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New Treasures: If Then by Matthew De Abaitua

New Treasures: If Then by Matthew De Abaitua

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If Then Matthew De Abaitua-smallI spend a lot of talking talking to publicists, reading review copies, following blogs, and generally keeping up on the latest books and hot new writers in the genre. But to really stay informed, nothing beats a trip to a well-stocked bookstore. Case in point: Matthew De Abaitua’s latest novel If Then, which I discovered on the New Releases shelf on my Saturday trip to Barnes & Noble. The book description piqued my interest — and when I saw it was published by Angry Robot, that sealed the deal.

In the near future, after the collapse of society as we know it, one English town survives under the protection of the computer algorithms of the Process, which governs every aspect of their lives. The Process gives and it takes. It allocates jobs and resources, giving each person exactly what it has calculated they will need. But it also decides who stays under its protection, and who must be banished to the wilderness beyond. Human life has become totally algorithm-driven, and James, the town bailiff, is charged with making sure the Process’s suggestions are implemented.

But now the Process is making soldiers. It is readying for war — the First World War. Mysteriously, the Process is slowly recreating events that took place over a hundred years ago, and is recruiting the town’s men to fight in an artificial reconstruction of the Dardanelles campaign. James, too, must go fight. And he will discover that the Process has become vastly more sophisticated and terrifying than anyone had believed possible.

Matthew De Abaitua’s first novel, Red Men, was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

If Then was published by Angry Robot on September 1, 2015. It is 412 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Raid 71. Learn more at Angry Robot.

Future Treasures: The Last Witness by K. J. Parker

Future Treasures: The Last Witness by K. J. Parker

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The Last Witness-smallBestselling fantasy author K.J. Parker, author of The Scavenger trilogy and The Engineer trilogy, disclosed that he’s actually famed British novelist Tom Holt on the Coode Street Podcast on April 22. It was a revelation that stunned many (me included), as over the last 17 years Holt has continued his prolific output under his own name, while simultaneously writing over a dozen novels as K.J. Parker. That’s an impressive accomplishment. Parker’s latest release is the fifth book in Tor.com‘s new line of premium novellas. The Last Witness is a classic Parker tale, with a strong supporting cast of princes, courtiers, merchants, academics, and generally unsavory people.

When you need a memory to be wiped, call me.

Transferring unwanted memories to my own mind is the only form of magic I’ve ever mastered. But now, I’m holding so many memories I’m not always sure which ones are actually mine, any more. Some of them are sensitive; all of them are private. And there are those who are willing to kill to access the secrets I’m trying to bury…

Check out all ten Tor.com fall novellas (including sample chapters!) here.

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It Is A Busy Omniverse: The Sword of Shadows: The Voidal Vol. 3 by Adrian Cole

It Is A Busy Omniverse: The Sword of Shadows: The Voidal Vol. 3 by Adrian Cole

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Tyrandire, the Palace of Pain, moves secretly and silently through unseen tunnels between the many dimensions of the omniverse, traversing any of them that its grim master wishes to visit. A minute moon, perfectly circular, colder than terror, Tyrandire speeds on its way like light, sometimes lingering like a biting frost. The energy that charges this oval missile is greater than that of any sun, indeed greater than the energy contained within an entire universe, for it is the will of the outlaw god, Ubeggi the Deceitful. Where Ubeggi seeks to go, his Palace of Pain takes him. He has many missions, all of them selfish, all of them corrupt, for the Weaver of Wars exists solely for his own amusement and he delights in knotting together the workings of more thoughful gods or undoing their orderly tapestries of fate. All the gods know of Ubeggi, and when his Palace of Pain nears their own haunts in the omniverse, they curse him, knowing that his mischief will be upon them.

                                                                                                                from Part One: The Weaver of Wars

And so, with The Sword of Shadows, we come to the end of the Voidal’s saga. For a series I have already called favorably “a study in sensory overload,” and “excessive, over the top, and incredibly phatasmagorical,” author Adrian Cole ends things as madly and wildly as a reader could hope.

Three of its eight chapters, were published previously as short stories: “The Weaver of Wars,” “At the Council of Gossipers,” and “Dark Destroyer.” Unlike the two previous books, this one reads more like a coherent novel than as a fix-up.

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Dracula: The Definitive Edition

Dracula: The Definitive Edition

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NOTE:  The following article was first published on January 17, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these first 20 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.

Drac Def EdDracula by Bram Stoker is the subject of my very first article as a blogger. I follow several book review blogs, but had mixed feelings about starting my own. Blogs serve no useful purpose save providing a few minutes of distraction from the mundane. As a result, they are fairly inconsequential in the Grand Scheme of Life, but infinitely more useful than a politician.

