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Bargain Fantasy at Amazon.com

Bargain Fantasy at Amazon.com

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imagerI can’t be the only reader out there who laments the decline of the remainder.

You know what I’m talking about. Those big tables near the front of Barnes & Noble, covered with aging hardcovers for $5.98, and about a metric ton of leftover Valentine merchandise. Yeah, those remainders.

It’s not that remainders are gone. But with the loss of Borders, and the slow evaporation of bookstores in general, I don’t get to browse as many aisles of cheap books as I used to. Bummer. Remainders were a great way to try out new authors on the cheap, and pick up a discount Star Trek calender in mid-January (and get Ali a late Valentine’s card, to be truthful, but that’s not really my point.)

What is my point? This is the age of the Internet! And remainders aren’t dead; they’ve just moved online. Booksellers like Amazon.com routinely offer 60 – 80% discounts on close-out books of all kinds, including best-selling science fiction and fantasy, and a diligent search usually turns up hundreds.

Here’s some of the best bargains I found this week on my regular search for discounted SF & Fantasy in Amazon’s Under-20-bucks list:

Now, just like the old days, qualities for most of these titles are limited at these prices, so you have to act fast. Shipping is extra, but for US readers, Amazon will ship free if your total is above $25.

Good hunting, fellow bargain hunters!

Thomas M. MacKay Reviews The Enchantment Emporium

Thomas M. MacKay Reviews The Enchantment Emporium

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the-enchantment-emporium-coverThe Enchantment Emporium
Tanya Huff
DAW (473 pp, $7.99, June 2010)
Reviewed by Thomas M. MacKay

Canadian writer Tanya Huff has well-established credentials in the speculative fiction world, having written a number of respected novels, spanning the range from traditional epic fantasy, to contemporary fantasy, to full-on science fiction. Certain common themes tend to appear in her work, though handled gracefully and without detracting from the story. Ms. Huff’s work commonly challenges any cultural bias toward inequality – whether among races, genders, or for any other reason – and questions the validity of sexual inhibitions, while never denying the real and powerful impact that love imposes.

In the Gale family, “charming” preserves its original meaning, as the Gales still follow the old ways of the Goddess and the Wild God. Twenty-four year old Allie Gale grew up learning how to cast charms and mix potions, taking her place in the third circle among her many cousins, and trying to avoid crossing the Aunties – because Gale power grows as you age, and the oldest generation of women together possess the power to change the world. But magic still can’t give you purpose, and Allie is back home trying to figure out what to do with her heart and her life after losing her job as a research assistant at the Ontario Museum and still struggling to get over her gay ex-boyfriend. When Allie’s wild grandmother, the one Gale Auntie that lives apart from the family, doesn’t come home for the May Day ritual, Allie’s restlessness grows. The next day comes word that Allie’s Gran has died and left Allie an esoteric little store in Calgary. The Aunties don’t really believe their sister is dead, but they send Allie off anyway to figure out what her Gran is up to.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars, Part 5: The Chessmen of Mars

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars, Part 5: The Chessmen of Mars

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chessmen-of-mars-1st-edition1“The squares shall be contested to the death. Just are the laws of Manator! I have spoken.”

After Edgar Rice Burroughs pulled the Martian novels in a different direction with Thuvia, Maid of Mars, he retreated from Barsoom for a spell to concentrate on other projects. Eight years passed between the writing of Thuvia and the publication of the next adventure, The Chessmen of Mars, which switched to yet another hero and heroine to hurl into the unknown regions of Mars. In the process, Burroughs gave science fiction a new board game to play.

Our Saga: The adventures of earthman John Carter, his progeny, and sundry other natives and visitors, on the planet Mars, known to its inhabitants as Barsoom. A dry and slowly dying world, Barsoom contains four different human civilizations, one non-human one, a scattering of science among swashbuckling, and a plethora of religions, mystery cities, and strange beasts. The series spans 1912 to 1964 with nine novels, one volume of linked novellas, and two unrelated novellas.

