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John R. Fultz’s Seven Sorcerers On Sale Today

John R. Fultz’s Seven Sorcerers On Sale Today

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Seven SorcerersWe’re celebrating a major publishing event at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters today: the arrival of Seven Sorcerers, the third novel in John R. Fultz’s Books of the Shaper series.

When Seven Princes, the first book in the series, arrived in January 2012, it marked the debut of a major new fantasy talent. Seven Kings cemented that reputation, and over the next two years, John graduated from promising new novelist to full-fledged literary star. The critical acclaim for the first two books has been stellar — Barnes & Noble called them “flawless epic fantasy,” Library Journal praised Seven Princes as “A stand-out fantasy series from an author with an exceptional talent for characterization and world building,” and io9 labeled the same novel “Epic with a capital EPIC.”

John’s talent is too big to be contained just in novels — on June 3, 2013, 01Publishing published his first collection The Revelations of Zang, gathering his baroque and fascinating sword & sorcery Zang Cycle, featuring the tale of a revolt against the nine Sorcerer Kings whose power displaced the gods themselves.

We published three stories from John R. Fultz’s Zang Cycle in the print version of Black Gate: “Oblivion Is the Sweetest Wine,” that tale of Taizo the thief and his daring heist in spider-haunted Ghoth (BG 12); “Return of the Quill,” in which Artifice’s long-simmering plan to bring revolution to the city of Narr finally unfolds (BG 13); and the prequel story “The Vintages of Dream” (BG 15). Next, John took us back in time to Artifice’s first year as a member of the travelling Glimmer Faire in “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye,” which appeared as part of the Black Gate Online Fiction line here in January.

Somehow missed out on all the excitement? Read the excerpts and stories linked above or try the complete first chapter of Seven Kings for free. Get more details on Seven Sorcerers here.

Seven Sorcerers was published today by Orbit Books. It is 448 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. Look for it in bookstores everywhere — and stay tuned to Black Gate for a special opportunity to win a signed copy!

Vintage Treasures: The Unknown, edited by D.R. Bensen

Vintage Treasures: The Unknown, edited by D.R. Bensen

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The Unknown edited by D R Bensen-smallIn all of our recent discussions of pulps, we have sorely neglected one of the greatest pulp fantasy magazines of all time: John W. Campbell’s magnificent Unknown. It wasn’t deliberate; we’ve just been focusing on Amazing Stories, Galaxy, and the pulp roots of Dungeons and Dragons of late.

So to do a little catch-up, I thought I’d talk about a splendid anthology I’ve been reading this weekend: The Unknown, a collection of ten short stories and one novelette from the pages of Unknown. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to quote from the Wikipedia entry on Unknown, since I think it does a fine job of summarizing the genesis and impact of Campbell’s great experiment in fantasy:

Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith’s science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race… The magazine is generally regarded as the finest fantasy fiction magazine ever published, despite the fact that it was not commercially successful, and in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley it was responsible for the creation of the modern fantasy publishing genre.

The Unknown contains an excellent survey of Unknown magazine, with entertaining editorial comments and fiction contributions from Henry Kuttner, Nelson S. Bond, Theodore Sturgeon, L. Sprague de Camp, H. L. Gold, Manly Wade Wellman, Fredric Brown, and Anthony Boucher — plus a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tale from Fritz Leiber, and more.

It also reprints interior art from the magazine by the great Edd Cartier (see a sample here), who painted the covers for many Unknown issues. I wish more paperbacks from the era did this, as I found the artwork delightful.

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Self-Published Book Review: Vampire Siege at Rio Muerto by John M. Whalen

Self-Published Book Review: Vampire Siege at Rio Muerto by John M. Whalen

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Vampire_SiegeI have a soft spot for Weird Westerns. (I know, last month I said I have a soft spot for dwarves. Well, they’re both true. If anyone ever writes a Weird Western with a dwarf protagonist, I’ll be all over it.) This wasn’t always the case, but a couple of years ago I had an idea for a story that turned out to be a Weird Western, and I developed an appreciation for the genre in the process of writing it. (Not that I’ve yet managed to sell that story, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I didn’t want to review  Vampire Siege at Rio Muerto last month, partly because I had just reviewed a vampire book the month before, and to be honest, I’m not much of a fan of vampires. At least in this book, the vampires were unabashedly bad guys, drinking the blood of the living and engaging in all sorts of debauchery. The main character of the book is Mordecai Slate, a professional vampire hunter in the Old West. Apparently, vampires were more of a problem back then than I realized. Mordecai has been hired to capture, rather than kill, a vampire, and to bring him back to be staked by Don Pedro to avenge his daughter. It’s an unusual mission for Mordecai, but the pay is very good, so he takes it.