Dracula is slowly gaining acceptance in literary circles as more than just a genre classic and deservedly so. Of course, mass acceptance for a novel that has never been out of print in its 118 years on the planet means that there are literally hundreds of public domain copies to choose from for the unwary consumer. The focus of this review is on Dracula: The Definitive Edition available from Fall River Press. This edition is recommended not only for Edward Gorey’s fine illustrations and Marvin Kaye’s impressive essays and notes on the text, but it is also affordably priced.

This gets my nod over the many annotated editions out there for the simple fact that Mr. Kaye gives the modern reader all they need to know to enjoy the novel in the context it was written without getting bogged down endlessly in railway timetables and notes on Transylvanian culture, cuisine, superstition, or topography. Nor does he become sidetracked in speculation on Stoker’s marriage, sex life, or physical and mental health. Mr. Kaye provides the salient biographical details and expounds on details that are relevant to better appreciating the text and nothing more. His essays are a model of efficiency and stand on the strength of their factual accuracy above the more verbose and salacious theories one comes to expect with literary classics.

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Adventures in Spellcraft: Rope Trick

Adventures in Spellcraft: Rope Trick

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Calling all old-school gamers, the folks who cut their teeth on the Players1st-edition-players-handbook Handbook, the Monster Manual, or even those long-lost oddities like Eldritch Wizardry and Greyhawk. For those of us still standing, which I do hope is the majority, I’d like to take a quick stroll down Memory Lane.

Don’t worry, it’s only a block or so away, just past Green Town, Illinois, and not so far from my last (highly opinionated) write-up on the ill-behaved sorcery known as Chain Lightning.

Great. Now that we’re walking, let me ask, do you remember that clever little escape hatch spell, Rope Trick? Very handy for “taking five” in the midst of a battle not otherwise going well. Very useful for getting undisturbed shut-eye while camped overnight in hostile territory. Very helpful when the goal of your particular role-playing adventure is to drive the GM bats.

The basics, for those who may not recall, is that the casting of a Rope Trick causes a length of rope to suspend itself vertically in mid-air. Anyone shinnying up the rope will disappear, arriving in a pocket of extra-planar space. The Players Handbook phrased it this way:

The upper end is in fact fastened in an extra-dimensional space, and the spell caster up to five others can climb up the rope and disappear into this place of safety where no creature can find them.

(I’m on page seventy-one, second level magic user spells, for those of you following along on the app.)

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Vintage Treasures: The Sword and the Satchel by Elizabeth Boyer

Vintage Treasures: The Sword and the Satchel by Elizabeth Boyer

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The Sword and the Satchel-small The Sword and the Satchel-back-small

Elizabeth Boyer’s first novel, The Sword and the Satchel, launched her on a successful career as a fantasy author in the 80s and early 90s. Rather uniquely at the time, she drew heavily from Norse mythology, and the setting of every one of her novels is the Scandinavia of Norse myth — packed with deadly frost giants, sinister dark elves, quarrelsome trolls, mist-shrouded burial mounds, wizards, sorcerers, and dwarves. Her first series, World of Alfar, began with The Sword and the Satchel and continued in three additional volumes:

The Elves and the Otterskin (1981)
The Thrall and the Dragon’s Heart (1982)
The Wizard and the Warlord (1983)

Her other books include the four volume Wizard’s War series, The Clan of the Warlord (1992), and her final novel, Keeper of Cats (1995).

The Sword and the Satchel was published as a paperback original by Del Rey in May 1980. It is 312 pages, priced at $2.25. The cover is by Robert Florczak.

Airship Hunters Take Flight

Airship Hunters Take Flight

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Airship Hunters-smallcapra-dirigibleThis weekend I read and thoroughly enjoyed a New Pulp novel called Airship Hunters recently published by the fine folks at Meteor House. I really try and make these articles be about classic pulp, but new titles do catch my eye and while I am a fan of co-author Jim Beard’s occult detective, Sgt. Janus, it was actually the airship that caught my attention.

I first read about airships as a kid in several Edgar Rice Burroughs titles. A film dramatizing the Hindenburg disaster and then an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ Black Sunday terrified me when I was just starting grade school. My introduction to the New Pulp world in 2009 came via Airship 27 with their nifty logo on each book. I even put an airship in my second Fu Manchu novel a few years later as a result. Far and away, my crowning achievement with airships was discussing their use in two cult classic films of the early 1970s: Darling Lili and Zeppelin with one of the principals involved in their production. So yes, suffice to say if you tell me Meteor House is publishing an airship title from Jim Beard, you have my attention.

Now in all fairness, it should be noted this new title is a collaborative effort between Jim and his co-author, Duane Spurlock. I know of Duane, but I had not previously read his work. Much like Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain a century earlier with Fantomas, the two men authored alternating chapters while compiling the book. Spurlock hails from Kentucky while Beard is my fellow Ohioan. There is a distinct Midwestern flavor to the adventure which lends an undeniable charm and authenticity to the proceedings.

