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New Treasures: The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

New Treasures: The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

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the-weird1The Weird arrived on my doorstep today, with a resounding thump. And for once, I’m not speaking metaphorically.

It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for this baby since it was first released in the UK back in October. From everything I’d read The Weird looked like the single most important fantasy anthology of the last few years. And now that I hold it in my hot little hands, I’m convinced that impression was correct.

The Weird is a massive 1,126-page survey of the last century of dark fantasy and weird fiction, starting with an excerpt from Alfred Kubin’s 1908 novel The Other Side and ending with K.J. Bishop’s “Saving the Gleeful Horse,” from the March 2010 issue of Fantasy magazine. And I do mean massive — it’s oversize in every way, including an inch wider than normal hardcovers, accommodating a two-column layout that packs a lot on each page.

In between those two pieces editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have collected 108 others, from authors including George R.R. Martin (his classic “Sandkings”), Michael Chabon (“The God of Dark Laughter”), H.P. Lovecraft (“The Dunwich Horror”), Stephen King (“The Man in the Black Suit”), Clark Ashton Smith (“Genius Loci”), Fritz Leiber (“Smoke Ghost”), Thomas Ligotti (“The Town Manager”), Kelly Link (“The Specialist’s Hat”), and many others.

The oddest omission appears to be Robert E. Howard, one of the major 20th Century practitioners of the weird tale. Since virtually all of his weird fiction has been recently collected in other venues, his absence here doesn’t bother me. I also miss Clifford D. Simak, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, Karl Edward Wagner, Manly Wade Wellman, William Hope Hodgson, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, Darrell Schweitzer, Gene Wolfe, Geoff Ryman, Jack Vance, Peter Beagle, and Frank Belknap Long, but I’m not going to pout about it. Editing an anthology like this is all about making tough choices, and I’m glad the editors opted for a lot of overlooked fantasy rather than work that’s been continuously reprinted. Besides, this leaves lots of room for a second volume.

In fact, one of the strongest elements of The Weird is the attention paid to newer authors, including Laird Baron (“The Forest”), Margo Lanagan (“Singing My Sister Down”), Daniel Abraham (“Flat Diane”), Liz Williams (“The Hide”), and Michael Cisco (“The Genius of Assassins”).

The Weird is $39.99 for an oversize hardcover — an incredible bargain, if you ask me — and just $29.99 in paperback.  It is published by Tor .

Burial Day Books releases Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition

Burial Day Books releases Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition

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gothicbluebook2Okay. Technically this was released back in October. But I just found out about it, so I’m going to pretend it came out this week so I don’t look out of touch.

Ahem. Burial Day Books, a boutique publisher of supernatural horror, has just released its first short story collection. You heard it here first.

The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition is a collection of short stories and poems that resurrect the spirit of the Gothic Blue Book. Gothic Blue Books were short fictions popular in the 18th and 19th century. They were descendants of the chap book trade. The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition is a collection of twelve short stories and two poems written by established and emerging horror authors that honor the Gothic story. Misery, fear, despair, regret and dread are highlighted in this collection, stirring old ghosts, witches, and awakening death. The authors in this collection weave together brilliant tales of terror celebrating the history of the Gothic story with a new twist.

I’ve never heard of Gothic Blue Books. Man, I’m more out of touch than I thought. Anyway. 18th Century chap books honoring the Gothic tradition of misery, fear, despair, regret and dread? Sounds pretty good to me. It’s not too late to make up for lost time.

The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition includes fiction from John Everson, M. N. Hanson, Ben McElroy, Greg Mollin, and many others. It is 114 pages and is available in print ($7) and Kindle editions ($0.99) through Amazon.com.

New Treasures: War & Space, edited by Rich Horton & Sean Wallace

New Treasures: War & Space, edited by Rich Horton & Sean Wallace

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war-spaceMy copy of War & Space: Recent Combat finally arrived today, and it’s everything I hoped it would be: a thick anthology reprinting some of the best tales of space warfare from the last few decades, including one of my recent favorites, Ken MacLeod’s tale of a man who investigates a civilization implosion in a far-distant human habitat and the startling horrors he discovers, “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” Here’s the opening lines:

When you’re as old as I am, you’ll find your memory’s not what it was. It’s not that you lose memories. That hasn’t happened to me or anyone else since the Paleocosmic Era, the Old Space Age, when people lived in caves on the Moon. My trouble is that I’ve gained memories, and I don’t know which of them are real.

