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New Treasures: The Scar by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko

New Treasures: The Scar by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko

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the-scarIt’s been a big week for games. The long-awaited (by me) Lords of Waterdeep has finally landed, and my man Andrew Jones tells me it rocks. Plus, I’m still processing loot from my prolonged auction insanity at last weekend’s game orgy.

Of course, this is the week that some terrific new novels arrive in the mail, courtesy of the top publishers in the industry. When they say no rest for the wicked, they’re talking about me specifically. Bastards.

So let’s get to it. If I can only pick one book to draw your attention to this week (because I’m spending the rest of my time stacking gaming loot in the basement), it would have to be The Scar, by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko.

Why The Scar? ‘Cause it’s so damn cool, that’s why. First is that eye-catching Richard Anderson cover, which said Put down that copy of Cosmic Encounter and pay attention to me, O’Neill, in a commanding Russian accent. Then it leaped on my desk and did a cool Cossack dance.

The Scar is the first English translation for Sergey and Marina Dyachenko, the popular husband and wife team who have achieved tremendous success in Russia. They’ve received eighty literary prizes for excellence, and The Scar won the “Sword in the Stone” award for best fantasy novel from 1995-1999.

Here’s the blurb:

Reaching far beyond sword and sorcery, The Scar is a story of two people torn by disaster, their descent into despair, and their reemergence through love and courage…

Egert is a brash, confident member of the elite guards and an egotistical philanderer. But after he kills an innocent student in a duel, a mysterious man known as “The Wanderer” challenges Egert and slashes his face with his sword, leaving Egert with a scar that comes to symbolize his cowardice. Unable to end his suffering by his own hand, Egert embarks on an odyssey to undo the curse and the horrible damage he has caused, which can only be repaired by a painful journey down a long and harrowing path.

This looks like the remedy I’ve been looking for, to all the similar-looking urban fantasy volumes piling on my shelves recently. Kudos to Tor for looking far and wide to bring the finest in fantasy to American shores. I’m looking forward to digging in to this one. Check out the book trailer here.

Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate

Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate

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lostgateThe Lost Gate (Amazon, B&N)
Mither Mages Book 1
Orson Scott Card (Tor, $7.99, Jan. 2011)

Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

As I mentioned in my recent review of the short story collection Keeper of Dreams, I’ve been a fan of Orson Scott Card since reading Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead as a teenager and have read most of his novels. In my experience, this is a very hit-and-miss proposition, especially when it comes to series.

The Lost Gate demonstrates some of the best and worst of Orson Scott Card’s writing at the same time, which makes me think that it’s a toss-up as to how the series as a whole will ultimately go. The setting and magical system – which Card’s been carrying around in his head since the late 70’s – contain a lot of potential, but the narrative seems to also go on pointlessly for many pages, getting bogged down in relative minutiae and plot threads which never go anywhere. Some of these might be setting the stage for future books, of course, but right now they just seemed out of place, distracting, and somewhat haphazard.

The story focuses on Danny North, a boy who has grown up among the remnants of ancient demigods, trapped on Earth centuries ago when the Norse god Loki destroyed all the gates linking this world to their home realm. While his various cousins have learned how to manipulate their basic magical energies, he has manifested no such talents … until he realizes that he has the rarest of gifts. He is a gate mage, possessing the ability to create portals from one location to another.

Unfortunately, after the devastation that Loki wrought, his family has vowed to destroy any gate mage that they find, including Danny. Forced to go on the run, Danny has to learn more about our modern world, his own powers, and how he wants to wield this power … in the service of himself or others. …

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When the Cover Blurb is the Kiss of Death

When the Cover Blurb is the Kiss of Death

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downtotheboneDown to the Bone by Justina Robson (Pyr, 2011) is book five of the Quantum Gravity series, so it must represent some sort of success. The first blurb on the back cover tells all, or maybe more than all:

“This isn’t SF for SF readers. This is SF for a generation raised on anime, manga, and MMORPGs.” — Ain’t It Cool News.

Presumably MMORPGs are some sort of role-playing game.

But seriously, have you ever seen a blurb which so explicitly told a large section of the potential buying public to go get stuffed? This (not to judge the actual book, which I have not read) is clearly marketed as post-literate SF for people who do not much read books.

I have never seen a blurb before which so firmly told me, “No, do not buy this one. You won’t like it.” Maybe I should appreciate the publisher’s honesty.

Is this suicide or a canny marketing strategy? Is the author cringing, or laughing all the way to the bank?

I don’t doubt that Justina Robson books sell admirably. There’s a kick-ass heroine with a pointy thing on the cover. It’s part of a generic series. Just what the market wants. It is very likely that the post-literate audience is in the majority now, and will rule mainstream publishing.

What I am remarking on is how explicitly the blurb tells me (and, I suspect, most long-term genre readers) to go away. Most blurb copy attempts to convince everyone that this is a great book they must have. This one comes right out and says that it is not SF for people who read SF or who are part of any literary culture.

