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Wake Up to a New World With Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

Wake Up to a New World With Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

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awakening-the-art-of-halo-4-smallI took the family to Best Buy yesterday to buy a new phone for my wife. They didn’t have anything below $250, so we trooped back to the car to return to the Verizon store. My teenage boys, flush with dog-sitting money, were the only happy shoppers, chortling excitedly in the back seat over a copy of 343 Industries’ Halo 4.

I got some scattered details over breakfast this morning. Master Chief, hot-babe AI Cortana, abruptly awakened from deep sleep, a Covenant fleet, a giant Forerunner planet, alien mysteries, and a lot of shooting. Sounds like Halo to me.

So when I sat down to sort through the week’s stack of review copies, my hand naturally gravitated towards the copy of Awakening: The Art of Halo 4, a thick oversize hardcover sent our way by Titan Books. It turned out to be an excellent choice, and  it thoroughly captivated my interest for the next 90 minutes.

Awakening is probably not a good choice if you’re not a fan of art, cutting edge computer games, or far-future science fiction. But if you’re interested in any of those things, you’ll find it very interesting and if, like me, you have more than a passing interest in all three, you’ll find it fascinating.

Awakening is packed with nearly 200 pages of full-color art, concept designs, and sketches from some of the top artists in the field, including Sparth, Robogabo, John Liberto, Glenn Israel, Jhoon Kim, and Thomas Scholes. The descriptive text, by “incurable Halo fanatic” Paul Davies, is brief and to-the-point, rarely more than a slender paragraph on each page. Davies wisely lets the artists do most of the talking, quoting Senior Art Director Kenneth Scott and concept artist Sparth at length.

And the art is indeed spectacular. The design breakdowns — for Master Chief, his mostly naked AI companion Cortana, numerous weapons, the truly splendid vehicle fleet, and the gun-toting alien Covenant and mysterious Forerunners — are detailed and a lot of fun, but it’s the gorgeous alien landscapes and breathtaking unexplored vistas that really fire the imagination. I guarantee there are sights here that you’ve never seen before, from the nebula-like clouds trapped between two vast constructs to the massive Didact ship, so large it can only be explored using a UNSC Broadsword fighter.  More proof that it’s computer entertainment pushing the sense-of-wonder envelope for SF and fantasy fans today.

Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 was published in hardcover by Titan Books on November 6. It is $34.95 for 192 pages. Get more info, including reproductions of some of the artwork, at the Titan website.

New Treasures: Legacy of Kings, Final Volume of The Magister Trilogy

New Treasures: Legacy of Kings, Final Volume of The Magister Trilogy

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I rarely read introductory volumes of fantasy series these days. Truthfully, I don’t pay much attention to them. What I do pay attention to is the final volume, as that’s (usually) a sign it’s safe to sit down and enjoy a complete fantasy adventure. That’s why I was very pleased to see Legacy of Kings, the final volume of C.S. Friedman’s Magister Trilogy, arrive in paperback in September. It is the sequel to Feast of Souls and Wings of Wrath.

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I’ve followed Friedman since she published her first novel, In Conquest Born, in 1986. She is the author of The Coldfire Trilogy, the Braxi/Azea duology (In Conquest Born, The Wilding), and the standalone novels The Madness Season and This Alien Shore. Kings was originally released in hardcover in August 2011; the captivating cover sequence for the trilogy is by John Jude Palencar.

The young peasant woman Kamala has proven strong and determined enough to claim the most powerful Magister sorcery for herself — but now the Magisters hunt her for killing one of their own. Her only hope of survival lies in the northern Protectorates, where spells are warped by a curse called the Wrath that even the Magisters fear. Originally intended to protect the lands of men from creatures known only as souleaters, the Wrath appears to be weakening — and the threat of this ancient enemy is once more falling across the land.

Legacy of Kings was published by DAW Books in September, 2012. It is 498 pages, and priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions.

Vintage Treasures: The Power of Darkness — Tales of Terror, by Edith Nesbit

Vintage Treasures: The Power of Darkness — Tales of Terror, by Edith Nesbit

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the-power-of-darknessYes, we’re talking here about Edith Nesbit, godmother of British fantasy and beloved author of The Enchanted Castle, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet, and many others children’s classics. This is not some other Edith Nesbit. Right there on the back of my copy of the Wordsworth Edition paperback of The Power of Darkness — Tales of Terror are the words:

Edith Nesbit, best known as the author of The Railway Children and other children’s classics, was also the mistress of the ghost story and tales of terror.

Who knew? Not me. I thought it was scandalous when JK Rowling wrote a book with sex in it, but that’s nothing compared to the head-twisting British schoolkids must have received opening their copy of The Power of Darkness — Tales of Terror.

