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Sarah, William Morris, and Me

Sarah, William Morris, and Me

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Sigurd the Volsung-smallHurry, hurry, hurry! Step right up, you whippersnappers, and see Old Fogy’s Carnival of Cantankerous Complaints. Present your tickets and take your seats for yet another unsolicited argument justifying my personal preference for bound paper books over electronic texts. Keep your arms and hands inside the diatribe at all times. (Go away kid, you bother me.) Ready?

A while back I decided I wanted to read William Morris’s 1877 book-length epic poem, Sigurd the Volsung, a violent Victorianizing of old Norse myth. After discovering that the paperback copy I ordered from Amazon was heavily abridged (grrrr!) I located an old used copy online — an American edition published in Boston by Roberts Brothers in 1891. (Morris was a popular author, and editions of his works that are this old are not at all scarce; I think it cost me ten or fifteen dollars.)

When the book arrived, I carefully took it out of the shipping package (books of this vintage are wonderfully heavy) and opened the dark green cover to look through it. I immediately saw, on the very first blank page, a name and a date neatly written in pencil:

Sarah Anderson Bates 1892

I’m not specifically a collector of signed editions, though I have acquired quite a few over the years (mostly from science fiction writers), among them books signed by Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Shea, Harlan Ellison, Peter Beagle, Fritz Leiber, and Cormac McCarthy — some pretty heavy hitters.

The signature I value most is Sarah Anderson Bates. Why? Partially for the surprise of having it at all, but mostly because she is someone I know nothing about, who was — just like me — an ordinary person who had a book she valued, and who, by writing her name in it, became a kind of time traveler, sending a signal to me, a person who probably wasn’t even born until long after she was gone.

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New Treasures: Awaiting Strange Gods by Darrell Schweitzer

New Treasures: Awaiting Strange Gods by Darrell Schweitzer

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Awaiting Strange Gods-smallI was proud to publish two very fine stories by Darrell Schweitzer in the print version of Black Gate: the frontier horror story “A Dark Miracle” (BG 3) and the Thomas the Rhymer tale “Into the Gathering Dark” (BG 15). So I’m very pleased indeed to see a brand new collection from Mr. Schweitzer, Awaiting Strange Gods: Weird and Lovecraftian Fictions, which collects 22 tales in a very handsome package. In addition to a new introduction by S.T. Joshi, the book also contains three interior illustrations by cover artist Tim Kirk.

I’m especially delighted by Awaiting Strange Gods because it also marks the continued resurgence of Fedogan & Bremer, the Minneapolis-based weird fiction publisher that produced over two dozen fabulous volumes in the 80s and 90s, including Colossus by Donald Wandrei, Stephen Jones’ Shadows Over Innsmouth and Dark Detectives, and Exorcisms and Ecstasies by Karl Edward Wagner. It’s marvelous to see them active again.

Darrell Schweitzer, for 19 years co-editor of Weird Tales, is a familiar name in Dark Fantasy and fringe SF stories. But his forays into Weird/Lovecraftian got underway long after he had established his literary voice. These are very personal stories, notable for character development as opposed to HPL’s cutouts against a cosmic background. 22 tales ranging from straight Mythos to Historical, and from Pennsylvania to Asia Minor. We think these tales are a treat, and you will too!

John R. Fultz produced a marvelously detailed survey of Schweitzer’s weird fantasy, coupled with an interview, in “The Sorcery of Storytelling: The Imaginary Worlds of Darrell Schweitzer,” published at Black Gate ‘way back in 2006. Read it here.

Awaiting Strange Gods: Weird and Lovecraftian Fictions was published by Fedogan & Bremer on September 15, 2015. It is 292 pages, priced at $39.95 in hardcover, and $125 for the deluxe limited edition, with a signature page and fitted slipcase. The cover art is by Tim Kirk. There is no digital edition.

When Big Game Hunting was Glamorous: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo

When Big Game Hunting was Glamorous: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo

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1592281877The recent scandal over the killing of Cecil the Lion has once again brought big game hunting into the spotlight, with various websites outing rich hunters who go to Africa to blow away lions, giraffes, and other animals.

Here in Spain, we had an even bigger scandal back in 2012 when, at the height of this country’s financial crisis, King Juan Carlos went to Botswana and killed an elephant. He later apologized but this, plus rumors of extramarital affairs and numerous incidents of being apparently drunk in public, forced him to abdicate two years later.

There was a time when scandals like this would have never happened, when kings and commoners could empty their guns into beautiful animals free from the fear of criticism. Many wrote memoirs of going on safari, creating a genre that has all but died out today.

One of the classics of the genre is The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, by Lt. Col. J.H. Patterson and originally published in 1907. Patterson worked as the chief engineer building the Mombasa to Uganda railway in 1898. Managing a huge crew of Africans, Pathans, and Sikhs in adverse conditions to build a railroad through poorly mapped territory would have been hard enough, but soon lions started coming into the workmen’s camp at night and carrying off his workers.

