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New Treasures: The Corpse-Rat King, by Lee Battersby

New Treasures: The Corpse-Rat King, by Lee Battersby

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The Corpse Rat KingWhen I was a wee lad, I didn’t pay much attention to the name under the title on my favorite books. My mother gently nudged me one day, when I complained that I didn’t know what to read, pointing out that if I knew who had written the last book I’d really enjoyed, I might be able to find another just like it.

My mom. She was right about what would happen if I touched the burner when it was glowing that pretty red color, and she was right about this, too. I learned to pay attention to authors, and soon stopped complaining about not having anything to read. Or having to bandage my fingers so often.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned this principle can be applied more broadly with some success. I now avoid touching anything that glows red, regardless of how damn cheery it looks, and when I find a publisher putting out quality books, I stick with them.

Case in point: Angry Robot, publisher of Chris F. Holm’s noir crime novel Dead Harvest, Aliette de Bodard’s Aztec mystery Obsidian & Blood, Tim Waggoner’s undead detective opus The Nekropolis Archives, and many others. My latest discovery is Lee Battersby, whose The Corpse-Rat King was published by Angry Robot in August.

Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional battlefield looters. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead.

Just like living beings, the dead need a King. And Marius is banished to the surface with one message: if he wants to recover his life he must find the dead a King. Which he fully intends to do… Just as soon as he stops running away.

An intriguing mix of humor, madcap characters, and stylish prose, The Corpse-Rat King promises to be just what I’m looking for. Mom, I owe you. Again.

The Corpse-Rat King was published by Angry Robot on August 28, 2012. It is 411 pages in paperback, priced at $7.99 ($6.99 for the digital edition.) The sequel, The Marching Dead, appeared in March.

The Guardian Selects the Best Young SF and Fantasy Novelists

The Guardian Selects the Best Young SF and Fantasy Novelists

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Elizabeth May The FalconerBack when I used to subscribe to Granta magazine, I enjoyed their semi-annual lists of Best Young Writers. This year’s list came out recently, and this morning I came across an article in The Guardian pointing out that no equivalent list for genre fiction exists, and asking, “If it did, who might be on it?”

The author, Damien Walter, endeavors to answer his own question, supplying an intriguing list of 20 SF and Fantasy authors under 40:

Joe Abercrombie is the self-proclaimed Lord of “grimdark” epic fantasy, whose writing displays a wit and style beyond the battle sequences and torture scenes that dominate the gritty world of grimdark. NK Jemsin brings an immense storytelling talent to the tradition of epic fantasy, with a series of beautiful stories that have garnered Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy award nominations. The Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed is notable for its middle-eastern fantasy setting, but the work’s real strengths are its deep sense of irony and dark humour. And of course British author China Miéville has re-worked the fantasy genre into many and varied weird forms from Perdido Street Station to Embassytown, though he is technically ineligible, as he turned 40 last year.

Catherynne Valente’s novels and stories range widely across the fantastic, but it is her dark urban fantasies such as Palimpsest that best showcase her baroque prose style. Tom Pollock’s debut The City’s Son marked the appearance of a powerful new imagination in SF, and hopes are high for the upcoming sequel. As they are for the debut novel of Elizabeth May, with The Falconer among the most anticipated fantasy novels of 2013.

This list fills me with hope for our genre, and simultaneously makes me feel very old at 48.

You can see the complete list here.

Weird of Oz Reviews Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies

Weird of Oz Reviews Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies

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showgirlsA non-fiction fad of the past decade has been for an author to do something outrageous for a year and then write a book detailing the experience. If you know someone who inexplicably stopped bathing for months, or who stopped shaving or cutting his hair, or who started eating all her food raw and communicating only with gestures and grunts, you may know someone who has embarked on living like a person in the Middle Ages, or like a caveman — with an eye, of course, to chronicling it all and cranking out a bestseller. Do them a favor and tell them it’s probably already been done. Writers like A.J. Jacobs (The Year of Living Biblically) have cornered the market on myself-as-the-story immersive or “stunt” journalism.

