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Clashing Blades, Hairbreadth Escapes, and Daring Rescues: The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, edited by Lawrence Ellsworth

Clashing Blades, Hairbreadth Escapes, and Daring Rescues: The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, edited by Lawrence Ellsworth

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The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure-smallBack in May, BG blogger Lawrence Schick (who also writes as Lawrence Ellsworth) told us about his huge upcoming anthology The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure: Classic Tales of Dashing Heroes, Dastardly Villains, and Daring Escapes. Now the book has arrived, and it looks very appetizing indeed. If you enjoy tales of adventure, this one looks like it would make a splendid late Christmas present to yourself.

The word “swashbuckler” conjures up an indelible image: a hero who’s a bit of a rogue but has his own code of honor, an adventurer with laughter on his lips and a flashing sword in his hand. This larger-than-life figure is regularly declared passé, but the swashbuckler is too appealing to ever really die. Who wouldn’t want to face deadly danger with confidence and élan? Who can deny the thrill of clashing blades, hairbreadth escapes, and daring rescues, of facing vile treachery with dauntless courage and passionate devotion?

The swashbuckler tradition was born out of legends like those of the Knights of the Round Table and of Robin Hood, revived in the early 19th century by Romantic movement authors such as Sir Walter Scott. The genre caught hold with the publication of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers in 1844, and for the next century it was arguably the world’s leading form of adventure fiction.

Featuring selections by twenty hugely popular writers from the last century including Rafael Sabatini; Johnston Mcculley (creator of the Zorro character); Alexandre Dumas: Arthur Conan Doyle; and Pierce Egan (author of Robin Hood), this anthology is dedicated to the swashbuckler’s roots: historical adventures by the masters of the genre. Most of these stories have been out of print for decades; some have never before been collected in book form. All are top-notch entertainment.

The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure was published by Pegasus on December 15, 2014. It is 604 pages, priced at $24.95 in paperback or $20.08 for the digital edition.

Doc Savage Meets… The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Doc Savage Meets… The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

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Doc Savage Grinch-small

Kez Wilson has been publishing Doc Savage fantasy covers at his website for years, and they get more and more creative as the months go by. His December entry this year (#252) sees Doc Savage face off against a diabolical agent of Christmas evil. Here’s his Doctor Seuss-inspired back cover copy:

Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot. But the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not. Then he got a wonderful idea! An awful idea! THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA! Word of his plan to steal Christmas did leak, and the holiday began to look rather bleak. Then Cindy Lou Who took matters in her own tiny hands and got word to the one man who could foil those evil plans. Now when Grinchy Claus slips down the chimney with intent to burglarize, he’ll be face to face with a new holiday protector with glistening bronze skin and golden eyes.

Wilson’s pastiche covers are based on the brilliant work of James Bama and Bob Larkin, who illustrated the original Doc Savage paperbacks from Bantam. Check out his marvelous Doc Savage Fantasy Cover Gallery to see the Man of Bronze face off against Buffy, Ming the Merciless, Cthulhu, 007, The Thing, the Terminator, Sharknado, the Hardy Boys, Barbarella, Doctor Who, Kirk and Spock, and many others.

Vintage Treasures: Unknown and Unknown Worlds, edited by Stanley Schmidt

Vintage Treasures: Unknown and Unknown Worlds, edited by Stanley Schmidt

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Unknown edited by Stanley Schmidt Baen-smallI intended to post a brief article on Echoes of Valor II today, continuing the series as promised after I covered the first volume last week.

But the first comment on that article, from BG blogger Thomas Parker, was:

Isn’t it time for someone to do some anthologies from Unknown? (Have there been any since the old Pyramid paperbacks?)

Thomas is talking about two paperback anthologies edited by western author D.R. Bensen, The Unknown (1963) and its sequel The Unknown 5 (1964), which collected stories from Unknown magazine. I covered the 1978 Jove reprints of both books in a lengthy Vintage Treasures post last December.