Exactly the kind of book I like to snuggle into my big green chair with. (Side note to website editor C.S.E. Cooney: yes, I ended a sentence with a proposition. Give me a break, it’s Friday). Here’s the book description:

Conflict: a basic human instinct, helping humankind evolve even while threatening the very existence of the species… an instinct that will be as much a part of the future as it is now and always has been. For all the glories of war-the defeat of evil, the promise of freedom, justice, protection of the innocent, the righting of wrongs, technological innovation, heroism-there are also the horrors: individual grief, mass destruction, the elimination of entire cultures and great achievments, injustice, villainy, the annihilation of the innocent, and pain beyond bearing. War and Space offers the ultimate speculation on the future of warfare-stories of insectoid anguish, genetically-engineered diplomats who cannot fail, aliens plundering humanity, a weaponized black hole-scenarios of triumph and defeat, great heroism and vile depravity… and more.

War & Space includes short stories from Nancy Kress, Paul McAuley, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Catherynne M. Valente, Tom Purdom, and many others. You can get additional details here.

The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part III: Kai Meyer and The Stormkings

The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part III: Kai Meyer and The Stormkings

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img_2632While I was looking for more authors of modern Arabian fantasy, Kai Meyer found me, after reading part of my series here on Black Gate. Already a bestselling author in English (his book, The Water Mirror, went into three printings before its release date), he’s written 51 novels in his native German, including the Middle Eastern influenced, The Stormkings, a trilogy which has not been translated into English… yet. After hearing the description, I’m hoping it will be. The film rights have already been acquired by Oliver Scholl, who has worked on movies such as Independence Day and Jumper.

It’s interesting to note that the Arabian trend isn’t confined to English language fantasy, and it’s very interesting to hear the direction Kai took the genre when he created a Middle Eastern milieu.

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C.S.E. Cooney’s How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes On Sale

C.S.E. Cooney’s How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes On Sale

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how-to-flirt-in-faerieland2The multi-talented C.S.E. Cooney — poet, editor, web mistress, bookseller, performer, author, spiritual leader and world renowned zombie wrangler — has just released a new poetry collection, How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes. You need a copy.

I’m not kidding. This book is your path back to a meaningful life. It will teach you how to love poetry again. You need it because your soul is dead, you don’t even know it, and this book will resuscitate it. It’s a compact, 2,000-volt defib unit for your very soul. Here’s the description:

Do you know how to flirt in Faerieland? C.S.E. Cooney does. In this collection of seventeen poems — four never before published — you’ll find goblins, crones, robber brides, coyotes, and even a sea king. Cooney draws from folklore and myth to create something entirely her own, something glimpsed only in Faerie. From the raucous and bawdy to the sorrowful dirge, these poems will work upon you like a spell. Inside you’ll find seven original illustrations by artist/tattooist Rebecca Huston, who also provided the artwork used on the cover.

Here’s some advice, for after you get the book: Read it out loud to someone you love. Or someone you hate, I don’t care. Just climb up on a chair and start belting it out. You’ll feel your life start to change right then and there. You can thank me later.

Our last C.S.E. Cooney news was the release of the Jack o’ the Hills audiobook, her interview with Aesthetically Speaking, and that time she won the Rhysling Award for her poetry. She’s busy, C.S.E. Cooney.

How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes is 86 pages in paperback, published by Papaveria Press. It includes an introduction by Amal El-Mohtar. Read more details — including blurbs from Delia Sherman, Jane Yolen, S.J. Tucker, Pamela Dean, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Sharon Shinn — at the Papaveria Press website. It sells for $10 and is available from Amazon.com and other fine booksellers.

