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Future Treasures: The Border by Robert McCammon

Future Treasures: The Border by Robert McCammon

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The Border Robert McCammon-smallBy 1991 Robert McCammon had no less than three New York Times bestsellers: The Wolf’s Hour, Stinger, and the post-apocalyptic horror novel Swan Song. He’s won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel twice (for Mine and Boy’s Life), and the World Fantasy Award (for Boy’s Life).

McCammon has a flair for epic, large-scale horror, as demonstrated by the alien invasion novel Stinger and the massive 864-page Swan Song. He returns to the genre with his upcoming novel The Border, the tale of an Earth torn apart by a vicious conflict between two marauding alien civilizations.

It is not just the living ships of the monstrous Gorgons or the motion-blurred shock troops of the armored Cyphers that endanger the holdouts in the human bastion of Panther Ridge. The world itself has turned against the handful of survivors, as one by one they succumb to despair and suicide or, even worse, are transformed by otherworldly pollution into hideous Gray Men, cannibalistic mutants driven by insatiable hunger. Into these desperate circumstances comes an amnesiac teenaged boy who names himself Ethan — a boy who must overcome mistrust and suspicion to master unknowable powers that may prove to be the last hope for humanity’s salvation. Those same powers make Ethan a threat to the warring aliens, long used to fearing only each other, and thrust him and his comrades into ever more perilous circumstances.

A major new novel from the unparalleled imagination of Robert McCammon, this dark epic of survival will both thrill readers and make them fall in love with his work all over again.

We last covered Robert McCammon with Bob Byrne’s review of Boy’s Life.

The Border will be published by Subterranean Press on May 31, 2015. It is 456 pages, priced at $26.95 in hardcover. No news on a digital edition yet.

Witch Hunts and True Heroes: Reading Violette Malan’s The Sleeping God

Witch Hunts and True Heroes: Reading Violette Malan’s The Sleeping God

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The Sleeping God Violette Malan-smallThe Odin’s Day Poul Anderson work scheduled for discussion this week is The High Crusade. But, since I find that I have very little to say about it, I’ll focus instead on Violette Malan’s The Sleeping God.

Last week Elizabeth Cady asked Black Gate readers what she should read next. I would never deign to give her an answer. As a reader and a scholar, in general I find that book recommendations more often curse than bless. Here is my simple reasoning for this: There simply is too much to read already. I don’t even want to think about accommodating every well-meaning aunt, mother-in-law (notice the gender bias here? I’ll let it stand: I infrequently receive recommendations from men in the family), neighbor or co-worker who says, “Oh, I see you like to read. Well, you absolutely must read FILL IN THE BLANK.” These recommendations are all the worse (I’m sure many Black Gate readers can testify) when the recommenders are pushing a book on you for no other reason than that they have noticed that you read at all in a culture wherein so many don’t. As such, they often don’t recognize the fine distinctions of what genres or periods in which one might prefer to read.

On many occasions I have thought about and discussed reading through food metaphors. The title of the lengthiest work from food thinker Michael Pollan frames this discussion perfectly. The title is The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In that work, Pollan argues that a modern Homo sapien in what are considered “developed” countries is confronted in the supermarket with a similar complexity of choice that his or her distant ancestor experienced. In a state of nature, the human must choose amongst a variety of foods that grow in the wild. What is nutritious? What will make you sick? What should be sampled in moderation? Now, Pollan argues, the food system has processed these foods into – in some cases – potentially lethal formulations. In the supermarket, Homo sapiens face similar challenges that their ancestors did: What is good for me? What will make me sick? What might cause cancer?

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Helpless in the Face of Your Enemy: Writers and Attack Novels

Helpless in the Face of Your Enemy: Writers and Attack Novels

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Great-Way-Final-Cover-eBook-3-copySome writers plan their careers.

They scan the top of the best seller lists, think Hmm… here’s a police procedural, this one’s steampunk, these two are zombie novels, and this one’s about angels. Great! I’ve been wanting to try steampunk. I’ll write a steampunk murder mystery about a pair of mismatched cops. One will be a zombie and the other will be an angel. No, a fallen angel who has lost his celestial whatsit.