I was pretty sure the answer was no — there haven’t been any other paperback anthologies collecting tales from Unknown. But before I could open my mouth, Keith West posted the following comment:

Baen published a collection of stories from Unknown entitled Unknown in 1988. It was edited by Stanley Schmidt with a Thomas Kidd cover and contained 9 stories…

Galahad Books, which is a British publisher IIRC, published a substantial hardback, also in 1988, entitled Unknown Worlds Tales from Beyond. It had a blah cover but contained 25 stories. I think I picked my copy up in either a Waldenbooks or a B. Dalton’s in the remainder bin…

Keith is exactly right. I put my notes on Echoes of Valor II aside for now, and went on a hunt to find out what I could about these two Unknown anthologies.

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Future Treasures: Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas

Future Treasures: Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas

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Aickman's Heirs-smallI admit that I’d never heard of Undertow books before March of this year, when they announced they’d be publishing the first volume of a new Year’s Best collection, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, edited by Laird Barron.

I’ve heard about them a great deal in the last few months, however. While I was at the World Fantasy Convention in November, I heard a lot of good things about their annual journal of the fantastic, Shadows & Tall Trees, edited by Michael Kelly; the sixth volume, Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, was released in trade paperback in June. And back in October, Undertow made the following announcement on their website:

Coming Spring of 2015, Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas, an anthology of strange, weird tales by modern masters of weird fiction, in the milieu of Robert Aickman, the master of strange and ambiguous stories. Editor and author Strantzas, an important figure in Weird fiction, has been hailed as the heir to Aickman’s oeuvre, and is ideally suited to edit this exciting volume. Cover art by Yaroslav Gerzhedovich. Cover design by Vince Haig.

This is great news. Robert Aickman is one of the most revered ghost story writers of the past 50 years. In October I reported on the beautiful new Faber & Faber editions of his classic ghost story collections, Dark Entries, The Unsettled Dust, The Wine Dark Sea, and Cold Hand in Mine. Aickman’s Heirs’s will contain stories by Nina Allan, Michael Cisco, Brian Evenson, John Langan, Helen Marshall, David Nickle, Lisa Tuttle, and many others.

Undertow is an imprint of the highly regarded ChiZine Publications (whom we examined in detail just last week.) We discussed Simon Strantzas’s fourth collection, Burnt Black Suns, in November.

See all our recent coverage of upcoming books here.

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

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Lud in the Mist front coverLud-in-the-Mist
Hope Mirrlees
Ballantine Books (273 pages, March 1970, $0.95)
Cover art by Gervasio Gallardo

One of Lin Carter’s greatest achievements as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, in my opinion, was rescuing Lud-in-the-Mist from obscurity. The third and final novel by Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist was her only fantasy. After this book was published, she stopped writing. More on that later.

Carter tells the story in his introduction that he had never heard of the book when a friend recommended it to him. The friend had a copy, which he loaned to Carter. Carter was immediately impressed and wanted to include Lud-in-the-Mist in the BAF series. At the time, Carter says, he didn’t know if Ms. Mirrlees was even still alive. (She died in 1978.) It’s questionable how much effort he put into locating her, since by that time the book was in the public domain.

The story takes place in a country based on both England and the Low Countries. Lud-in-the-Mist is the capital of the small country of Dorimare. It is situated at the confluence of two rivers, the Dapple and the Dawl. The Dawl is the largest river in Dorimare. The Dapple, on the other hand, has its source beyond the Debatable Hills in the land of Fairy.

Until 200 hundred years ago, relations between Dorimare and Fairy were good. Then, during the reign of Duke Aubrey, the merchants rose up and overthrew him. Aubrey wasn’t the best of people. He had a bet going with another man that they could drive the court jester to suicide. (They were successful.) But he wasn’t all bad, either. He was also known for acts of extreme generosity.

Since the time of the revolution, all traffic with the inhabitants of Fairy is forbidden. Indeed, even mentioning fairy fruit is illegal. According to the Law, it doesn’t exist, despite the fact that it was consumed with regularity before Duke Aubrey’s overthrow.