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New Treasures: Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu

New Treasures: Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu

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Twelve Kings in Sharakhai-small2Bradley P. Beaulieu’s Twelve Kings in Sharakhai is shaping up to be one of the major fantasy releases of the year. Our very own Howard Andrew Jones says it’s “Crammed with intrigue, suspense, and stunning action,” and Glen Cooks says, ““I am impressed…. An exceedingly inventive story in a lushly realized dark setting.” Over at SF Signal, Paul Weimer does a splendid job of explaining just how compelling and new Beaulieu’s worldbuilding is in this opening novel of an ambitious new fantasy series.

The worldbuilding is complicated, rich, and endlessly fascinating. This is fantasy that goes far beyond the Great Wall of European Medieval fantasy, to a secondary world which takes its cues from the trading cities of the Taklamakan Desert, the deserts of Middle East, and places in between. The city is a wonder of a trading capital, a rich tapestry of people and their stories. I felt like I trod the dusty streets beneath the watch of the Kings as I followed Çeda’s journey, and the gods, monsters, and magic in this world are all fresh, original and wonderfully detailed. From the ebony blades of the Blade Maidens to the dangerous rush of power from the forbidden adichara petals, the powers beyond the forces of steel and fist depicted in this world are chaotic, wild, and entrancing.

Read the complete review, “Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley Beaulieu is a Must-Read for Fans of Lush Epic Fantasy,” at SF Signal.

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai was published by DAW on September 1, 2015. It is 592 pages, priced at $24.95 in hardcover, and $9.99 for the digital version. The gorgeous cover art (click for the full wraparound cover jacket) is by Adam Paquette. Get more details at Brad’s website.

Theresa DeLucci on Six-Guns and Strange Shooters: A Weird West Primer

Theresa DeLucci on Six-Guns and Strange Shooters: A Weird West Primer

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Six-Gun Snow White-smallYou know how we feel about the Weird Western here at Black Gate. It’s a neglected sub-genre with some terrific work that deserves a lot more attention.

Over at Tor.com, Theresa DeLucci clearly feels the same way. She’s done a marvelous survey of some recent additions to the field in books, games, film, and music — including R.S. Belcher’s The Shotgun Arcana, Jonathan Maberry’s Deadlands: Ghostwalker, and John Joseph Adams’s great anthology Dead Man’s Hand. Here she is on Cat Valente’s short novel Six-Gun Snow White:

Similar to [Emma] Bull’s Territory, this fairytale of the half-Navajo daughter of industrialist George Hearst is more of an alternate history than a Weird piece… until the origin of the Evil Queen’s magic mirror is revealed. While Valente’s West is a land of Native American magic, coyote spirits, and the mystery of wide open spaces, the East hold forests choked with ancient dark magic that reaches up from the earth in twisting black tentacles. Tentacles are never attached to anything wholesome in fiction.

Read Theresa’s complete article at Tor.com here.

And in honor of all this recent Weird Western coverage, I’ve created a new — and long-overdue — category at Black Gate. Check out all our Weird Western coverage here.

Future Treasures: Rising Tide by Rajan Khanna

Future Treasures: Rising Tide by Rajan Khanna

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Rising Tide Rajan Khanna-smallRajan Khanna’s first novel Falling Sky, the tale of a post-apocalyptic North America filled with zeppelins, a plague-ravaged populace, and a pirate air city, was called “Like Hemingway meets The Walking Dead” by Tad Williams. Me, I didn’t need to wait for the reviews — I was sold at “pirate air city.”

The sequel, Rising Tide, arrives in two weeks, and it continues the tale of Ben Gold and Miranda, who has developed a test for the zombie virus… but when an old enemy attacks, there may not be time to perfect it.

Ben Gold sacrificed his ship in an effort to prevent pirates from attacking the hidden city of Tamoanchan. Now Malik, an old friend turned enemy, has captured Ben and Miranda — the scientist Ben loves. With Miranda held hostage, Ben has to do Malik’s dirty work.

Miranda has plans of her own, though. She has developed a test for the virus that turned most of the population into little more than beasts called Ferals two generations ago. She needs Ben’s help to rescue a group of her colleagues to perfect the test — but first they must rescue themselves.

When a terrible new disease starts spreading across Tamoanchan and people start dying, it seems there’s something more sinister afoot. Then an old enemy attacks. Can Ben fight off the invaders? And will it be in time to save anyone from the disease?

Rising Tide will be published by Pyr on October 6, 2015. It is 267 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Chris McGrath. Learn more at Rajan Khanna’s website here.