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Vintage Treasures: Hell’s Gate by Dean R. Koontz

Vintage Treasures: Hell’s Gate by Dean R. Koontz

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Hell's Gate Dean R Koontz-small Hell's Gate Dean R Koontz-back-small

One of the great things about collecting old paperbacks is that it’s an inexpensive hobby. Almost criminally inexpensive. Want a good condition copy of the first edition of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, one of the rarest and most sought-after genre paperbacks? Copies at Amazon.com start at around 10 bucks… about the price of a brand new paperback. I bought a mint-condition, unread copy on eBay for a lofty $20 a few years back.

But there are exceptions. And some of the most interesting exceptions are the early paperbacks of Dean R. Koontz.

Koontz was (and is) a terrifically prolific writer, publishing as many as eight books a year. His first novel, Star Quest (cover here), was published as an Ace Double in 1968, and over the next few years he wrote more than a dozen other SF novels, under his own name and many pseudonyms, including Leigh Nichols, David Axton, and many others. His first bestsellers were Demon Seed (1973), The Key to Midnight (1979, as by Leigh Nichols) and his breakout novel Whispers (1980). With the money he made as a bestselling writer, Koontz famously bought up the rights to most of his early work and, with rare exceptions, has not allowed it to be reprinted.

Which brings us to Hell’s Gate, his fifth novel, published under his own name as a paperback original by Lancer in 1970. It is 190 pages, originally priced at $0.75, with a gorgeous cover by the great Kelly Freas (click the above images for bigger versions). The rights now rest with Koontz and, like much of his early work, it has never been reprinted. There is no digital edition. If you want a copy, you’ll have to turn to the collector’s market, and copies in good condition can be pretty expensive. Prices at Amazon.com currently range from around $15-35, and at eBay range from $7.50 to $100. If you’re interested, be prepared to shop around.

Tanith Airborne: Warhammer 40k: Gaunt’s Ghosts: The Guns of Tanith

Tanith Airborne: Warhammer 40k: Gaunt’s Ghosts: The Guns of Tanith

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The Guns of Tanith-smallThe Guns of Tanith
A Warhammer 40K novel
Volume 5 of Gaunt’s Ghosts
By Dan Abnett
Black Library (315 pages, $6.95, May 2002)
Cover by Adrian Smith

The Guns of Tanith opens with another first for the Ghosts: A training sequence. After redeeming himself for the disaster on Hagia, Gaunt and the men of the Tanith First-and-Only are being deployed to Phantine. Phantine’s industrial history spans so many millennia that most of the planet is covered by smog toxic enough to make human life impossible. The remaining Phantine cities are perched on mountains whose elevations rise above the poisonous clouds. So naturally, when the time comes to liberate Phantine settlements from the occupying forces of Chaos, ground assaults aren’t an option. Thus, en route to Phantine, we find the Ghosts in training for an aerial drop assault, supported by Phantine’s elite aerial corps.

The training sequence reintroduces us to some familiar faces: Twitchy sniper Larkin, soft-hearted giant “Try-Again” Bragg, scout leader Mkoll, and the rest of the crew, along with some relatively new arrivals, particularly Commissar Viktor Hark, who joined the Ghosts in the previous volume to supplement Gaunt’s split role as both Commissar (a kind of propaganda officer) and Colonel of the Ghosts. Hark, as neither Tanith nor Vervunhive, is in a position to be a little harsher, a little more detached, and perhaps a little more objective in his disciple than Gaunt can ever be. He’s a fair man, and fits well with the Tanith, but is more at ease with the brutal reality of a commissar’s duty to enforce iron disciple.

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Future Treasures: Seasons of the Cats by Pamela Sargent

Future Treasures: Seasons of the Cats by Pamela Sargent

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Season of the cats-smallPamela Sargent is something of a legend among long-time SF readers. She won a Nebula Award for her 1992 novelette “Danny Goes to Mars,” about Vice President Dan Quayle, but it was her Venus trilogy (Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows, and Child of Venus) that made serious readers sit up and take notice. Her other works include Earthseed, Cloned Lives, and the fabulous Women of Wonder anthologies. Her latest novel is in a lighter vein, a contemporary fantasy to be published next month by Wildside Press.

Gena and Don seemed an ideal couple. Young. In love. Playful and imaginative. They often pretended to be cats, purring and playing and taking on pretend roles in their made-up cat-world of “Cat”-alonia!

When they move into their first house and money becomes tight, management of household finances — what the shared Household account pays for versus what share goes to personal expenses — becomes a contention point. And their imaginary world takes a darker turn, with Household becoming an evil that threatens the harmony of their beloved Catalonia.

But Catalonia and its feline residents have become so real that they begin to intrude into Gena and Don’s world, appearing as stray cats — with a mission of their own. And they aren’t going to let the young couple destroy their world, at any cost!

We last covered Pamela Sargent with her novel The Alien Upstairs.

Seasons of the Cats will be published by Wildside Press on October 15, 2015. It is 224 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover, and $13.99 for the trade paperback. The cover is by Ron Miller.

Defending Children of Dune

Defending Children of Dune

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Children of Dune final-smallWhen it comes to Dune and the media universe it spawned, it seems there’s not much middle ground. This is more of a perception than a carefully reasoned position with evidence to back it up. But I gather that people like Dune a lot, or they just don’t get what the fuss is about.