And what’s with the two titles? It’s like she couldn’t decide what to call it. “The Power of Darkness or Tales of Terror? Bloody Hell, I’ll call it both.” You tell ’em, Edith!

As an unanticipated side-effect of my gross ignorance of early 20th Century supernatural short fiction, I am surprised and delighted by this addition to the Wordsworth Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural imprint (or, as we like to call it, TOMAToS). But the rest of the line has been extremely impressive, so I’m willing to believe they’re not just pulling my leg with this one. Here’s the rest of the back cover copy, just to prove I’m not making this up:

‘The figure of my wife came in… it came straight towards the bed… its wide eyes were open and looked at me with love unspeakable.’

Edith Nesbit was able to create genuinely chilling narratives in which the returning dead feature strongly. Sadly, these stories have been neglected for many years, but now, at last, they are back in print. In this wonderful collection of eerie, flesh-creeping yarns, we encounter love that transcends the grave, reanimated corpses, vampiric vines, vengeful ghosts and other dark delights to make you feel fearful. These vintage spooky stories, tinged with horror, are told in a bold, forthright manner that makes them seem as fresh and unsettling as today’s headlines.

Vampiric vines! I’m putting this one right at the top of my to-be-read pile.

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Dorian Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff and The Chronicles of Castle Brass

Dorian Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff and The Chronicles of Castle Brass

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The Jewel in the SkullA little while ago, Fearless Leader John O’Neill posted here about Tor reprints of Michael Moorcock’s first four Dorian Hawkmoon books being remaindered (you can still get them at Amazon). It had been years since I’d read that original Hawkmoon series, and I’d never read the second series of three books that followed, despite having them sitting on my bookshelves. So in the wake of John’s post, I thought it was well worth taking another look at Hawkmoon’s adventures. I vaguely remembered enjoying the first series; would it hold up?

That first series, The History of the Runestaff, dates from the late sixties. The Jewel in the Skull was published in 1967, The Mad God’s Amulet (originally published as Sorcerer’s Amulet) and The Sword of the Dawn both came out in 1968, and The Runestaff (originally The Secret of the Runestaff) was published in 1969. A few years later, Moorcock wrote another three books following the adventures of Dorian Hawkmoon, Duke of Köln, The Chronicles of Castle Brass; these books tied Hawkmoon more closely to Moorcock’s mythos of the multiverse and the Eternal Champion — concepts tying together all Moorcock’s fiction writing. 1973’s Count Brass and The Champion of Garathorm were followed in 1975 by The Quest For Tanelorn, presenting a possible ending for the overall saga of the Champion.

In a post at Tor.com, Moorcock recalled writing the first series:

My old method of writing fantasy novels was to go to bed for a few days, getting up only to take the kids to school and pick them up, while the book germinated, making a few notes, then I’d jump out of bed and start, writing around 15-20,000 words a day (I was a superfast typist) for three days, rarely for more than normal working hours — say 9 to 6 — get my friend Jim Cawthorn to read the manuscript for any errors of typing or spelling etc. then send it straight to the editor unread by me. I have still to read more than a few pages of the Hawkmoon books.

He’s also said that

It took me three days to write the Hawkmoon books. I used to say that I COULD do the job in two days, but it needed a third day for that extra polish… I used to spend a few days in bed thinking over the story, get up to write it, then go back to bed for another day or so. It was to do with best use of energy.

And:

I doubt if I would have written them had it not been for the fact that I’d burned out on doing comics for Fleetway and wanted fiction which was owned by me rather than owned outright by the publisher. Economically I could earn in three days what those books made me ($1000 a book) from Lancer so I gave myself three days to do them in.

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Carrie Vaughn Steals the Show

Carrie Vaughn Steals the Show

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kitty-steals-the-show-smallI was reviewing science fiction magazines for SF Site when I first encountered Carrie Vaughn. It was in the Fall 1999 issue of Patrick Swenson’s Talebones, one of the best of the small-press magazines, that I read her story “The Girl With the Pre-Raphaelite Hair,” which I noted in my review “delivers a wallop… A tightly-written tale with a powerful ending.”

Not bad for her first science fiction story. Carrie published more than 50 over the next decade, carving out a name for herself. But it was her debut novel, Kitty and the Midnight Hour (2005), that truly catapulted her to stardom. Featuring late-night DJ (and secret werewolf) Kitty Norville — who hosts a Denver talk show about Werewolves, Vampires, and other supernatural creatures — the book was an instant success. The fourth in the series, Kitty and the Silver Bullet (2008), hit The New York Times Best Seller list, and she’s repeated that impressive feat with at least four subsequent volumes.