Playing Favorites: A Talk with Myke Cole

Playing Favorites: A Talk with Myke Cole

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Myke ColeMyke Cole is a badass. OK, I’ve never met him, but seriously smalls, take a look at that square-jawed, large-armed headshot. Badass. He looks like the kinda guy who could jump-punch a shark from a speedboat. He probably has. In fact, did you know that Myke Cole once pulled Chuck Norris from the gaping maw of a Great White? True story.* The next day, he saved seventeen pugs and a heretofore unknown, complete vellum copy of the Gutenberg Bible from a warehouse fire on the docks.** Yeah, he’s that guy. You’d hate him if he weren’t so dang nice. Instead, you want to bump into him at a coffeeshop.

His first novel, SHADOW OPS: Control Point, makes for hella good weekend reading. Oscar Britton is an Army officer turned fugitive sorcerer. Britton isn’t a bad guy, but he is dangerous. He’s manifested magical powers that he can’t control (like thousands of others across the world) and the government he formerly worked for is now determined to collect and control him…or take him out.

Cole has the chops to write military fantasy. He’s been a security contractor, government civilian and military officer. Dude’s worked everything from Counterterrorism to Cyber Warfare, in addition to serving three tours in Iraq and being recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

We here at Black Gate pride ourselves on asking the questions that dare not be asked. Yes, constant reader, we got a hold of Myke Cole and asked him about his favorites. These sort of questions are usually scoffed at…how can someone pick a favorite book? THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD ONES! But Cole graciously answered us.

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The Bloodlands Novels of Christine Cody

The Bloodlands Novels of Christine Cody

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bloodlands2I’ve been having fun with the Bloodlands novels of Christine Cody. Her website calls them “a post-apocalyptic Western fantasy series,” and that’s probably the best way to describe them.

Technically they’re science fiction, since there’s a near-future SF vibe and a post-disaster setting. “The New Badlands” is a vast and devastated American West where a handful of survivors retreated underground to escape changing and deadly weather, and a sequence of unrelenting apocalyptic events that have ravaged the country.

But at heart they’re really fantasy as the Badlands aren’t just filled with lethal storms, desperate survivors and brutal gunslingers — they’re also crawling with monsters, including vampires.

The marketing copy from Ace Books left me in mind of Deadlands, the weird western role playing game from Pinnacle Entertainment that breathed new life into the RPG genre in the 90s. But the author credits her inspiration to classic westerns. This is from the dedication to Bloodlands:

A big shout-out goes to all those Westerns that provided us with High Plains Drifters, Shanes, and Pale Riders, plus all the greedy ranchers and gunslinging villains, feisty homesteaders and rugged pioneers. I wanted to twist and reshape those wonderful tropes into something new while recalling the old. Most important, though, I wanted to pay homage to the mysterious cowboys who have wandered across dusty landscapes to face down the bad guys.

Fair warning to those looking for a pure-blooded adventure series: these books have an outcast female protagonist, and a brooding and misunderstood vampire named “Gabriel.” And there’s kissing.

The technical term for books containing both kissing and vampires is “paranormal romance,” and that’s exactly what these are. If sweaty make-out scenes with the undead make you uncomfortable, then back away now.

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New Treasures: The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

New Treasures: The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

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drowned-citiesOkay, I know we’re here to talk about Paolo Bacigalupi’s new novel, but I just want to take a moment to say that I took my two teenage sons to see The Avengers today, and it totally rocked. It was better than it had any right to be, and I agree with Andrew Zimmerman Jones when he says aspiring writers should bring a notebook. Everyone who wants to learn about storytelling should watch this movie.

‘Nuff said. We now return to our regularly scheduled New Treasures article.

So Paolo Bacigalupi has a new book out. It’s described as “a companion book” to his 2010 novel Ship Breaker.

I don’t know what that means, to be honest. Is it a sequel? Why don’t they just call it a sequel? Maybe it’s a prequel? Or it’s, like, set in the same world but doesn’t involve any of the same characters, like The Avengers and X-Men? Or does it present the same events from two radically different viewpoints, like MSNBC and Fox News?

Dang it, I don’t know why the publicity departments at New York publishing houses keep coming up with different words for sequels. They should use straightforward comic analogies in promotional materials, so busy bloggers like me can get to bed early.