Capturing the vampire, Kord Manion, proves easy enough, but soon Kord’s brother Dax and his gang are on Mordecai’s tail. He plans to set up an ambush for the six of them, but he runs into some trouble on the way, rescuing a girl from some outlaws, and gets himself shot. He needs to visit the doctor at the small town of Rio Verde, renamed Rio Muerto since the river dried up, and that doesn’t give him enough time to recover before Dax and his gang are at the town’s doorstep and he needs to convince the suspicious townsfolk to help him before the place is destroyed.

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Two Perspectives are Better Than One: A Review of A Short History of Fantasy

Two Perspectives are Better Than One: A Review of A Short History of Fantasy

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A Short History of FantasyI recently reviewed L. Sprague de Camp’s 1976 Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers and Lin Carter’s 1973 Imaginary Worlds. As good as both were, I lamented that there didn’t seem to be a history of fantasy past the mid 1970s.

But thankfully, I was wrong. Enter Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James’s wonderful 2009 A Short History of Fantasy.

Besides treating all of the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even the first decade of the 21st century, this volume has other merits that de Camp and Carter’s lack. In sum, it is a more comprehensive and well-rounded approach to the subject. I’ll spend a little time highlighting why and then give some brief critical comments.

First, this book deals with more than just literature, per se. Mendlesohn and James also talk about movies, games, and even children’s lit in each period –- and most of the chapters tackle a single decade. I think this is insightful, in that it condenses all the possible influences that may have gone into fantasy.

For example, given that many fans will agree that Tolkien’s The Hobbit and C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia were gateway drugs, so to speak, to their love of the genre, it makes sense to think more about other children’s fantasy and their connection to the field. For instance, Mendlesohn and James address in some detail such writers as J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman. I think more should probably be written about the influence of children’s books upon fantasy.

Another huge advantage over de Camp and Carter is author perspective. There are two authors here; neither is American and one is a woman. It should be obvious that, usually, two perspectives are better than one; a second perspective can bring attention to things that a single author may miss. Thus, there’s a better chance that more diverse fiction will be covered and less minutia (there are drawbacks to this as well that I’ll get to later).

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New Treasures: Black Blood by John Meaney

New Treasures: Black Blood by John Meaney

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Black Blood-smallBritish writer John Meaney, author of The Nulapeiron Sequence (Paradox, Resolution, and Transmission), has been called “the most important new SF writer of the 21st century” by The Times of London. Impressive, but it was his turn towards gothic fantasy with Bone Song that really caught my attention. The sequel, Black Blood, has been described as a blend of futuristic noir, gothic fantasy, and thriller, all set in a lushly detailed necropolis where a cop must stop a conspiracy of killers whose power is fueled by spilling black blood.

He’s lucky to be alive. That’s what everyone tells him. Except Tristopolitan police lieutenant Donal Riordan doesn’t feel lucky and he isn’t really alive. In one horrific moment not even death can erase from memory, Donal lost the woman he loved even as her ultimate sacrifice saved his life. Now it’s literally her heart that beats in his chest and her murder that Donal “lives” to avenge.

While being a zombie cop has its upsides — including inhuman reaction time and razor-sharp senses — Donal’s new undead status makes him the target of Tristopolis’s powerful Unity Party, whose startling rise to power is built on a platform of antizombie paranoia and persecution. The Party is no friend, to be sure — but it’s the secret cabal known as the Black Circle and their stranglehold on the city’s elite that consume Donal’s black heart. For at the center of this ring of evil is the man responsible for his lover’s murder — a man Donal has already had to kill once before.

Now, with ominous reports of white wolf sightings throughout the city and a dangerous sabotage attempt at police headquarters, all signs indicate that the Black Circle is planning a magical coup d’état. And the terror will begin with a political assassination triggered by a necroninja already hidden… in a place no one expects. For Donal, it’s no longer a matter of life and death but something far more serious. How can he stop a killer who won’t stay dead and an evil that death only makes stronger?

Sounds like the beginning of a promising new series, especially if you like your fantasy blended with dark science fiction (and necroninjas!) Black Blood was published February 24, 2009 by Bantam Spectra. It is 384 pages, priced at $15 in trade paperback or $9.99 for the digital edition.

This Will Be On The Test

This Will Be On The Test

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Treasure IslandI don’t know whether it’s the controversy over the character Turiel in the upcoming The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, but there’s been a big swell of interest lately in the Bechdel Test. You know what that is, right? Generally applied to movies and TV shows, it determines whether women are represented equitably. In order to pass the test,  there must be two female characters who have names; they must at some point speak to each other; they must speak about something other than men. Seems simple.