This industry is hard on new writers, and over the last ten years I’ve seen it defeat more than a few talented authors. So it’s a genuine pleasure to watch someone climb to the very top of the field, from her first short story to the tenth volume of her bestselling series, on nothing more than hard work and talent. If you haven’t tried Carrie Vaughn yet, her latest effort, Kitty Steals the Show, makes a good jumping-on point:

Kitty has been tapped as the keynote speaker for the First International Conference on Paranatural Studies, taking place in London. The conference brings together scientists, activists, protestors, and supernatural beings from all over the world — and Kitty, Ben, and Cormac are right in the middle of it.

Master vampires from dozens of cities have also gathered in London for a conference of their own. With the help of the Master of London, Kitty gets more of a glimpse into the Long Game — a power struggle among vampires that has been going on for centuries — than she ever has before. In her search for answers, Kitty has the help of some old allies, and meets some new ones, such as Caleb, the alpha werewolf of the British Isles. The conference has also attracted some old enemies, who’ve set their sights on her and her friends.

All the world’s a stage, and Kitty’s just stepped into the spotlight.

Kitty Steals the Show was published on July 31 by Tor Books. It is 342 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the digital version and the mass market paperback.

Vintage Treasures: Al Williamson Adventures

Vintage Treasures: Al Williamson Adventures

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al-williamson-adventures-smallAl Williamson is one of my all-time favorite comic artists. His meticulously-detailed alien landscapes, boundless imagination and kinetic style combined to make him the perfect artist for SF adventure comics.

He started working for E.C. Comics in 1952, illustrating stories by Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and others, in titles including Valor, Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and Incredible Science Fiction. I remember him chiefly for his later work, especially his famed Star Wars comic adaptations, and his 80’s art in Alien Worlds and Marvel’s Epic Illustrated. He passed away in 2010 (see the BG obit here).

Fortunately, you don’t have to hunt through expensive old comics to see his very best work. Over the years, a number of excellent retrospectives have appeared, including The Art of Al Williamson (1983), Al Williamson: Hidden Lands (2004), The Al Williamson Reader (2008), Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon (2009), and Al Williamson Archives (2010). One of my favorites is Al Williamson Adventures, a beautifully-produced collection of seven stories spanning his entire career, written by some of the best writers in the business:

“Along the Scenic Route” — Harlan Ellison
“Cliff Hanger” — Bruce Jones
“Relic” — Archie Goodwin
“The Few and the Far” — Bruce Jones
“One Last Job” — Mark Schultz
“Out of Phase” — Archie Goodwin
“Tracker” — Mark Wheatley

Al Williamson Adventures was published by Insight Studios Group in September, 2003. It is 96 pages in oversize hardcover, with an 8-page color section.

New Treasures: Jeffrey E. Barlough’s What I Found at Hoole

New Treasures: Jeffrey E. Barlough’s What I Found at Hoole

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what-i-found-at-hoole-smallJeffrey E. Barlough’s Western Lights series may be the best fantasy books you don’t know about.

I didn’t know about them either, until Jackson Kuhl’s review of Strange Cargo in Black Gate 8. Jackson has called Barlough “a wonderful yet unappreciated fantasist… a talent I invite everyone to sample.” In his review of Anchorwick, the fifth novel in the series, he summarized the intriguing setting this way:

In a world where the Ice Age never ended, a cataclysm has reduced humanity to a slip of English civilization along North America’s western coastline. It’s neither steampunk nor weird western; the technology is early 19th century. It’s kinda-sorta gaslamp fantasy, except there doesn’t seem to be any natural gas. Barlough’s creation is best described as a Victorian Dying Earth — gothic and claustrophobic yet confronted by its inhabitants with upper lips held stiff. As the books are fantasy mysteries, the less said about their plots, the better… mastodons and mylodons mixed with ghosts and gorgons? Yes, please.

Now the seventh novel in the series, What I Found at Hoole, has arrived in a handsome trade paperback from Gresham & Doyle. It picks up at the end of the second volume, The House in the High Wood, which was a nominee for the 2002 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

Mr. Ingram Somervell has been called to the remote village of Hoole, in the uplands of Ayleshire, to inspect some property bequeathed to him by an uncle he had never met. Almost at once he finds himself plunged into mysteries that confound him. Why had Clement’s Mill, a dilapidated old mill that did no milling, been left to him… Why had his uncle ordered the old chapel on the fellside and its coffin-crypt sealed after the arrival of Miss Petra, his ward and heir? What was the ghostly yellow light that had been seen on Cowdrie Beacon? And what to make of the frightful dreams hinting at some unimaginable catastrophe plaguing young Somervell since he came into Ayleshire?

These novels, with their oddly pastoral cover art — the cover to this one, F.H.Tynsdale’s A Country Cottage and Church, is from the 19th Century — are an entertaining mix of genres, blending fantasy, gothic mystery, and even a dash of period comedy straight out of P.G. Wodehouse. Don’t miss them.

What I Found at Hoole was published by Gresham & Doyle on November 1st. It is 259 pages and priced at $14.95 in trade paperback. There is no digital edition.