Such breathtaking honesty.

Darrell Schweitzer’s last article for us was Selling SF & Fantasy: 1969 Was Another World.

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, a Review

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie, a Review

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the-heroes-joe-abercrombieThe Heroes
Joe Abercrombie
Orbit (559 pp., $14.99, trade paperback)
Reviewed by Brian Murphy

“Who cares who’s buried where?” muttered Craw, thinking about all the men he’d seen buried. “Once a man’s in the ground he’s just mud. Mud and stories. And the stories and the men don’t often have much in common.”

—Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

Although it’s classified as fantasy, don’t be fooled: Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes is every inch a war story, knee deep in mud and blood, with the term “heroes” used in a rather ironic fashion. You won’t find any heroes here, just a bunch of men trying to live through another day on the battlefield.

It’s also bloody good. While it’s not at the level of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels, and perhaps doesn’t quite stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the same shieldwall as Steven Pressfield’s brilliant Gates of Fire, The Heroes is certainly one of the best books of its kind. Chock full of vivid combat and the incredible stress and strain of war, with a cast of memorable if not particularly deep characters and enough twists to keep you guessing to the end, it’s a terrific read for those who enjoy the sights and sounds of combat on the printed page.

…

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Cinderella Jump Rope Rhymes

Cinderella Jump Rope Rhymes

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cinderella-jump-rope-rhymes1Cabinet des Fées presents Cinderella Jump Rope Rhymes!

These are not the rhymes you jumped rope to as a child.

Erzebet YellowBoy announced on March 12th:

“Cinderella Jump Rope Rhymes shows you what a childhood pastime looks like when you dial macabre up to eleven. If playground fun got married to the genetically engineered child of Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman, their offspring would be Cinderella Jump Rope Rhymes.

…In tribute to all of the animal friends and helpers without whom our fairy tale heroines and heros would themselves be lost, CdF has decided to fund animal charities with this publication. Fifty percent of all profits will be donated each quarter, beginning with the quarter starting April 1, 2012.

Our first batch of proceeds will be donated to HULA Animal Rescue: Home for Unwanted and Lost Animals. HULA is an independent UK charity with a non-​​destruction policy for every healthy animal, in service since 1972.

Our second batch of proceeds will be donated to the Oldies Club, and our third to Dolly’s Foundation. We’ll post more information about those two charities when their times comes. If you have any suggestions for the fourth quarter donations, please send them along!”

Edited by Francesca Forrest, illustrated by Adam Oehlers (for an interview with the illustrator, click here), this chapbook contains contributions from Francesca Forrest, Sonya Taaffe, Samantha Henderson, Erik Amundsen, Rose Lemberg, Nadia Bulkin, Julia Rios, and Kyle Davis.

Cinderella Jump Rope Rhymes can be purchased at Amazon​.com, Amazon​.co​.uk and  The Book Depository as well as at other online sellers. Please support independent sellers if you can!

Peadar Ó Guilín’s The Deserter on sale Today

Peadar Ó Guilín’s The Deserter on sale Today

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deserterIf you’re a long-time Black Gate reader you know the name Peadar Ó Guilín.

His first story for us was “The Mourning Trees” (Black Gate 5), followed by “Where Beauty Lies in Wait” (BG 11) and “The Evil Eater” (BG 13), which Shedrick Pittman-Hassett of Serial Distractions called “a lovely little bit of Lovecraftian horror that still haunts me to this day.”

Peadar’s first novel The Inferior was published to terrific reviews in 2008. School Library Journal called it

[An] epic story of survival, betrayal, and community… intriguing at every turn, The Inferior will hold readers from page to page, chapter to chapter, to the very end.

After nearly four years the sequel has finally arrived, and it promises to be everything we’ve waited for. Here’s the book description:

The humans are weak and vulnerable. Soon the beasts that share their stone-age world will kill and eat them. To save his tribe, Stopmouth must make his way to the Roof, the mysterious hi-tech world above the surface. But the Roof has its own problems. The nano technology that controls everything from the environment to the human body is collapsing. A virus has already destroyed the Upstairs, sending millions of refugees to seek shelter below. And now a rebellion against the Commission, organized by the fanatical Religious, is about to break.

Hunted by the Commission’s Elite Agents through the overcrowded, decaying city of the future, Stopmouth must succeed in a hunt of his own: to find the secret power hidden in the Roof’s computerized brain, and return to his people before it is too late.

The Deserter is on available today in hardcover, and in digital format for the Kindle and Nook. It is 448 pages, and published by David Fickling Books.

To promote it, Peadar has released Where Beauty Lies In Wait, a free e-book collecting a dozen of his short stories, including all three from Black Gate. It’s available in Kindle, ePub and PDF versions, and you can get it here.

This week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy at Amazon.com

This week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy at Amazon.com

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batmanbeyond_s2Once again we report back from the deep-discount frontier, to let you know what Amazon.com is unloading on the cheap from the back of the warehouse.