Today’s Installment: The Chessmen of Mars (1922)

Previous Installments: A Princess of Mars (1912), The Gods of Mars (1913), The Warlord of Mars (1913-14), Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)

The Backstory

Thuvia, Maid of Mars was a success, and it made sense that when Burroughs returned to Mars he would repeat the same formula of third-person narration and a different hero and heroine pair in a one-off adventure. Although John Carter’s son Carthoris seemed a natural to continue as the hero, Burroughs chose to use a full-blood Martian as his lead for the first time. The decision to change protagonists once before made it easy to do it a second time, and with Carthoris already paired with Thuvia, picking a new character meant ERB could start over with a fresh love interest. (He rarely let his heroes switch heroines once they dedicated themselves. Tarzan could get away with it with La of Opar, but only because of amnesia.) …

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David Soyka Reviews Prince of Thorns

David Soyka Reviews Prince of Thorns

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prince-of-thornsPrince of Thorns (Book One of The Broken Empire)
Mark Lawrence
Ace (324 pp, $29.95, Hardcover August 2011)
Reviewed by David Soyka

This is pretty brutal.  Relentlessly brutal, right from the opening paragraphs:

Ravens! Always the ravens. They settled in the gables of the church even before the injured became the dead. Even before Rike had finished taking fingers from hands, and rings from fingers. I leaned back against the gallows post and nodded to the birds, a dozen of them in a black line, wise-eyed and watching.

The town-square ran red. Blood in the gutters, bloom on the flagstones, blood in the fountain. The corpses posed as corpses do. Some comical, reaching for the sky with missing fingers, some peaceful, coiled about their wounds. Flies rose above the wounded as they struggled. This way and that, some blind, some sly, all betrayed by their buzzing entourage.

“Water! Water!” It’s always water with the dying. Strange, it’s killing that gives me thirst.

And this the ostensible hero talking in Prince of Thorns, the first in a (you guessed it) projected trilogy collectively called The Broken Empire.  So, we’re clearly in anti-hero land, in the “shit and blood” sub genre of sword and sorcery that aims to rub your face in what rusty blades, poor sanitation and disease actually do to people living under medieval conditions, in stark contrast to high fantasy depictions of noble quests in which divinely provident good triumphs over corrupt and therefore ultimately doomed to fail evil.

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Goth Chick News: King Shines On

Goth Chick News: King Shines On

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image001Telling you that The Shining ranks in my top five favorite horror movies of all time isn’t news here at Black Gate. Over the years I’ve found all sorts of ways to weasel it into my posts, even going so far as to cyber-stalk Danny Lloyd, the reclusive adult who played the emotionally damaged little kid with the “shine” all over him.

The Shining is my stormy, Sunday afternoon go-to movie, and the first one into the Blu-ray player as soon as the snowfall breaks the 12 inch mark here in Chicago.

No matter that I know the dialog by heart, it scares the crap out of me anyway. Because let’s be honest; those two creepy little girls will get you every time.

But as much as I love the adrenaline rush brought on by the film, ironically I’ve always been a little lukewarm on the book.

I say “ironically” because it is a rare thing indeed when a movie manages to simply not massacre the text upon which it is based — not to mention equal it or surpass it.

The Shining book is absolutely interesting in that it provides all the backstory about why the Overlook Hotel is such an attractive vacation spot for evil spirits, and why Jack Torence is such a fractured human being.

However, what makes the book less of a fav for me is that exact same backstory.

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Finding the Right Cover Artist for your eBook

Finding the Right Cover Artist for your eBook

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serpent-without-skin2When I resolved to publish the two novels in my Heart of Darkness series as eBooks, I figured I was all set. The books had already been edited and re-edited; I had the future plotlines mapped out in my head. That was everything, right?

Of course not. My wife — aka “Queen of Internet Research” — cautioned me, “Everything I’ve read says you need a great cover that really catches the eye.”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’d always dreamed of being picked up by a major publishing house that had its own artists.

