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New Treasures: Seven Deaths of an Empire by G R Matthews

New Treasures: Seven Deaths of an Empire by G R Matthews

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Seven Deaths of an Empire (Solaris, June 2021). Cover artist uncredited

I’m late to the party with this one. Solaris published G R Matthews’s mainstream debut Seven Deaths of an Empire in June of last year, and it received plenty of good notice. Library Journal called it “reminiscent of Game of Thrones,” SFX Magazine labeled it “Refreshingly original,” and Grimdark Magazine proclaimed it “fantasy at its finest.” Why do I always miss the good ones?

At this point I figure I’d wait for the paperback, and that’s finally arriving at the end of this month. About time — I’m impatient to learn what all the fuss is about.

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Random Reviews: “Rocketship Red” by Michael R. Colangelo

Random Reviews: “Rocketship Red” by Michael R. Colangelo

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Tesseracts 14, Edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory, Cover by Erik Mohr
Tesseracts 14, Edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory, Cover by Erik Mohr

Michael R. Colangelo’s “Rocketship Red” was published in the fourteenth installment of the long-running Canadian anthology series Tesseracts, a volume edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory in 2010.  In addition to writing short fiction, Colangelo has served as a reviewer for FearZone and the fiction editor for The Harrow, an on-line zine that ran from 1998 until 2009.

“Rocketship Red” feels a bit like a throwback piece, the sort of story aimed at juveniles in the 1950s, which gives it an almost instantaneous feeling of nostalgia. It opens with Eagan running through the Canadian wheatfields near his father’s soy farm, flying a bright red kite and pretending the kite is a rocket and he’s its intrepid pilot. Although Eagan hated working the soy farm, he knew it would be his life, however a visit from two American air force captains who were coming to buy soy, would change the trajectory of his life.

Eagan’s interest in rockets and space, however, causes him to forge a bond with Captain Sampson, who tells Eagan to reach out to him when he turns seventeen and is able to attend “rocket flying school,” a phrase that reinforces the nostalgic element of the story. The rest of the story briefly outlines Eagan’s conflict with his father over leaving the soy farm, his attendance at the Flight Academy, and his career as a pilot, all covered in less than three pages.

If that seems like a lot to fit into a few short pages, it is. In many ways Colangelo’s story feels more like an outline for a longer story, or even a novel, that could follow Eagan’s journey from soy farmer’s son to cadet at the academy to his career flying rockets for the air force with explorations of Sampson’s mentorship of him.  Furthermore, Colangelo introduces various throw-away concepts in the story, such as antimatter farming projects, dark zones in space, and the rift.  None of these are given any detail, but they do serve to provide broad strokes for Eagan’s career.

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Forty Years of Horror: After Dark: The Best Horror Fiction of Tony Richards

Forty Years of Horror: After Dark: The Best Horror Fiction of Tony Richards

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After Dark: The Best Horror Fiction of Tony Richards (Weird House Press, November 17, 2021). Cover by K.L. Turner

Tony Richards is a British horror writer, author of eight collections of short stories and several novels of dark fiction. Although for some reason he may be unfairly less celebrated than some of his countrymen, he’s certainly one of the very best producing horror fiction today.

Praise to small American imprint Weird House Press for assembling twenty-five tales and a novella covering forty years of Richards’ career in After Dark: The Best Horror Fiction of Tony Richards, released in paperback and digital formats this past November.

Although I’m familiar with some of Richards’ previous (and excellent) collections, regretfully I had missed a few, and this one offered me the chance to savor some of his stories for the very first time.

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What a Cleric is For: Hall of Smoke by H. M. Long

What a Cleric is For: Hall of Smoke by H. M. Long

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Hall of Smoke and Temple of No God (Titan Books, January 2021 and February 2022). Cover designs by Julia Lloyd

I first took notice of H.M. Long’s debut fantasy Hall of Smoke when The Guardian included it in their roundup of The best recent science fiction and fantasy last January, calling it “a compelling debut.” Closer to home, Paul Weimer at Tor.com celebrated it as that rarity of rarities — an entertaining fantasy focused on the most-neglected of the D&D archetypes, the cleric. (He also name-checked Greg Stafford’s Glorantha in his review, which warmed my heart.)

I saw a copy for the first time in Barnes & Noble on Saturday — alongside the newly-released sequel Temple of No God. The combination proved too much for someone with notoriously poor impulse control, and both volumes ended up coming home with me.

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B is for Bradbury

B is for Bradbury

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R is for Rocket (Bantam, 1965, cover by Paul Lehr), The Golden Apples of the Sun
(Bantam, 1970, cover by Dean Ellis), Long After Midnight (Bantam, 1978, cover by Ian Miller)

June 5, 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Ray Bradbury, one of the greatest speculative fiction writers of all time. It’s fair to say that no author has positively affected my path into reading, and subsequently writing, to the extent that he did. Through this four-part series, I hope to convey some of the joy and wonder that Bradbury instilled in me and so many others, by revisiting a selection of his short stories that have continued to resonate with me throughout the years. Disclaimer: I don’t profess that my selection are his greatest tales, no matter what your definition of the term, but they hold a special place in my pantheon of stories, and I hope they will be worthy of your time.