I remember my father once telling me that Treasure Island had no women in it. He seemed to think this was a good thing. He was wrong, of course, except that he was also right. What he didn’t realize was that the film he was familiar with had no women, but that wasn’t also true of the book. Jim Hawkins does have a mother.  We could argue, however, that the film guys got it right, since Mrs. Hawkins does little or nothing to forward the plot.

So Treasure Island, whether print or celluloid, fails the Bechdel Test.

Most films/shows don’t pass the test, even the ones we fantasy and SF lovers love the most. Big Bang Theory doesn’t pass, even though there are three named female characters (and not because Penny, as my friend Jim Hines has pointed out, has no last name). Stargate passes, at least SG1 – they were smart to make the doctor a woman, since that gives plenty of room for non-guy related conversation. It’s been a while, but I believe that Star Trek: Voyager passes (between Captain Janeway, B’lanna Torres, and Seven-of-Nine) and TNG as well – remember, the doctor’s a woman.

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The Hobbit: The Long-Awaited Movie, Part One

The Hobbit: The Long-Awaited Movie, Part One

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The Hobbit the Desolation of Smaug poster2-smallLet me begin with a confession: I’m an unabashed Tolkien fan. Since the first time I read The Hobbit as a wee lad, I’ve been hooked. When The Lord of the Rings movies came out a few years back (which I loved), my next question was, “When is Peter Jackson going to make The Hobbit?”

Finally, after legal battles and years of waiting, we got the first installment, The Unexpected Journey.

While I’m in the confessional mood, I’ll add that I wasn’t completely sure about the decision to split the book into three movies. After all, Mr. Jackson & Company did a pretty good job capturing the entire LoTR trilogy in three films. Why do they need the same amount of time to cover a single book? However, I had faith that the films’ creators knew what they were doing. Now, with the second movie about to be released, I’ve been ruminating about what I’ve seen so far.

What I desired most from The Hobbit movie(s) was to be transported back to the lush, mythic realm that had been created in the LoTR movies. And I got it in spades. Jackson even includes some scenes with Frodo and “old” Bilbo that serve as both a framing device and an introduction to the LoTR movies.

The movie also adds a bit of background to the story, showing how Smaug came to the mountain and evicted the dwarves. Usually, these kinds of pre-story narratives don’t interest me, but this one was so well-done that I didn’t mind. It actually gives us a brief glimpse of the dragon upfront and, in a stroke of genius, introduces the Arkenstone, which plays a big part at the end of the story, but which the book doesn’t explain much.

Once the actual story begins, I was locked in. (*cue tractor-beam sound*) The first thing that struck me was how cool and different the dwarves were. In the novel, the dwarves are portrayed as… well… buffoons. The movie included plenty of comic-relief, but it also gave us dwarves with more diverse personalities. The dinner party scene was just as fun and raucous as it is in my head when I read the book. It was also a nice touch how Gandalf attempts to convince Bilbo to go on the quest at the same time Balin is trying to talk Thorin out of it.

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New Treasures: Dark Melody of Madness by Cornell Woolrich

New Treasures: Dark Melody of Madness by Cornell Woolrich

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Dark Melody of Madness-smallI wish a knew more about Cornell Woolrich.

From what I understand, this is a common state of affairs, even for some of his most devoted fans. Woolrich was something of a recluse, especially in the last few years of his life, and there are only a handful of people alive today who had any real dealings with him. Barry N. Malzberg, Woolrich’s agent for much of the 1960s, is one of the few, and he’s provided a fascinating reminisce in his introduction to Phantom Lady, one of the handsome new Woolrich editions from Centipede Press.

Woolrich is revered by mystery and noir fans — and rightly so. Some three dozen films have been made of his taut thrillers, including Rear Window, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Bride Wore Black, and many others. But on occasion, he also wrote supernatural fiction and Dark Melody of Madness, one of the new Centipede Press volumes, collects four of his novellas for the first time: “Graves For The Living,” “Jane Brown’s Body,” “Dark Melody of Madness,” and “I’m Dangerous Tonight,” all originally published between 1935 and 1938.

Holding on to a loved one can be difficult, but certainly not as weird and treacherous as in this quartet of Cornell Woolrich novellas set in the mid-1930s. It’s a time of great incongruities — physical anguish of the Great Depression, lighthearted dancing to the rhythms of swing; near-legendary bank robbers, daredevil long-distance airplane pilots; head bashing of union members, air-conditioned comfort for movie goers.