I’ve read a number of these “stunt books” by various authors; frequently they are entertaining page-turners, and they do offer interesting perspectives and provide some bizarre, oftentimes fascinating trivia. But I have also grown oversensitive to the tendency of some such writers to indulge in a bit of melodramatic self-pity: “For 200 days now I haven’t been able to [fill in the blank], and my wife is totally exasperated!” Yes, these folks put themselves through some crazy regimens of self-denial and eccentric behavior, but journalists have gone through far worse to get a story: try reporting from a war zone, for instance.

For his “stunt book,” Australian film critic Michael Adams undertook a task that puts him squarely on the radar of this blog: he decided to watch at least one bad film every day for a year in a quest to find the Worst. Film. Ever Made. Ever. As somewhat of a connoisseur of B- and Z-grade films, I eagerly picked up this comprehensive report from a fellow cinephile: Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies (2010). So here, now, is a brief review of the bad-movie viewer…

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Are You Going to Eat That?

Are You Going to Eat That?

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VattaA mystery writer friend of mine once remarked that he didn’t care for crime novels that included either cats or recipes – unless they were recipes on how to cook cats. My friend was kidding (mostly), but I’m sure plenty would agree with his sentiments. Not everyone is fascinated by food or cooking, and that can affect readers’ reactions when they encounter these things in the books they’re reading.

But like it or not, there’s a purpose being served by every mouthful of food and every drop of drink in every book or story we read – or write.

No matter the genre, food and drink can certainly provide motivation in terms of characters’ taking action to acquire some. Every book that has a trading empire at its core (think Elizabeth Moon’s Ky Vatta books, or Robin Hobb’s The Liveship Traders) deals at least in part with the availability of foods, especially spices.

As a general rule, however, food and drink don’t drive the plot. Even in the mystery novels, the recipes aren’t usually directly involved in either the crime or the solution – though the same can’t be said for the cats.

But I digress.

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Barnes and Noble Calls Out the 20 Best Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the last Decade

Barnes and Noble Calls Out the 20 Best Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the last Decade

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sandman slimPaul Goat Allen at Barnes&Noble.com has compiled a list of the Top 20 Paranormal Fantasy Novels of the last ten years.

What is “paranormal fantasy” exactly, as opposed to, say, “fantasy?” Paul seems to be using it to encompass contemporary fiction with supernatural elements, including horror, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance — but apparently not science fiction, or secondary world fantasy. Here’s Paul’s loose attempt at a definition:

We are in the midst of a glorious Golden Age of paranormal fantasy — the last ten years, specifically, in genre fiction have been nothing short of landscape-changing. The days of rigidly defined categories (romance, fantasy, horror, etc.) are long gone. Today, genre-blending novels reign supreme: narratives with virtually limitless potential that freely utilize elements of fantasy, romance, mystery, horror, and science fiction…

The list below includes 20 novels that are not only extraordinarily good, but have also dramatically influenced — and continue to influence — the course of the genre.

A bold claim, but I think he’s not far off. As the years go by, fantasy has seeped inexorably into the mainstream — witness the success of Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Twilight, etc — and writers of all genres seem to be dipping into the fantasy pool with fewer reservations. The result is a public that accepts zombie westerns and modern-day vampire mysteries without batting an eye.

Regardless of how much you want to read into Paul’s list, you’ll find plenty of good reading on it, including books by Cherie Priest, Seanan McGuire, Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kat Richardson, Marcus Pelegrimas, Stacia Kane, Jim Butcher, and Richard Kadrey.

Check out the complete list here.

New Treasures: Dungeons of Dread

New Treasures: Dungeons of Dread

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Dungeons of DreadI continue to be impressed with Wizards of the Coast’s premium reprint program. It started with an inspired effort to get Gary Gygax’s original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules back into print in high-quality hardcovers. We’ve discussed it before — Scott Taylor looked at the original announcement back in August; I examined the corrected edition of Unearthed Arcana here, and we invited readers to win copies by sharing stories of their game characters here.