Which is a silly example, obviously, but authors manage the non-silly version to great success. As I recall, John Scalzi has said that he wrote Old Man’s War because MilSF seemed to be selling well. There are others, too, but I hesitate to name them because writing to the market has a bit of a stigma attached to it, although it shouldn’t. More power to them, I say.*

Me, I can’t do it. Not that I haven’t tried, but I can’t make it work. I don’t read fast enough to sample the sales lists widely, I can’t make myself write a book without screwing around with the tropes of the genre, and I suffer from attack novels.

Attack novel: ( əˈtak ˈnävəl) n: a story idea that a writer can’t stop thinking about, even (especially) when they’re supposed to be working on something else.

The first book I ever sold was an attack novel. So was the first book I ever started and abandoned. They haven’t all been, but when they come on me, all I can do is put them off until I finish whatever’s on deadline.

At the beginning of March, I released an attack novel that I started five years ago, and in every way that matters, it was a book I shouldn’t have written.

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New Treasures: Star Trek: The Original Series: Savage Trade by Tony Daniel

New Treasures: Star Trek: The Original Series: Savage Trade by Tony Daniel

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Star Trek Savage Trade-smallI’ve heard about many different ways that Star Trek fans have paid tribute to Leonard Nimoy over the last two weeks. For me, it was by watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home with my family. My kids have seen many of my favorite episodes over the years, but this was their first exposure to Nimoy as a director.

Of course, that just whet my appetite for more Star Trek. So while I’m waiting for the next episode of the excellent fan series Star Trek Continues, I thought I’d browse the latest licensed novels based on the original series. I was surprised and pleased to find Tony Daniel, author of Earthling, Metaplanetary, and the excellent The Robot’s Twilight Companion (which I reviewed for SF Site fifteen years ago), has penned a new novel, Savage Trade.

The U.S.S. Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk is en route to the extreme edge of the Alpha Quadrant, and to a region known as the Vara Nebula. Its mission: to investigate why science outpost Zeta Gibraltar is not answering all Federation hailing messages. When the Enterprise arrives, a scan shows no life forms in the science station. Kirk leads a landing party and quickly discovers the reason for the strange silence — signs of a violent firefight are everywhere. Zeta Gibraltar has been completely raided. Yet there are no bodies and the entire roster of station personnel is missing…

This is Daniel’s second Star Trek novel. The first, Devil’s Bargain (2013), is a sequel to my favorite episode, “Devil in the Dark,” and features the return of the bizarre and intelligent Horta. Savage Trade features the return of the mysterious rock creatures the Excalbians, from the season three episode “The Savage Curtain,” in which Kirk and Spock join Abraham Lincoln and the Vulcan Surak match wits against against four of the worst villains from history.

Star Trek: The Original Series: Savage Trade was published by Pocket Books on February 24, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital edition. Read an interview with Tony Daniel about Savage Trade here, and an excerpt from the novel at Barnes & Noble.

Vintage Treasures: The Boats of the Glen Carrig by William Hope Hodgson

Vintage Treasures: The Boats of the Glen Carrig by William Hope Hodgson

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Famous Fantastic Mysteries June 1945-small The Boats of the Glen Carrig-small The Boats of the Glen Carrig Grafton-small

The Boats of the Glen Carrig was first published in 1907, and it has been reprinted countless times over the last hundred years. It is currently in print in no less than five separate editions, including multiple digital formats. In virtually every sense it is a classic horror novel, by one of the great 20th Century horror writers.

It wasn’t always recognized as such. In fact, after its first appearance, it languished for decades, before it was showcased in Famous Fantastic Mysteries in June 1945, with a terrific cover by Lawrence. It was reprinted in the seminal omnibus volume The House on the Borderland and Other Novels the following year, one of the most important and collectible volumes Arkham House ever published.

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Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini on Astounding Science Fiction in the 1950s

Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini on Astounding Science Fiction in the 1950s

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The End Of Summer Science Fiction of the Fifties-smallWe’ve had some discussion here in the last week on the relative merits of the top science fiction digests of the 1950s.