I’d put myself in the former camp. I read a great deal of SF in my early years, before drifting away. Somewhere in there I discovered Dune and I read the original trilogy (yes Virginia, Dune was once a paltry trilogy) several times. Near the end of my SF reading days God Emperor of Dune came out and I read it a few times.

A few decades later I decided to revisit the Dune universe. By now Frank Herbert was long gone, with two more installments published in his later years. There was an ill-fated and much-maligned movie directed by David Lynch (I maintain it’s not that bad of an effort at shoehorning the massive Dune story into two hours). There were some better-regarded miniseries adaptations that aired on the SciFi Channel. And a flood of Dune novels by Herbert’s son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson. There are currently fourteen of these spinoffs.

It’s here that I began revisiting Dune. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. The novelty of reading about Dune again got me through six or seven volumes. Then it dawned on me that perhaps they didn’t measure up to the originals. I’ll leave it at that.

Another perception I’ve formed is that even for those who like Dune, the first book was the end of the line. Which I’d agree with, but only to a point. I probably won’t read any more Herbert/Anderson books, and I see no reason to revisit books five and six of Frank Herbert’s original run.

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

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My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are of the same length, but I have to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

So opens Shirley Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962). Published three years before her death, this introduction to the book’s narrator, better known as Merricat, seems to promise readers they are in for the story of a quirky young woman. It is indeed beguiling but bears only the slightest hint of what’s to come in this short novel. It is a book built of dark and deep shadows, pierced at times by shimmering passages, before becoming darker and more claustrophobic.

Merricat lives with her sister and their crippled and addle-minded Uncle Julian in the great mansion that the Blackwoods have always lived in. Six years ago something terrible happened for which all the townsfolk hate, and perhaps even fear, the Blackwoods. One evening, arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl and the sisters’ parents, younger brother, and aunt died. Their uncle took less sugar and survived, though irreparably broken. Constance, who cooked, who never took sugar — and who cleaned the sugar bowl before the police arrived — was accused and tried. No motive could be found and she was acquitted, but she has never since left the property. Only Merricat braves the village — twice a week — to buy food, take out books from the library, and suffer the staring and unpleasant treatment of the villagers.

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New Treasures: Dragon Coast by Greg van Eekhout

New Treasures: Dragon Coast by Greg van Eekhout

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Dragon Coast-smallIn California Bones, Greg van Eekhout introduced us to Daniel Blackland, a con artist attempting the biggest con of his career… who ends up crossing the terrifyingly powerful Hierarch, the tyrant ruling the Kingdom of Southern California. With the mysterious and powerful Sam, the Hierarch’s golem, Daniel ended up on the run. In the second novel, Pacific Fire, set a decade later, the pair return to L.A. to confront a brand new horror: the terrifying weapon of mass destruction called a Pacific Firedrake. In the concluding volume in the trilogy, the stakes are even higher, as Daniel Blackland must pull off his most improbable theft yet, by returning to the Kingdom of Northern California and stealing the bones of the great dragon at the center of the Earth.

Daniel’s adopted son Sam, made from the magical essence of the tyrannical Hierarch of Southern California whom Daniel overthrew and killed, is lost — consumed by the great Pacific firedrake secretly assembled by Daniel’s half-brother, Paul.

But Sam is still alive and aware, in magical form, trapped inside the dragon as it rampages around Los Angeles, periodically torching a neighborhood or two.

Daniel has a plan to rescue Sam. It will involve the rarest of substances, axis mundi, pieces of the bones of the great dragon at the center of the Earth. Daniel will have to go to the kingdom of Northern California, boldly posing as his half-brother, come to claim his place in the competition to be appointed Lord High Osteomancer of the Northern Kingdom. Only when the Northern Hierarch, in her throne room at Golden Gate Park, raises her scepter to confirm Daniel in his position will he have an opportunity to steal the axis mundi — under the gaze of the Hierarch herself.

And that’s just the first obstacle.

We covered the first two novels in the trilogy here. Dragon Coast will be published by Tor Books September 15, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Cliff Nielsen.

Future Treasures: Gestapo Mars by Victor Gischler

Future Treasures: Gestapo Mars by Victor Gischler

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Gestapo Mars-smallVictor Gischler is the author of Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth, one of the better Deadpool graphic novels out there. He’s also written the novels Gun Monkeys, Ink Mage, and Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, among many others.

His latest novel, Gestapo Mars, combines science fiction, Nazis, assassins, and disgusting gelatinous aliens in a fast-paced, rollicking adventure, on sale next week from Titan Books.

Carter Sloan is a trained assassin — the best there is, pulled out of cryogenic sleep whenever an assignment demands his skills. So when he’s kept in the deep freeze for 258 years, he’s seriously pissed off.

Yet his government needs him, to hunt down the enemy known as the Daughter of the Brass Dragon. The future of the galaxy-spanning Reich depends on it, so Sloan is off — screwing, swearing, and shooting his way across interstellar space.

It’s action, adventure, and disgusting gelatinous aliens as only Victor Gischler can create them.

Gestapo Mars will be published by Titan Books on September 22, 2015. It is 277 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital version.

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