I mean, I like fantasy art as much as anyone, but I’m good with words, not pictures. I had no idea how to locate a good cover artist.

So I asked a friend of mine who is an artist to do it. He begged off, citing his current, non-artistic workload. Nor did any other personal connections pan out.

Ahead of me yet again, my wife told me about several options she’d read about on the internet. The most interesting was a contest where artists compete for the prize of being your cover artist. You are presented with several custom options and only pay if you accept one.

An intriguing concept, but I wanted to know more about my prospective artists. So my friend recommended deviantart.com. There, my wife and I posted a job description and waited, though not for long.

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After the Golden Age: A Review

After the Golden Age: A Review

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After the Golden AgeAfter the Golden Age
Carrie Vaughn
Tor Books (A Tom Doherty Associates Book; 304 pp, $24.99 USD, $29.99 CDN; hardcover April 2011, paperback January 2012)
Reviewed by Matthew David Surridge

Celia West is an accountant in her mid-twenties. She seems normal enough, but appearances are deceiving. Celia lives in Commerce City, home to a number of super-powered heroes and their archenemies. She’s not one of them, though, being in fact the non-powered daughter of two of Commerce City’s greatest champions, Captain Olympus and Spark, leaders of the group called the Olympiad. Now the Olympiad’s worst enemy, the Destructor, has been arrested, and Celia’s skills as an accountant can help to find the fiscal evidence to put him behind bars — only, once, years ago, Celia joined the Destructor as an ally. Can she overcome that act of youthful rebellion to build her own life, and see that justice is done?

That’s the question driving the plot of Carrie Vaughn’s novel After the Golden Age. Super-heroes arguably started in prose, with the exploits of Zorro, the Spider, the Shadow, and Doc Savage, to name some of the best known, but the full-blown super-hero — with exceptional powers, a distinctive costume, and an alter-ego — was really a development of comics. A costumed hero is inherently visual, and many of the best super-hero powers lend themselves to illustration. Can prose present a super-hero story as well as comics can? It’s notable that a lot of the better prose super-hero tales have been shorter works: the best of the Wild Cards shared-world books, for example (a series for which Vaughn writes), or the 2008 anthology Who Can Save Us Now?, or Daryl Gregory’s excellent story from the same year “The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm.” Perhaps the strangeness of powers and costumes works better at that length.

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Charlene Brusso Reviews The Way of Kings

Charlene Brusso Reviews The Way of Kings

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wayofkings255b8255d1The Way of Kings
Brandon Sanderson
Tor (1280 pp, $8.99, May 2011 mass market)
Reviewed by Charlene Brusso

When does the end justify the means? That is the overarching question posed in the first volume of Sanderson’s new series. It’s a tough one, and an excellent choice for exploration within an epic fantasy framework. Working on the Wheel of Time series has made Sanderson’s writing longer, but thankfully it hasn’t dulled his skill at worldbuilding, or his masterful ability to create vivid characters caught up in challenging situations.

The Way of Kings is an ancient text which discusses how to protect a nation and govern honorably. Most of its teachings, however, are poorly regarded – in fact, outright heretical – by the powerful Vorin church in contemporary Roshar, some 4500 years after it was written. The text comes from the time of the lost Radiants, noble warriors whose mighty Shardblades gave them powers beyond normal men. But the Radiants disbanded, abandoning their responsibilities, and none now knows the truth of those times. And so the text has fallen into disfavor.

Millennia later, the current king, Elhokar, has his hands full fighting off Parshendi incursions, and no time or interest in reading heretical philosophy. His father’s assassination left him in control of a vast kingdom under siege, and he is determined to do whatever he must to hold it together. The last thing he needs is to lose his top commander and most trusted advisor, his uncle Dalinar, to insanity.