Woolrich takes this milieu, adds an overlay of the supernatural, and places his protagonists in grotesque, untenable situations involving their lives and souls. Here is the eerie world of voodoo, Frankenstein-style reincarnation, live burial, and macabre garments — a mixture of cold sweat-producing dilemmas, where the characters find it near-impossible to separate the real from the unreal.

Dark Melody of Madness was published by Centipede Press on August 6, 2013. The introduction is by Bill Pronzini, and the cover and color interiors are by Matt Mahurin. The trade paperback is 296 pages, priced at $18; there’s also a limited edition, out-of-print hardcover. The hardcover edition lists an additional novella, “Mannequin,” on the TOC. For mystery and noir fans, Centipede Press offers three additional volumes in the series: Deadline at Dawn, I Married a Dead Man, and Speak to Me of Death (see the complete set here.)

The Whole Northern Thing: Hrolf Kraki’s Saga by Poul Anderson

The Whole Northern Thing: Hrolf Kraki’s Saga by Poul Anderson

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oie_Ballantine Edition

Doom: Old English dom “law, judgment, condemnation,” from Proto-Germanic *domaz (cf. Old Saxon and Old Frisian dom, Old Norse domr

For a crime committed by King Frodhi the Peace-Good against the giantesses Fenja and Menja, a great doom is laid on the royal family of Denmark, the Skjöldungs.

How that doom works its murderous effects on the Skjöldungs is the core of Hrolf Kraki’s Saga (1973), Poul Anderson’s gripping retelling of the sagas (read the original here) of the ancient Danish king, Hrolf. The book brings together the extant stories of the Skjöldungs (which, almost as an aside, include the tale of Beowulf) and welds them into a coherent novel of great potency.

According to legend, Hrolf was the greatest king of Denmark and the most outstanding member of the semi-divine Skjöldung family. With his canny intelligence, he thwarted most of his kingdom’s enemies and built up its wealth. His great nobility drew the North’s mightiest warriors to his court.

Whether real or mythical, Hrolf and his reign are remembered in Denmark as fondly as Arthur’s in Britain. And like Arthur, all Hrolf’s great works were destroyed and chaos ruled in his wake.

From a people whose myths foretold the annihilation of the gods themselves in the end times of Ragnarok, the bleakness that runs through so many of their stories isn’t surprising. Perhaps it’s traceable to the violence of the Great Migratory period when the Germanic people spread out from their ancient homelands in Scandinavia and northern Germany and came into conflict with the Roman Empire and Celtic tribes in Gaul and Britain. Maybe it was just the cold and diminished winter sunlight in Norway and Sweden that bred their melancholy. Whatever the causes, doom in its modern sense runs through almost every chapter of Hrolf Kraki’s Saga.

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New Treasures: Allegiance by Beth Bernobich

New Treasures: Allegiance by Beth Bernobich

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Allegiance Beth Bernobich-smallYou can always tell the books that get a serious buzz here at Black Gate — because the review copies always vanish. I try to track them down and discover they’ve been passed from hand to hand until almost everyone on staff has read them. Except for me, of course. I can never find the damn things.

That’s what it’s been like with the novels of Beth Bernobich and her River of Souls trilogy. I still have no idea what happened to the first volume, Passion Play… I gave up looking for it after I learned my son Tim took it off to college. I’m trying to run a blog here, people. Work with me.

And so it is with the third volume, Allegiance. I have no idea where it is. I’m writing this based on the release notes. I think I just have to accept the inevitable: that I’ll have to draft New Treasures posts for Beth Bernobich’s novels without ever having the book in hand. I’m forced to rely on what I can glean from brief sightings during staff meetings and scattered Internet rumors. Enjoy.

King Leos of Károví, the tyrannical despot whose magic made him near immortal and who controlled a tattered empire for centuries through fear and intimidation, is finally dead. Ilse Zhalina watched as the magical jewels that gave him such power reunited into a single essence, a manifestly God-like creature who then disappeared into the cosmic void. Ilse is now free to fulfill her promise to Valara Baussay, the rogue Queen of Morennioù, who wants to return to her kingdom and claim her throne.

Ilse will do all in her power to help Valara if only as a means to get to her home. Home to her lover, Raul Kosenmark, who is gathering forces in their homeland of Veraene now that Leos is dead in order to save them from an ill-advised war. Pulled by duty and honor, Ilse makes this long journey back to where her story began, to complete the journey she attempted lives and centuries before and bring peace between the kingdoms. Along the way she learns some hard truths and finally comes to a crossroads of power and magic. She must decide if duty is stronger than a love that she has sought through countless lifetimes.

Will Ilse give up her heart’s desire so that her nation can finally know lasting peace?

Allegiance was published by Tor Books on October 29. Best guess, it is 320 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition. I dunno who painted the cover, but I like it.