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New Treasures: Nod by Adrian Barnes

New Treasures: Nod by Adrian Barnes

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Nod Adrian Barnes-smallAdrian Barnes’ debut novel Nod was published in hardcover by Bluemoose Books in 2012, and is now available in trade paperback from Titan Books. The tale of an unusual and mysterious apocalypse — one night 99.99% of mankind finds itself unable to sleep, and as one night becomes many, civilization begins to collapse — Nod was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Dawn breaks over Vancouver and no one in the world has slept the night before, or almost no one. A few people, perhaps one in ten thousand, can still sleep, and they’ve all shared the same golden dream.

After six days of absolute sleep deprivation, psychosis will set in. After four weeks, the body will die. In the interim, panic ensues and a bizarre new world arises in which those previously on the fringes of society take the lead.

Paul, a writer, continues to sleep while his partner Tanya disintegrates before his eyes, and the new world swallows the old one whole.

Adrian Barnes is a Canadian writer. His next novel is titled Dickensian, which he describes as “about a post-modern uber-hipster who finds his life slowly transformed into a Dickensian orgy of the emotions.” It doesn’t yet have a release date.

Nod was published by Titan Books on September 1, 2015. It is 256 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Future Treasures: The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by William Sloane

Future Treasures: The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by William Sloane

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The Rim of Morning Two Tales of Cosmic Horror-smallI’m not familiar with William Sloane, but my interest was piqued this week when I saw his omnibus collection coming out next month from NYRB Classics. The Rim of Morning: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror collects two pulp-era tales of supernatural horror: To Walk the Night (1937) and The Edge of Running Water (1939). Here’s the description:

In the 1930s, William Sloane wrote two brilliant novels that gave a whole new meaning to cosmic horror. In To Walk the Night, Bark Jones and his college buddy Jerry Lister, a science whiz, head back to their alma mater to visit a cherished professor of astronomy. They discover his body, consumed by fire, in his laboratory, and an uncannily beautiful young widow in his house — but nothing compares to the revelation that Jerry and Bark encounter in the deserts of Arizona at the end of the book. In The Edge of Running Water, Julian Blair, a brilliant electrophysicist, has retired to a small town in remotest Maine after the death of his wife. His latest experiments threaten to shake up the town, not to mention the universe itself.

I did a little homework and found that both novels had a long history of paperback reprints from mainstream publishers, such as Dell, Bantam, and Panther. But they were also reprinted by Del Rey in the early 80s, in editions that dressed them up as supernatural SF and gothic horror.

Both have been out of print in the US for the last quarter century.

All of the editions had terrific covers, and immediately appealed to the paperback collector in me. I’m definitely going to have to get the NYRB reprint — if only for the new introduction by Stephen King — and also track down down the Dell, Bantam, and Del Rey paperback editions.

Here’s a quick look at a few of the earlier editions of these long-neglected supernatural classics.

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For Gonji Lovers: A Hungering of Wolves by T.C. Rypel

For Gonji Lovers: A Hungering of Wolves by T.C. Rypel

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oie_6235149uAZhq0luI’ve finally read A Hungering of Wolves, the last published volume of T.C. Rypel’s dimension-spanning swords & sorcery epic series about Gonji, the half Japanese, half Norwegian samurai, fighting his way across Renaissance Europe in hopes of discovering his destiny. It shouldn’t be the last book, but as of now, sadly, it is. While there is a collection of shorter tales scheduled for the near future, the sequel to this book is not.

It was orginally published as Knights of Wonder by Zebra Books way back in 1986. Rypel and his books fell victim to the whims of the publishing industry and an agent who wasn’t a big heroic fantasy fan. My earlier review of the first three Gonji books, collectively called the The Deathwind Trilogy, contains a more detailed account of Gonji’s publishing history.

I tend to avoid series that haven’t been finished because I fear they never will be. My dad went to his grave never seeing the end of Roland Green’s Wandor series. I dread the screams that will pierce the heavens if A Song of Ice and Fire doesn’t reach its end. So when I tell you that I read A Hungering of Wolves knowing it sets up a story that remains unfinished, that should tell you something about how much I like Rypel’s books.

If you have any love for swords & sorcery then you should read the Gonji books. Though thirty years old, Rypel’s books don’t feel dated and avoid the cliches that infect the worst heroic fantasy. Gonji, his associates, and opponents react like real humans, not puppet characters moved about in service to some pre-ordained plot.

While the books have more blood and thunder than even I can handle at times, they also have detailed and nuanced character development contemporary readers expect. For every loud and explosive scene the books have calmer moments that create atmosphere and a believable world. Just enough time is spent with secondary characters to make you care when something happens to them or buy their motives when they act.

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New Treasures: The End of the Story: The Collected Fantasies, Vol. 1 by Clark Ashton Smith

New Treasures: The End of the Story: The Collected Fantasies, Vol. 1 by Clark Ashton Smith

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The End of the Story The Collected Fantasies Vol 1-smallThe End of the Story is the first of five volumes collecting all of Clark Ashton Smith’s short fiction, arranged chronologically by composition. It was originally published in hardcover by Night Shade Books on January 1, 2007, and quickly went out of print. The cheapest copies I can find online start at over $200.