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“As Good As it Gets:” B&N Explorations on John Fultz’s Seven Princes

“As Good As it Gets:” B&N Explorations on John Fultz’s Seven Princes

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seven-princesThe accolades continue to come in for John Fultz’s debut novel Seven Princes, the first installment in the Books of the Shaper. Here’s Paul Goat Allen from Explorations,  Barnes & Noble’s Science Fiction & Fantasy blog:

Set in a sprawling world saturated with dark magic and inhabited by giants, humans, and a vast array of fantastical creatures, the novel begins with the realm on the verge of war. An ancient sorcerer named Elhathym has returned and, after a necromantic bloodbath, has usurped the throne of Yaskatha… the singular brilliance of this novel – the reason it succeeds when so many others come across as formulaic – comes down to Fultz’s ability to tell a story so richly detailed, so emotionally powerful and soulful, that readers will become completely immersed in the narrative.

Fultz’s fluid, lyrical writing style and meticulous attention to detail make for a gloriously immersive read. Literally every single page is filled with some kind of vibrant description… It’s a wondrous read filled with countless jaw-dropping plot twists and I would hate to diminish anyone’s experience by revealing something inadvertently. And even though this is the first book in a trilogy, the conclusion is immensely satisfying and sets the stage for a grand-scale story that could rival the very best fantasy sagas on the shelves today.

The bottom line is this: Fultz’s debut novel is flawless – and timeless – epic fantasy. For fans of epic fantasy, Seven Princes is as good as it gets.

Read the complete piece here.

This is just the latest great coverage for Fultz — we summarized some of the other glowing reviews he’s received just a few weeks ago. You can read more about Seven Princes here, or sample excerpts from the highly acclaimed short stories he’s published in Black Gate, including “Oblivion Is the Sweetest Wine” (BG 12), “Return of the Quill” (BG 13), and “The Vintages of Dream” (BG 15).

Seven Princes is now on sale at better bookstores and virtual outlets around the country, and you can take advantage of our back issue sale to buy issues of Black Gate at a great discount in our online store.

Part I of C.S.E. Cooney’s Jack o’ the Hills Audiobook now Available

Part I of C.S.E. Cooney’s Jack o’ the Hills Audiobook now Available

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jack-of-the-hillsYou know that here at Black Gate we toil day and night to bring you the latest news, reviews and opinion on the vast and varied field of modern fantasy. Some of us, however, are not content with merely reporting on great fantasy — we must create it ourselves. When that happens, we celebrate it here with joy and fellowship.

Some of us, mind you, aren’t content with merely creating. No no no. There are those among us who, once they’ve finished creating, skip right along to organizing mass readings, commissioning cover art, and even making an audiobook. Which they read themselves. These folks we don’t so much celebrate as stand around and gawk at in awe.

Of course, I’m talking about the mighty C.S.E. Cooney, Website Editor here at Black Gate, who published the much-praised Jack o’ the Hills, a collection of two linked short stories, in trade paperback just last year through Papaveria Press. Now comes word that C.S.E. has released the first part of Jack o’ the Hills as an audiobook:

Jack Yap is “his Marm’s good boy, maple-syrup mouth, toffee-tongue, such sweetness” — or is he? He’s a rascal, a rapscallion, a downright ragamuffin, and he’s one of the most memorable characters I’ve ever read. It is therefore with great delight that I announce the release of the audiobook of “Stone Shoes,” the first of the two tales that make up Jack o’ the Hills, read by author C.S.E. Cooney and arranged by Jeremy Cooney. Many thanks go out to Jeremy, who also helped with “this GarageBand mumbojumbo.” The audiobook can be purchased exclusively from Papaveria for the outrageously low cost of £1.69 — that’s approximately $2.99 for our American friends.

To celebrate the release of the audio, Papaveria Press has also made the paperback more widely available. You can now purchase Jack at Amazon.com for $9.99 — or just 99 cents for the Kindle version!

Papaveria Press promises to get the audio version of the second half of Jack o’ the Hills, “Oubliette’s Egg,” produced soon.