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Fearie Tales Has the Best Cover Art of the Year

Fearie Tales Has the Best Cover Art of the Year

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Fearie Tales 2-smallOne thing I miss about the lack of a print edition of Black Gate is that I no longer shop for cover art.

I still do, sort of, by keeping an eye on the best pieces of art every year. And as we close out 2014, I think I can say that my favorite cover this year was for the deluxe limited edition of PS Publishing’s Fearie Tales, painted by Alan Lee (click on the image at left for a bigger version.) What can I say? I’m a sucker for castles and crows.

Fearie Tales was edited by Stephen Jones and takes inspiration from the original versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Jones invited some of today’s top fantasy and horror writers to create new Grimm Fairy Tales, with a decidedly darker twist. It contains retellings of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Robber Bridegroom, and more from Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Garth Nix, Robert Shearman, Michael Marshall Smith, Christopher Fowler, Angela Slatter, Brian Hodge, Joanne Harris, John Ajvide Lindqvist, and many others. Check out Goth Chick’s review of the US edition here.

Cover artist Alan Lee was, along with John Howe, the lead concept artist for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films. He has illustrated dozens of fantasy novels, including the covers of the 1983 Penguin edition of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, and several works by J.R.R. Tolkien, including the centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings (1995), a 1999 edition of The Hobbit, and The Children of Húrin (2007).

Fearie Tales was published PS Publishing in a deluxe signed traycase edition limited to 200 copies on July 1, 2014, priced at £249.00. It is also available in a trade edition (with a different cover), published by Jo Fletcher Books on September 23, 2014, priced at $24.99.

Vintage Treasures: Dancer’s Rise by Jo Clayton

Vintage Treasures: Dancer’s Rise by Jo Clayton

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Dancer's Rise Jo Clayton-smallJo Clayton was an amazingly prolific American fantasy writer. Her first novel, Diadem from the Stars, was published by DAW in 1977. Over the next 20 years, she published no less than 35 fantasy novels, and nearly as many short stories.

In 1996, at the age of 57, she was diagnosed with cancer of the bone marrow; while in the hospital she completed the second novel in the Drums of Chaos trilogy, and most of the final book, Drum Into Silence. It was eventually completed by Kevin Andrew Murphy and published in 2002 by Tor. Jo Clayton passed away on February 13, 1998.

Sixteen years after her death, every single one of her 35 books is out of print — fairly typical for a midlist fantasy author, sad to say — and none are currently available in a digital edition. I found a copy of Dancer’s Rise, the sequel to the Duel of Sorcery trilogy and the first book in the Dancer series, in a collection I acquired a few months ago.

I’ve never read a Jo Clayton novel, and in fact we’ve never covered any of her books here at Black Gate, a pretty serious oversight on both counts. I decided it was time to correct that deficiency.

There’s some confusion surrounding the cover of Dancer’s Rise. It is credited to Jody A. Lee in the book and the ISFDB lists Lee at the verified artist. But that sure looks to me like Richard Hescox’s signature in the bottom right (click the image at right for a bigger version), and Hescox currently has the painting for sale for $6,000.

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New Treasures: Night Shift by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Milla Vane and Lisa Shearin

New Treasures: Night Shift by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Milla Vane and Lisa Shearin

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Night Shift-smallYou know why I enjoy anthologies so much? Because they allow you to sample so many great new writers. Of course, that asset can be mitigated somewhat by the length of short stories — just as you discover a terrific new writer, the story is over. That’s why I enjoy these Berkley novella collections. They invite some of the best urban fantasy writers working today to contribute an original novella. Here’s your chance to sample four brand new tales of dark fantasy by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Milla Vane, and Lisa Shearin, all under one cover.

Four masters of urban fantasy and paranormal romance plunge readers into the dangerous, captivating world unearthed beyond the dark… 

New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh delivers a smoldering story with Secrets at Midnight, as the scent of Bastien Smith’s elusive lover ignites a possessiveness in him that’s as feral as it is ecstatic. And now that he’s found his mate, he’ll do anything to keep her.