Bob Silverberg offered his opinion that Galaxy magazine took the lead in the field virtually with its very first issue in October 1950, saying “That first year of Galaxy left us all gasping.” And in his Astounding Science Fiction Testimonial, John Boston generally concurs, saying that 1958 was the last good year under editor John W. Campbell.

Over the weekend, I was surprised to run across an interesting and impassioned defense of Astounding magazine in, of all places, the introduction to The End of Summer: Science Fiction of the Fifties, a 1979 paperback edited by Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini, which collects ten short stories from Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Alfred Bester, Fritz Leiber, C.M. Kornbluth, and others.

Here’s the complete text of the editors’ Prefatory Note:

Six of the ten stories in this anthology are from John W. Campbell’s Astounding. This preponderance was not a publishing decision — Conde Nast gave us complete editorial decision — but our own.

No 70,000-word anthology devoted to the 1950s can give more than a sketchy representation of that tumultuous and fertile decade in science fiction. Accordingly it was felt that a deliberate bias toward Astounding had purpose and would give this book particular value. Concordance on the decade (which will come under increasing challenge as academia’s tanks roll on and on into our little backwater) overrates the not inconsiderable role of Gold’s Galaxy and the Boucher/McComas Fantasy & Science Fiction while somewhat minimizing Astounding, which is felt to have peaked in the forties.

Not quite so. This book is entered in evidence.

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Future Treasures: Thor Volume 1: Goddess of Thunder by Jason Aaronand and Russell Dauterman

Future Treasures: Thor Volume 1: Goddess of Thunder by Jason Aaronand and Russell Dauterman

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Thor Volume 1 Goddess of Thunder-smallWhen I was a kid monumental events in comics, like the death of Gwen Stacey or the defeat of Thanos, were discussed in excited whispers on the playground. Not so these days. When Thor, the God of Thunder, became a woman, Whoopi Goldberg made an exclusive announcement live on The View on July 15th, 2014. Times sure have changed.

Now, Thor didn’t actually change sex, or anything like that. Thor is still, well, Thor. But he’s the God of Thunder because — as has been well established in Journey into Mystery #83 and the awesome party scene in the upcoming Avengers 2 — he is worthy to wield the mystical hammer Mjolnir. Over the 52-year history of Marvel’s Thor, other individuals have also proven worthy, including the alien Beta Ray Bill, Captain America, Odin, and even Conan the Barbarian and Superman. Last year Marvel revealed a dramatic twist in the saga of Thor, when he became unworthy to lift the hammer for the first time, and the mantle of Thunder God was taken up by an unknown woman who lifts Mjolnir in Thor’s place. The first six issues of the new Thor comic will be collected this May. As predicted, the shift has drawn a whole new audience — including my daughter, who confesses it’s her new favorite comic.

Mjolnir lies on the moon, unable to be lifted! Something dark has befallen the God of Thunder, leaving him unworthy for the first time ever! But when Frost Giants invade Earth, the hammer will be lifted — and a mysterious woman will be transformed into an all-new version of the mighty Thor! Who is this new Goddess of Thunder? Not even Odin knows… but she may be Earth’s only hope against the Frost Giants! Get ready for a Thor like you’ve never seen before, as this all-new heroine takes Midgard by storm! Plus: the Odinson clearly doesn’t like that someone else is holding his hammer… it’s Thor vs. Thor! And Odin, desperate to see Mjolnir returned, will call on some very dangerous, very unexpected allies. It’s a bold new chapter in the storied history of Thor!

Thor Volume 1: Goddess of Thunder was written by Jason Aaronand and illustrated by Russell Dauterman, and will be published by Marvel Comics on May 26, 2015. It is 136 pages in hardcover, priced at $24.99. Digital editions are available through Marvel’s online subscription service.

