full of photos and interesting tidbits — including a 16-page color section devoted to Micheal Whelan’s striking cover art.

But best of all, it’s extraordinarily readable, packed to the brim with all kinds of fascinating details, such as the phone call between King and Don Grant that finally got King to agree to reprint The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, and how King saw his first photos of his father. This is the kind of book you pick up to check a quick detail, and wind up reading for hours. Highly recommended, for both dedicated fans and casual readers alike.

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Where Truemen Struggle to Preserve Genetic Purity: The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad

Where Truemen Struggle to Preserve Genetic Purity: The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad

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The Iron Dream-smallEvery now and then, fandom needs to take a good, hard look at itself. Considering the recent Hugo kerfuffle, I thought it a fine time to read Norman Spinrad’s famous skewering of fan culture, The Iron Dream.

First published in 1972, this is a masterpiece of metafiction. It is a book within a book, containing the 1955 Hugo Award winner Lord of the Swastika, written by none other than that famous science fiction writer, Adolph Hitler. We are informed that after dabbling in radical politics in Germany, Hitler moved to New York in 1919. In the 1930s he became a sought-after illustrator for pulp magazines and started writing fiction. He was popular in fannish circles for his fanzine work and for his witty banter at conventions.

His best-known work is Lord of the Swastika, a post-apocalyptic tale where the world has been ravaged by nuclear war and most people have become foul mutants. Luckily there is one nation, Heldon, where the Truemen struggle to preserve humanity’s genetic purity.

Enter Feric Jaggar, a Trueman whose family was exiled due to political machinations and forced to live among the mongrel horde. Lord of the Swastika is the tale of Jagger’s triumphant return to Heldon, where he unmasks a plot by the mutants to take over the country and sully the genetic purity of the last real humans. Jagger’s political star rises, the masses rallying around him as he first faces off against a corrupt government, then unites the nation around him in order to start a massive war to wipe the Earth clean of genetic inferiors once and for all.

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Ghost Stories, Lovecraft, and a Monster Detective: The Dark Fantasy of IFWG Publishing

Ghost Stories, Lovecraft, and a Monster Detective: The Dark Fantasy of IFWG Publishing

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The Gate at Lake Drive-small Peripheral Visions The Collected Ghost Stories-small

IFWG Publishing is a small, independent speculative fiction press based in Melbourne, Australia. Two of their recent dark fiction/horror titles caught my eye: a horror-Lovecraftian-noir detective mashup from Canadian horror writer Shaun Meeks, and a huge 800-page collection of ghost stories from Robert Hood, the father of Australian horror.

The Gate at Lake Drive by Shaun Meeks
Meet Dillon, the Monster Dick. He’s a detective of sorts, a man hired to hunt down things that have come into our world that have no right to be here. Whether it’s a monster made up of paint cans and rags, spirits that hide in carpets, or animals possessed by demons, Dillon will dispatch them as soon as he finds them. His new job is up in northern Ontario, where the mayor has hired him to deal with creatures that seem to be coming from a whirlpool in the middle of the lake. When he hears this, he’s more worried than he’s ever been. In all the years Dillon has been a hunter, he’s never once heard of a flock of monsters coming into this realm. Dillon heads there with his new friend, Rouge Hills, and finds nothing is what it seems. It’s not just one type of monster, but something far worse trying to be born into our world. The odds are stacked against him, but since the money is good, there’s no turning back.

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DRACULA THE UNDEAD by Freda Warrington

DRACULA THE UNDEAD by Freda Warrington

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NOTE: The following article was first published on January 22, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 250 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

draclargeDracula The UnDeadDracula the Undead by Freda Warrington is a true rarity – a sequel to a literary classic that doesn’t pale in comparison. Warrington is a respected British fantasy and horror author with a loyal following in the UK. Her prose is worthy of greater acclaim. Dracula the Undead was first published as a paperback original in the UK in 1997 to coincide with the centennial of Stoker’s classic. The book gained some decent reviews but never made it across the Atlantic and seemed doomed to fade into obscurity.

Flash forward to October 2009 and the publication of Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt’s “authorized” sequel, Dracula the Un-Dead. Their book received a great deal of media attention and was displayed prominently in retail bookstores. It was the sequel I wanted to love as a Stoker fan, but I’m afraid I am far too much of a purist to embrace it. However, I did note that Severn House (a British publisher that started out in the mid-seventies recycling titles from another British bargain-priced reprint specialty press, Tom Stacey) was bringing the Freda Warrington book back in a hardcover edition to capitalize on the attention granted the nearly identically-titled Stoker/Holt sequel. I was aware of the Warrington book and since my book shelf already contained a few Severn House titles from decades past, I was happy to see they had now acquired US distribution so I made a point of picking the book up.

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