Steampunk Spotlight – Japanese Edition: Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

Steampunk Spotlight – Japanese Edition: Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

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stormdancer1In his debut novel, author Jay Kristoff creates a rich fantasy steampunk setting based upon Japanese feudal culture, complete with griffins, samurai warriors, demons, airships, an evil mechanized religious order, and a ruthless dictator. Really, I think that list should be enough to get you interested in reading Stormdancer (Amazon, B&N), but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

To date, steampunk has largely been confined to Victorian England settings, with the occasional foray into the wild west. Even the anime and manga steampunk tales have tended to lean on these more traditional interpretations of the genre. Kristoff boldly takes the genre in a new direction, infusing it with new vigor.

The central character in Stormdancer is Yukiko, daughter of the Shogun’s master hunter, Masaru. They are members of one of the four prominent clans, theirs based around Kitsune, the fox, the trickster god in their religious pantheon. When the Shogun hears rumors of a surviving “thunder tiger” (or arashitora, this culture’s name for a griffin), he has a prophetic dream that he will become a stormdancer, riding the great beast into battle and vanquishing all of his enemies. But first, he needs to get his hands on one, so he orders Masaru (along with his team, including Yukiko) off to capture it. Needless to say, things do not go entirely as expected (otherwise it would be a very boring book).

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Where Life is Cheap and Secrets are Plentiful: Vox Day’s A Magic Broken

Where Life is Cheap and Secrets are Plentiful: Vox Day’s A Magic Broken

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A Magic BrokenDisclosure: I was provided a free copy of this novella for review.

You may be familiar with Theo Beale as a blogger at Black Gate. Some of his posts have been controversial, but whether you agree or not, they make for interesting reading. So I was looking forward to seeing how his ideas translated into fiction. He’s given me a chance with A Magic Broken, an e-book novella equivalent to about 50 pages, written under the name Vox Day. It is connected to Theo’s novel, A Throne of Bones, but as I haven’t read the novel yet, I can’t say exactly how they’re connected.

There will be minor spoilers in this review, but I’ll try not to give away the ending.

I was interested to see that the world Theo created had the “traditional” fantasy races of dwarves and elves, along with humans. When I first discovered fantasy in the eighties, it seemed that elves and dwarves were staples of the genre — if it was fantasy, it had at least these two demi-human races. In the last twenty years, fantasy has moved away from that, but I must admit that I have a soft spot for them, especially dwarves. So I was happy to see the dwarf, Lodi, as one of the heroes of this story.

The story follows Lodi and the human spy, Nicolas, as they go after the same prize — a kidnapped elven woman — for very different reasons. A great love of elves is not the motivation for either. The dwarves, in particular, have a grudge against elves for a betrayal that is never fully explained in the story. But elves pay a bounty for any of their own who are returned to them, and Lodi is looking for funds. That’s one reason why he’s taken on the task of freeing some dwarven slaves, on behalf of the father of one of them. The reader’s given the impression that Lodi at least feels some compassion for his fellow dwarves. Going after the elf is purely mercenary.

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New Treasures: The Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington

New Treasures: The Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington

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the-enterprise-of-death-smallJesse Bullington received a lot of attention for his first novel, the exceptionally dark fantasy The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, about which Booklist said, “Modeled after the grimmest of the Grimm tales, Bullington’s debut… [is] aiming instead at gross-out horror fans.”

That one seemed a bit too grim and gruesome for me. But Bullington’s second novel, The Enterprise of Death, looks more my speed.

As the witch-pyres of the Spanish Inquisition blanket Renaissance Europe in a moral haze, a young African slave finds herself the unwilling apprentice of an ancient necromancer. Unfortunately, quitting his company proves even more hazardous than remaining his pupil when she is afflicted with a terrible curse. Yet salvation may lie in a mysterious tome her tutor has hidden somewhere on the war-torn continent.

She sets out on a seemingly impossible journey to find the book, never suspecting her fate is tied to three strangers: the artist Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, the alchemist Dr. Paracelsus, and a gun-slinging Dutch mercenary. As Manuel paints her macabre story on canvas, plank, and church wall, the young apprentice becomes increasingly aware that death might be the least of her concerns.

I’ve been watching the reviews, and they are very impressive indeed. The Wall Street Journal called it “Macabre, gruesome, foul-mouthed and much more complex than the usual vampire-and-zombie routine,” and SF Revu said it was

Darkly comic… Bullington is one of those rare writers who come along once every so often with a truly original vision… this is an author capable of great and profound insight, often conveyed via his equally finely tuned sense of the ridiculous… Highly recommended.

The Enterprise of Death was published by Orbit in March, 2011. It is 464 pages in trade paperback, priced at $14.99 ($9.99 for the digital version). I bought my copy from Amazon as a bargain title for just six bucks.