The Forging of Swords of Steel

The Forging of Swords of Steel

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Swords of Steel-small

He was met at the gate of Hades by the Guardian of the Lost Souls, the Keeper of the Unavenged. And he did say to him, “Let ye not pass Abbadon! Return to the world from whence ye came and seek payment, not only for thine own anguish, but vindicate the souls of the unavenged.” And they placed in his hand a sword made for him called Vengeance, forged in brimstone and tempered by the woeful tears of the unavenged. And to carry him on his journey back to the upper world they brought forth their demon horse called Black Death, a grim steed so fearsome in might and black in color that he could stand as one with the darkness, save for his burning eyes of crimson fire. And on that night they rode up from Hell! The pounding of his hooves did clap like thunder!

Would you doubt someone if they told you the above text came from an old sword and sorcery paperback with a cover by Frank Frazetta?

Likely not, unless you knew the source: “Dark Avenger,” a song by heavy metal giants Manowar. One day, while listening to this song, an idea struck me like a thunderbolt: To release an anthology of fantasy stories written by authors from heavy metal bands. And thus, the concept for Swords of Steel was born.

The past several decades in fantasy literature have displayed a lot of safe trends not much to my liking. What happened to evocatively-written tales of strong-willed heroes conquering (or succumbing to) exotic, dangerous landscapes? Rather than such epic fare, we’ve been treated to volume after volume of thousand-page Tolkien tributes. (Considering Tolkien spent 20 years on The Lord of the Rings, one would think maintaining quality through each successive sequel would prove difficult.) So rather than wait for someone else, I decided to publish a book myself. I simply needed to find people to write these stories; and who better than the heavy metal bards?

One prerequisite of the metal lifestyle is steadfast resistance against mainstream trends. It shows in the character of men like Cauldron Born guitarist Howie Bentley and Twisted Tower Dire guitarist Scott Waldrop, who founded their bands in the early nineties. At a time when metal was believed truly “dead,” they persevered without any establishment acceptance. This attitude, plus their lyrical talents, made them perfect candidates for Swords of Steel.

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New Treasures: Aetheria by S. Hutson Blount

New Treasures: Aetheria by S. Hutson Blount

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Aetheria-smallS. Hutson Blount’s short story “The Laws of Chaos Left Us All in Disarray” appeared in the last print issue of Black Gate. A fast-paced adventure tale of a mercenary’s desperate attempts to protect a secretive group of pilgrims, it was one of the most popular pieces in the issue.

We met up with Stephen at the 2012 World Science Fiction Convention here in Chicago, and he turned out to be as entertaining in person as he is on the page. So I was delighted to discover that his first novel, Aetheria, had arrived this week. The story of an extremely resourceful con artist in a galaxy filled with competing empires, pirates, ice miners and more dangerous things, Aetheria has already shot to the top of my to-be-read pile.

Aetheria Peregrine set out for a career as a merchant spacer — a career cut short in a whirlwind of events. Caught up in the tumult of planetary empires set against each other, she must by turns become a pirate, doctor, ice miner, drug dealer, vagabond, mystic, spy, secret policewoman, pilgrim, fugitive, heiress, scholar, and diplomat.

She faces the opportunities and dangers of a hostile galaxy armed with the only things she can depend on: her wits, her unquenchable drive for love and success, and the flexible ethics of a practiced conwoman.

Befriended, betrayed, recruited, exiled, and more in the course of her travels, Aetheria can be anything except stopped.

Aetheria was published on March 12, 2015. It is 298 pages, priced at just $2.99 in digital format. Buy it today at Amazon.com.

See all the latest publications from Black Gate‘s writers and staff here.

Vintage Treasures: Book of the Isle by Nancy Springer

Vintage Treasures: Book of the Isle by Nancy Springer

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The White Hart-small The Silver Sun-small The Sable Moon-small

I have to admit that I was always confused by this series. For several decades, to be perfectly honest.

The problem was that I could never quite figure out what order the books were meant to be read in — or even how many there were. I never did sort it out it on my own… in my first draft of this article, I arranged them in the wrong order, and I was convinced I was missing a volume. (I wasn’t.) I eventually had to turn to ISFDB and Wikipedia to get a definitive answer.

Anyway, the end result was that I never read them, despite having the entire series on my shelves (filed in the wrong order) for over 30 years. I guess it’s true what they say: books are like pretty girls… if they make you feel awkward and stupid, you rarely ask them out.

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