In #1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews’ novella, Magic Steals, when people start going missing, shapeshifting tigress Dali Harimau and jaguar shifter Jim Shrapshire must uncover the truth about the mysterious creatures responsible.

From Milla Vane — a warrior princess must tame The Beast of Blackmoor to earn a place among her people. But she quickly discovers that the beast isn’t a monster, but a barbarian warrior who intends to do some taming himself.

It’s seer Makenna Frazier’s first day on the job at Supernatural Protection and Investigations, and her first assignment is more than she bargained for when bodyguard duty for a leprechaun prince’s bachelor party goes every which way but right in national bestselling author Lisa Shearin’s Lucky Charms.

Night Shift was published by Berkley on November 25, 2014. It is 378 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital version.

Tormented Spectres, Ghoulies and Ghosties: Scottish Ghost Stories, Selected by Rosemary Gray

Tormented Spectres, Ghoulies and Ghosties: Scottish Ghost Stories, Selected by Rosemary Gray

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Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural Scottish Ghost Stories-smallWell, I’ve finally found the perfect book to curl up with on Christmas Eve  — and of course, it’s another volume in Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural.

Scottish Ghost Stories, selected by Rosemary Gray, is a generous collection of 34 classic tales by John Buchan, George MacDonald, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and many others. Explore the haunted highlands of Scotland by candlelight, while waiting for Santa to arrive. And if it turns out you haven’t been good, well… all that coal will be useful, to help ward off the chills.

Scotland has a notoriously rich and diverse cultural tradition when it comes to the supernatural. Many of her greatest writers from Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg to Robert Louis Stevenson and John Buchan have explored the country’s unique folkloric heritage to spine-chilling effect. From Highlands to Lowlands, from blasted heath or remote glen to wretched hovel or austere castle, the very topography lends itself somehow to the strange and unexplainable.

Leading off Edinburgh’s colorful Royal Mile, which runs from the Palace of Holyrood to the gaunt castle on the rock, there are many narrow ‘wynds’ — passages ancient and mysterious. As soon as you leave the sunshine and enter these dark and reeking ways you know that you are in a city full of ghosts and spirits — unhappy souls condemned for ever to roam this antique city.

Tormented spectres like them throng the pages of this disquieting collection. Lock your door, turn up the lights, put extra logs on the fire and as you start to read utter a fervent prayer. From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggety beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

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Future Treasures: Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

Future Treasures: Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

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Near Enemy-smallAdam Sternbergh’s debut novel Shovel Ready (which I just covered below a few minutes ago) is now being marketed as part of a series (Shovel Ready: A Spademan Novel). Usually that means more than one book is involved and a little digging last night turned up a sequel: Near Enemy, coming next month.

This one features a job gone wrong, terrorists, Egyptian radicals, and underhanded New York politics. Looks like I’ll have to add this one to the pile.

New York is toxic — decimated by a dirty bomb years ago. The limnosphere is a virtual safe haven — if you’re rich enough to buy in. Spademan is a hit man — box-cutter at the ready.

His latest job is to snuff out Lesser, a lowlife lurking around other people’s fantasies. As Spademan is about to close the deal, Lesser comes back from the limn with a wild claim: terrorists are planning to attack New York. Again. This time from the inside out.

The warning sends Spademan down a dark path full of unsavory characters and startling revelations. A shadowy political fixer tells him of a long-running power struggle that goes all the way to City Hall. A brilliant Egyptian radical brings Spademan to the mysterious far-reaches of the limn. And a beautiful nurse holds the secret to what, and who, is behind these attacks — and she seems to want to help Spademan stop them. But he works best alone. Or so he thinks.

Spademan has always had his share of enemies, but now they’re coming at him from all sides and it’s impossible to know whom to trust. To stay sharp, his only option might be the one thing he swore he’d never do again.

Near Enemy will be published by Crown on January 13, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $24 in hardcover.