It’s a praise-worthy undertaking indeed. But like a lot of folks I still have copies of Gygax’s bestselling rulebooks, so while I’m glad modern gamers – especially OSR players – can easily get copies of the finest RPG ever written, to me it was chiefly of academic interest.

All that changed with the release of Dungeons of Dread, which collects four classic AD&D adventure modules written by Gary Gygax and Lawrence Schick, originally released between 1978 and 1982. Dungeons of Dread puts some of the genre’s most famous early adventures – which previously existed only in yellowing softcover pamphlets – in hardcover for the first time, complete with maps and all the original black-and-white interior art.

Dungeons of Dread gathers the first four S-series adventures: Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. I’ve discussed S1: Tomb of Horrors recently, and I admit I’m not much of a fan. A masterpiece of design, the module is a player-killer extraordinaire, and not a lot of fun. I’ve never read White Plume Mountain, but I’m certainly familiar with the gonzo Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, one of Gygax’s most esoteric creations, a module created to merge AD&D and Metamorphosis Alpha by placing adventurers at the crash site of an alien craft high on a desolate mountain peak.

But The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is one of the finest adventures ever created. Twice the size of Tomb of Horrors, Tsojcanth is an old-school dungeon crawl which introduced a host a new monsters (later collected in the Monster Manual II) and challenged the players to cross a dangerous wilderness and multiple levels of an ingeniously designed subterranean lair, before coming face-to-face with Drelzna, the vampiric daughter of long-deceased archmage Iggwilv. Gygax built on the plot threads he carefully laid here in its loose sequel, WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.

All four adventures were collected in a slightly abridged form, revised to form a connected campaign, in the softcover Realms of Horror in 1987, which is now long out of print. But this is the first true permanent edition. For me, it is also the first must-have release in WotC’s premium reprint line, and I hope it is only the first of many to come. I’d love to see, for example, similar treatment for Gygax’s Against the Giants and Descent in the Depths adventures, and of course The Temple of Elemental Evil — copies of which demand outrageous prices on eBay.

Dungeons of Dread was published by Wizards of the Coast on March 19. It is 192 pages in hardcover, priced at $39.95. There is no digital edition.

Goth Chick News: Sookie Soon to be Dead Ever After

Goth Chick News: Sookie Soon to be Dead Ever After

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Dead Ever AfterIt was 2003 when the publicist for an emerging author contacted the Black Gate office to ask if someone wanted to interview her client, Charlaine Harris. Ms. Harris was on tour for book number three of her vampire/mystery/romance series starring a telepathic cocktail waitress named Sookie Stackhouse.

I agreed to do it, having read the first two books and liking them well enough, but not loving them… yet.

At least the vampires in this series were dangerous, murderous blood suckers and not sparkly, angsty, tree-huggers.

Ms. Harris and I met for lunch at an Italian restaurant, prior to her proceeding to the local Borders book store where she was doing a reading. She was the quintessential Southern lady with impeccable table manners and an incredible imagination.

I found myself hanging on her every word.

At the time, no one could have predicted that only a few months later Alan Ball, stuck at an airport while on a business trip for his current HBO project Six Feet Under, would pick up Ms. Harris’s first two books to pass the time. Ball would fall hard for Sookie and subsequently begin pursuing both her and her creator in earnest as source material for a new HBO series he would eventually call True Blood (now in its sixth year and the first without Ball at the helm).

So here we are, one decade and eight books later, and about to bid Sookie goodbye for good; Charlaine Harris’s twelfth and final tale in the series, Dead Ever After, is ready to hit the shelves next month.

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Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Is This Big Fat Fantasy Epic a Tax-Deductible Business Expense?

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Is This Big Fat Fantasy Epic a Tax-Deductible Business Expense?