This week’s selection includes over half a dozen top animated shows on DVD, including two seasons of my modern favorite, Batman Beyond. Season Two is marked down 81%:

halo_legends1

The last two books, Metatropolis and Mechanics of Wonder, also look pretty intriguing. As always, qualities for most of these titles are limited at these prices, so act fast. Shipping is not included, but for US buyers Amazon ships free if your total is above $25.

Many of last week’s discount titles are still available; you can see that list here.

Good luck, fellow bargain hunters!

The Quantum Thief: A Review

The Quantum Thief: A Review

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The Quantum ThiefThe Quantum Thief
Hannu Rajaniemi
Tor Books (A Tom Doherty Associates Book; 330 pp, $24.99 USD, $28.99 CDN; hardcover 2010)
Reviewed by Matthew David Surridge

Centuries in the future, Jean le Flambeur is a master thief, imprisoned in a virtual-reality jail: every day he makes choices, and dies, and is reborn. Until he’s freed by a violent woman named Mieli from the edge of the solar system, and taken to Mars. There, he must regain old memories he locked away from all possible recovery when he was literally a far different person than he is now. A youthful detective, hi-tech superheroes, and posthuman intelligences are waiting to complicate his task, which seems to have ramifications on an interplanetary scale.

That’s a basic description of Hannu Rajaniemi’s novel The Quantum Thief, the first in a series following le Flambeur’s adventures (the second, The Fractal Prince, will be coming later this year). Uncertainty and possibility and identity are key themes in this book; appropriate, then, that its own identity is somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand it’s aggressively bleeding-edge, incorporating quantum theory and game theory and any number of up-to-the-nanosecond science-fictional ideas. But on the other it’s highly traditional, drawing from different lineages within the genre and outside it.

…

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Frederic S. Durbin’s The Star Shard Now on Sale

Frederic S. Durbin’s The Star Shard Now on Sale

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star-shardOne of the most acclaimed stories in Black Gate 15 was Fred Durbin’s “World’s End,” a terrific sword & sorcery piece featuring two young warrior heroines.

Since it appeared we’ve been looking forward to his new novel The Star Shard, and now the wait is over. His first novel for children takes place in a deliciously imaginative setting, a massive wagon city that rolls across a dangerous and magical land:

Twelve-year-old Cymbril is a slave on Thunder Rake, a gigantic wagon city that rolls from town to town carrying goods to be sold by its resident merchants. The Rake’s master purchases a new slave, a mysterious boy named Loric who is one of the magical Fey. Because he can see in the dark, Loric’s duty is to guide the Rake through the treacherous wilderness at night.Cymbril and Loric secretly join forces to plan their escape — soon the two friends thread their way through a series of increasing dangers, encountering an enchanted market and deadly monsters as their one chance for freedom draws nearer.

Frederic S. Durbin’s previous novel was Dragonfly, published in hardcover by Arkham House in 1999. If you have not heard him read one of his delightfully stories out loud, you are missing one of the great pleasures of the fantasy genre. You can read Patty Templeton’s Black Gate interview with Fred here.

The Star Shard was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is 320 pages in hardcover for $16.99. Look for it in better bookstores around the country.

Jane Carver of Waar On Sale Today

Jane Carver of Waar On Sale Today

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jane-carverWhat is Jane Carver of Waar, you ask?

Wake up! Just because bookstores around the country are getting thin on the ground, that’s no excuse for not being on top of the latest trends in fantasy. Where have you been?

It’s all right. Don’t panic, don’t panic.  Just sit back, and we’ll fill you in. That’s what we’re here for.

Jane Carver of Waar is the latest fantasy from hot writer Nathan Long, author of the splendid Ulrika the Vampire and Gotrek & Felix novels, among many others. Here’s the blurb:

Jane Carver is nobody’s idea of a space princess. A hard-ridin’, hard-lovin’ biker chick and ex-Airborne Ranger, Jane is as surprised as anyone else when, on the run from the law, she ducks into the wrong cave at the wrong time — and wakes up butt-naked on an exotic alien planet light-years away from everything she’s ever known. Waar is a savage world of four-armed tiger-men, sky-pirates, slaves, gladiators, and purple-skinned warriors in thrall to a bloodthirsty code of honor and chivalry. Caught up in a disgraced nobleman’s quest to win back the hand of a sexy alien princess, Jane encounters bizarre wonders and dangers unlike anything she ever ran into back home. Then again, Waar has never seen anyone like Jane before… Both a loving tribute and scathing parody of the swashbuckling space fantasies of yore, Jane Carver of Waar introduces an unforgettable new science fiction heroine.

With John Carter of Mars opening this Friday, this book is the perfect way to get you in the mood. Mike Resnick says:

If Edgar Rice Burroughs were writing today, with 21st Century skills and sensibilities, Jane Carver of Waar is the book he’d have written.

Well said, Mike. You can find Jane Carver of Waar at any decent bookstore, or from the finest online merchants. It is published by the splendid Night Shade Press, in trade paperback for $14.99