Anyway. Paolo Bacigalupi has a new book. His last two, The Windup Girl and Ship Breaker, were really cool (and The Windup Girl even won the Hugo Award). The Hugo Award is a big deal. Black Gate doesn’t have one (yet), and until we get one, that shiny rocket statue makes us starry-eyed and respectful. That’s Mr. Bacigalupi to you, Buster. Here’s the book description:

In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man — a bioengineered war beast named Tool — who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi’s highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.

Ship Breaker is highly acclaimed; forgot to mention that. The Drowned Cities arrived in stores on May 1st, it is $17.99 for 448 pages in hardcover, and is published by Little, Brown Books’ Young Adult division.

Sean T. M. Stiennon reviews Warhammer: Bloodforged

Sean T. M. Stiennon reviews Warhammer: Bloodforged

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Bloodforged
Nathan Longbloodforged
Black Library (416 pages, mass market first edition May 2011)
Reviewed by Sean T. M. Stiennon

Apart from walk-ons, cameos, and bit-parts, every single character in Bloodforged is either a daemon worshiper or a vampire.  That’s really the most concise way I can summarize the novel, and your reaction to that ought to be a pretty good indication of how much you’d like Bloodforged.

Ulrika was the daughter of a family of noble warriors before her rising as a vampire, and she finds herself chafing under the restrictions that her loyalty to the Lahmian sisterhood of Nuln imposes on her.  She flees her vampiric mother and travels north, to the Kislevite city of Praag, hoping to make herself useful to humanity by aiding them in the battle against the Chaos horde besieging the city.  However, Ulrika arrives to find that, not only is the city enjoying relative peace (“peace” being a term fundamentally alien to the Warhammer world), but Praag offers her no true refuge from her undead life.  Her former companions have moved on to new horizons, and she can have no real friendship with humans.

Ulrika finds fresh meaning to her unlife only when she stumbles across a secretive Chaos cult which is kidnapping girls off the streets.  At the same time, the local branch of the Lahmian vampires offers her a choice: Either be bound to them, and returned to the same life of servitude she left in Nuln, or die by their hands.  Ulrika is forced to navigate a narrow line between Chaos sorcery and Lahmian vindictiveness.  Her only clear ally is a dashing young vamp named Stefan, who claims to be out for revenge against his master’s killer, but may be hiding a more sinister motive, even as he introduces her to love beyond the grave.

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Art of the Genre: The Top 10 Literary Sci-Fi/Fantasy Covers of the 1980s

Art of the Genre: The Top 10 Literary Sci-Fi/Fantasy Covers of the 1980s

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Can either Keith Parkinson or any artist from a gaming novel crack this list?
Can either Keith Parkinson or any artist from a gaming novel crack this list?

There is a line from the band ELO‘s song Ticket to the Moon, on their concept album Time, that says,

Remember the good old 1980s, when things were so uncomplicated, I wish I could go back there again, and everything could be the same…

I can’t listen to that album [and yes, I listen to ELO often, sue me] without having those words haunt me. You see, the 1980s were ‘my’ time. We all have this period, the decade from childhood to young adult that is seemingly perfect. I went from 9 to 19 in that decade, and it was pure unadulterated magic.

In that time I seemed to be playing GI Joes in my sandbox, blinked, and was attending my senior prom. I can’t tell you where the time went, just that it still resonates in my memory with a warm fuzzy feeling because it was all about me. I mean, isn’t that what your teens should be, a time all about you? There are no mortgages, monthly bills, children to ferry about, wives or husbands to cater to. Sure, there’s school, gas money, some relationship hassle, and a summer job, but realistically that’s window dressing to a period in which you can explore nearly anything you wish and are encouraged to do so.

So, that being established, it isn’t hard to imagine that I see everything that happened in the 1980s with rose-colored glasses. This can certainly be said about the literature of the era. Now given, I’ve gone back and reread a few books from my youth, and each time the shine isn’t what it was on first reading, but nonetheless, the art on those book covers still retains the luster of a bygone age.

It was in the 1980s that I first fell in love with fantasy art, and to a certain degree science fiction art, although I think that particular genre was waning as fantasy came into full bloom with the advent of Dungeons & Dragons. To me, there is nothing better than what I found on the shelves in those years, each title laying the foundation for my life in a profound and lasting way.

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