I would love to have a copy, but that’s well outside my price range. So I was delighted to discover that Night Shade is printing the entire series in trade paperback, starting with the first volume, which goes on sale tomorrow.

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith consists of:

  1. The End of the Story (January 2007)
  2. The Door to Saturn (June 2007)
  3. A Vintage from Atlantis (November 2007)
  4. The Maze of the Enchanter (April 2008)
  5. The Last Hieroglyph (September 2010)

The trade paperback edition of the second volume, The Door to Saturn — also long out of print in hardcover, and selling in some places for well over $300 — is scheduled to appear January 5, 2016.

The End of the Story contains 24 short stories and three poems, beginning with “The Abominations of Yondo,” first published in Overland Monthly in April 1926. It includes some of his most famous tales, such as the Captain Volmar novelette “Marooned in Andromeda” (1930), the Malygris tale “The Last Incantation” (1930), and the novelette “The Monster of the Prophecy” (1932).

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Vintage Treasures: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt

Vintage Treasures: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt

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The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl-smallTim Pratt has made a name for himself recently with a popular series of Pathfinder novels, including the tales of Rodrick the thief, Liar’s Blade and Liar’s Island. He also writes the Marla Mason fantasy series under the name T A Pratt. But before all that, he wrote the delightfully quirky The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, his debut novel, a pseudo-weird western about a cartoonist with a hidden talent — and a sacred duty. It appeared in paperback from Bantam Spectra a decade ago, just long enough to make it today’s “Vintage Treasure.” It is still in print, and well worth a look for Pratt fans.

As night manager of Santa Cruz’s quirkiest coffeehouse, Marzi McCarty makes a mean espresso, but her first love is making comics. Her claim to fame: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, a cowpunk neo-western yarn. Striding through an urban frontier peopled by Marzi’s wild imagination, Rangergirl doles out her own brand of justice. But lately Marzi’s imagination seems to be altering her reality. She’s seeing the world through Rangergirl’s eyes – literally — complete with her deadly nemesis, the Outlaw.

It all started when Marzi opened a hidden door in the coffeehouse storage room. There, imprisoned among the supplies, she saw the face of something unknown… and dangerous. And she unwittingly became its guard. But some primal darkness must’ve escaped, because Marzi hasn’t been the same since. And neither have her customers, who are acting downright apocalyptic.

Now it’s up to Marzi to stop this supervillainous superforce that’s swaggered its way into her world. For Marzi, it’s the showdown of her life. For Rangergirl, it’s just another day…

The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl was published by Bantam Spectra on November 29, 2005. It is 402 pages, priced at $12 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. It is still in print. Read an excerpt here, and Tim Pratt’s complete Rangergirl story “Bluebeard and the White Buffalo: A Rangergirl Yarn” online here.

Future Treasures: The Miriam Black Series by Chuck Wendig

Future Treasures: The Miriam Black Series by Chuck Wendig

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Blackbirds Chuck Wendig-small Mockingbird Chuck Wendig-small The Cormorant Chuck Wendig-small

[Click the images for bigger versions.]

Chuck Wendig has had an impressive career as a game designer, screenwriter, Star Wars novelist, and paperback writer. James McGlothlin reviewed his supernatural mob crime novel The Blue Blazes for us here, and Kelly Swails called Blackbirds, the first novel in his Miriam Black series, “Punch-You-in-the-Face Good.”

Now the producers of Breaking Bad are adapting Miriam Black as a TV show, creating what The Guardian calls “a sassy, hard-boiled thriller with a paranormal slant” about a young woman who can see the darkest corners of the future.

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Little Green Men, Couriers of Chaos, and Miners on Uranus: Things, edited by Ivan Howard

Little Green Men, Couriers of Chaos, and Miners on Uranus: Things, edited by Ivan Howard

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Things Ivan Howard-smallThings
Edited by Ivan Howard
Belmont (157 pages, $0.50, February 1964)

Belmont Books, publisher of this anthology, apparently thrived throughout the Sixties. Early on it looks like many of their books leaned toward horror, with SF being sprinkled into the mix more as time went on. Things presents itself more as horror (the subtitle is Stories of Terror and Shock by six SCIENCE-FICTION greats) but there’s not much horror content. It’s a short volume that collects six fairly uninspired novelettes and short stories first published in SF magazines in the early Fifties.

Thumbs Up

“The Gift of the Gods,” by Raymond F. Jones

An interesting take on aliens landing on Earth, as the whole affair is somewhat derailed by bureaucracy and pettiness. It could have been a lot shorter and it was a bit preachy in spots but not bad overall.