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It’s tempting to come up with some cheap shot punchline about how tax returns are a subgenre of fantasy literature. I’d poke at the puzzle longer, but I believe in the rule of law, so my tax returns are a good-faith attempt at nonfiction. There are times when I wish I hadn’t been drawn up as a Lawful Good character — goodness knows I tried at least to be Chaotic, but I could never keep it up for long.

One of my favorite quirks of private practice as a tutor is the unlikely list of expenses that truly are for work. Yes, some of these books are things I would have read anyway, but not necessarily things I would have bought anyway. I once spent three months rereading and rereading every short story in Garth Nix’s Across the Wall collection, because my students couldn’t get enough of his Old Kingdom, and I had to be a few levels deeper into the book than my students were, no matter what they did with it.

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Last Chance to Win a Copy of Writing Fantasy Heroes From Rogue Blades Entertainment

Last Chance to Win a Copy of Writing Fantasy Heroes From Rogue Blades Entertainment

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Writing Fantasy HeroesTwo weeks ago, we announced a contest to win one of three copies of Writing Fantasy Heroes, compliments of Rogue Blades Entertainment.

In the weeks since its release, Writing Fantasy Heroes has won accolades from around the genre, and has already been proclaimed the definitive text on creating original and compelling 21st Century fantasy characters.

How do you win? Easy — just answer the question “What makes a true hero?” by telling us about your ideal hero in one paragraph or less. It can be a fictional character or a general description of those qualities that make a hero ideal.

We’ll publish the best responses here on the blog and randomly draw three names from all qualifying entries. Those three winners will each receive a copy of Writing Fantasy Heroes, compliments of Rogue Blades Entertainment. Each of these experts on heroes will also be invited to submit a brief review of the book, to be published here on the Black Gate website.

Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the title “My Ideal Hero,” and your one-paragraph entry. All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Terms and conditions subject to change. Sorry, US entrants only (foreign winners will be offered digital versions). Not valid where prohibited by law. Eat your vegetables.

New Treasures: Appalachian Overthrow by E.E. Knight

New Treasures: Appalachian Overthrow by E.E. Knight

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Appalachian OverthrowI’m a huge fan of E.E. Knight’s Vampire Earth novels. For me it started years ago, with the paperback editions of the first two books in the series, Way of the Wolf and Choice of the Cat.

If you’re new to the series, of course, things are easier. You don’t have long waits between releases, haunting bookstores for the next installment. You can even get the first three novels in a handsome omnibus edition from the Science Fiction Book Club, Enter the Wolf, as we reported right here last month.

Appalachian Overthrow, the tenth novel in E.E. Knight’s exciting series, arrived in stores last week. This volume focuses on David Valentine’s fellow freedom fighter Ahn-Kha, telling a tale of the time when he was imprisoned and forced into hard labor by the alien Kurians — and the rebellion he led against them.

Captured and sold to the Kurian–allied Maynes Conglomerate, to work as a slave in the coal mines of Appalachia, Ahn-Kha is angered and appalled by the dangerous working conditions, and the brutal treatment inflicted upon his fellow miners. When a protest against shortages is deliberately and bloodily suppressed, Ahn-Kha sets himself against the ruling Maynes family and sets out on a trail of vengeance through the Coal Country.

Finally, the people of the Coal Country are driven to the breaking point — and they now have a leader, a powerful and battle-hardened leader, determined to forge them into an army that will wage guerrilla warfare against the Maynes family and their Kurian masters — and free the Appalachians from their tyranny…

E.E. Knight’s Blue Pligrim story “The Terror in the Vale” was one of the most popular stories we’ve published as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction line. It is a relentless and chilling tale of sword and sorcery, with an ending that will stay with you long after you turn off the monitor and climb into bed. Read the complete story free here.

Appalachian Overthrow was published by Roc on April 2. It is 339 pages in hardcover, priced at $24.95 ($11.99 for the digital edition).