“Little Green Man,” by Noel Loomis

I like pulp as much as the next guy and maybe a bit more — although it’s best taken in moderate doses. This one’s pretty pulpy, with the LGM of the title beseeching a mining engineer from Earth to evacuate from his home planet of Uranus. Entertaining but not particularly exceptional.

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New Treasures: Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below by Martha Wells

New Treasures: Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below by Martha Wells

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Stories of the Raksura Volume 2-smallMartha Wells’s Books of the Raksura trilogy — The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, and The Siren Depths — have captivated readers around the world. In Stories of the Raksura, Volume One: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud (details here), she returned to the world of Raksura with a pair of exciting novellas. With the second volume, Stories of the Raksura, Volume Two: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below, now available from Night Shade Press, Moon, Jade, and other favorites from the Indigo Cloud Court return in two more powerful novellas in the same setting.

Martha Wells continues to enthusiastically ignore genre conventions in her exploration of the fascinating world of the Raksura. Her novellas and short stories contain all the elements fans have come to love from the Raksura books: courtly intrigue and politics, unfolding mysteries that reveal an increasingly strange wider world, and threats both mundane and magical.

“The Dead City” is a tale of Moon before he came to the Indigo Court. As Moon is fleeing the ruins of Saraseil, a groundling city destroyed by the Fell, he flies right into another potential disaster when a friendly caravanserai finds itself under attack by a strange force. In “The Dark Earth Below,” Moon and Jade face their biggest adventure yet; their first clutch. But even as Moon tries to prepare for impending fatherhood, members of the Kek village in the colony tree’s roots go missing, and searching for them only leads to more mysteries as the court is stalked by an unknown enemy.

Stories of Moon and the shape changers of Raksura have delighted readers for years. This world is a dangerous place full of strange mysteries, where the future can never be taken for granted and must always be fought for with wits and ingenuity, and often tooth and claw. With these two new novellas, Martha Wells shows that the world of the Raksura has many more stories to tell…

The book also includes the short stories “Trading Lesson,” “Mimesis,” and “The Almost Last Voyage of the Wind-ship Escarpment.” Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below was published by Night Shade Books on June 2, 2015. It is 232 pages, priced at $15.99 in both trade paperback and digital. The cover is by Matthew Stewart. Read an excerpt here.

The Growing Pains of Renner & Quist

The Growing Pains of Renner & Quist

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BonesyCheck Out TimeSamhain Publishing has just unearthed Bonesy, their fourth Renner and Quist occult mystery from one of my very favorite authors (and a regular contributor at Black Gate) magazine, Mark Rigney.

The idea of returning from a ten-month hiatus has me a bit nervous, but longtime readers may recall my heaping praise on Rigney’s earlier titles in the series: The Skates, Sleeping Bear, and Check-Out Time. Renner and Quist are an oddball double act in the classic tradition. Renner is a persnickety Unitarian minister, while Quist is a boorish ex-linebacker. Together, this unlikely duo team to solve occult mysteries.

This latest addition to the quirky and delightful series picks up where the last episode left off with Renner and Quist dramatically changed by their experiences. This time out, Renner’s mentor, Iris Buckhalter turns up needing his help.

She has developed an obsession with a brass rubbing of a strangely sexless 16th Century human skeleton she calls “Bonesy.” Her unhealthy obsession seems to have triggered premonitions of her death and she wants Renner, with his obvious occult abilities, to become Bonesy’s caretaker.

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Cixin Liu the Superstar: How Taking a Risk on a Chinese Author Paid Off Big For Tor

Cixin Liu the Superstar: How Taking a Risk on a Chinese Author Paid Off Big For Tor

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The Three-Body Problem-smallOne of the great things about science fiction conventions is getting to rub shoulders with your heroes.

Some years ago I received an advance proof of an upcoming fantasy from Bantam Spectra, just before heading to Archon in St. Louis. I threw it in my luggage, and brought it to the author’s reading. There were only seven people in the audience, so afterwards I got to have a nice chat with the author, and he graciously signed my book for me. The writer was George R.R. Martin, and the book was A Game of Thrones.

In fact, writers who will draw huge crowds in public can often be vastly more approachable at small conventions. Perhaps this is because seeing Neil Gaiman at your local library is a big deal, but hanging out with him at the bar at World Fantasy is just a lot more casual.

Of course, there are rare exceptions. There are a few writers treated like superstars, even among fellow professionals. I saw it happen when Stephen King came to my home town of Ottawa for the World Fantasy Convention in 1984, and autograph lines spontaneously formed whenever he sat down. I got in line an hour early just so I could be in the front row during his reading from The Talisman (and ended up giving up my seat anyway, just so Tabitha King wouldn’t have to stand in the back.)

And I saw it happen again in June of this year, when the hottest new writer in science fiction, Cixin Liu, author of the Three-Body trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End), arrived in Chicago for the Nebula Awards weekend.

Mr. Liu was in making his first trip to the United States as a published author to be on hand for the presentation of the awards. His first novel in English, The Three-Body Problem, published by Tor in November of last year, was up for Best Novel.

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