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Vintage Treasures: Swords Against Darkness edited by Andrew J. Offutt

Vintage Treasures: Swords Against Darkness edited by Andrew J. Offutt

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Swords Against Darkness (Zebra Books, February 1977). Cover  by Frank Frazetta

Sword Against Darkness was a seminal five-volume sword & sorcery anthology series edited by Andrew J. Offutt in the late seventies (1977-79). It published original fantasy by some of the biggest names of the era, including Andre Norton, Tanith Lee, Keith Taylor, Charles de Lint, Charles R. Saunders, Orson Scott Card, Simon R. Green, David C. Smith, Robert E. Vardeman, Darrell Schweitzer, Diana L. Paxson, and many others.

The first volume appeared in early 1977, and it was one of the strongest original fantasy anthologies of the decade, packed full of tales of the haunted Roman frontier, a plague of giants, the wily goddess of Chance, the last survivor of Atlantis, Lovecraftian horrors, scheming demons, resourceful rogues facing evil spirits, and much more. It included a Simon of Gitta novelette by Richard L. Tierney, a powerful Robert E. Howard fragment completed by Andrew J. Offutt, plus Poul Anderson, Manly Wade Wellman, David Drake, Ramsey Campbell, and many others.

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Goth Chick News: The World (and Me) Never Tire of Agatha Christie

Goth Chick News: The World (and Me) Never Tire of Agatha Christie

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The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont (St. Martin’s Press, February 1, 2022)

Back in grade school, in an attempt to put some “normal” into my interests, my parents had me taking piano lessons. I believe the goal was to get my nose out of books as I spent every available moment in the most secluded spots I could find, tucked in with reading material considered wholly unsuitable for a fourth-grade girl (i.e., Logan’s Run, Childhood’s End, and a large variety of horror comics). Though the elderly teacher who came to the house every Thursday failed to instill in me very much in the way of talent on the keyboard, she couldn’t help but notice that I first had to put down my book before sitting down at the piano. In an attempt to engage me one Thursday, Mrs. Wall brought me her paperback copy of Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie.

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New Treasures: Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

New Treasures: Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

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Far from the Light of Heaven (Orbit, October 26, 2021). Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

Tade Thompson is a fast-rising star. Rosewater, the opening novel in his Wormwood trilogy, was “a groundbreaking future noir” (B&N Sci-fi & Fantasy blog) that won the 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The Rosewater Insurrection was nominated for the BSFA and Locus Awards, and closing novel The Rosewater Redemption was nominated for both the Locus and Philip K. Dick Award.

That’s a lot of attention so early in his career– and a whole lot of eyes on his newest project. Writers have been known to curl up under the bed for a lot less. But his follow up Far from the Light of Earth, the story of a series of mysterious deaths on an interstellar colony ship, has already been called “probably the best science fiction novel of the year… like the Tardis, larger inside than out, with a range of ideas, characters, and fascinating future settings” (The Guardian). Kirkus Reviews sums it up as “a thriller/horror-aboard-a-spaceship in the vein of Greg Bear’s Hull Zero Three [and] the classic film Alien… Gripping and bloody as a beating heart.” And Tor.com says it “marries shades of gothic horror with a sleuthing mystery and hard sci-fi.”

Sounds like a must-read in my book. Looks like Thompson’s ascent to the pinnacle of SF stardom continues on schedule.

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A Master With a Keen Eye: Robert Silverberg’s Original Anthologies of the 1970s

A Master With a Keen Eye: Robert Silverberg’s Original Anthologies of the 1970s

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Paperback editions of Silverberg 70s original anthologies. Published by (left to right, from top left):
Dell, Manor Books, Dell, Manor Books, Dell, Dell, Fontana, Warner Books, Pinnacle

In 1966 Robert Silverberg published his first anthology, an unassuming volume titled Earthmen and Strangers from staid New York press Duell, Sloan and Pearce, known mostly for the infamous U.S. Camera 1941 annual that was banned in Boston for daring to include nudes. Earthmen and Strangers was hugely successful, remaining in print for an astonishing two decades, with paperback reprints from Dell, Manor Books, and Bart Books, and Silverberg was off to the races as an editor. Over the next five decades he published dozens of science fiction anthologies, including a handful of bestsellers like the seminal Legends (1998) and its science-fictional sequel Far Horizons (1999).

Beginning in the late 60s and all through the 70s Silverberg produced a steady stream of original anthologies, most of which had a signature format: each contained three novellas from the biggest names in the industry, including major award nominees by James Blish, Gordon R. Dickson, Jack Vance, Clifford D. Simak, Norman Spinrad, Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin, and James Tiptree, Jr. — plus novellas by Roger Zelazny, R. A. Lafferty, Harry Harrison, Alexei Panshin, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, John Brunner, George Alec Effinger, Gardner Dozois, Gregory Benford, Joan D. Vinge, Vonda N. McIntyre, Keith Roberts, James Gunn, Phyllis Gotlieb, and many others.

Like Terry Carr’s Universe, Damon Knight’s Orbit, and Silverberg’s own New Dimensions, these anthologies were prestige fiction markets, appearing in hardcover and distributed to libraries, and getting a lot of attention when awards season rolled around. As a result they attracted a lot of talent. Silverberg was a master with a keen eye for emerging talent, and an uncanny ability to coax top-notch work of out his contributors. The books still make entertaining reading today.

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A Poisoned Bouquet: Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier

A Poisoned Bouquet: Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier

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Fancies and Goodnights (Bantam Giant, 1953). Cover by Charles Binger

Fantasy, this genre that we love so much, is in reality not one genre but many; that’s one reason we love it. Any form that can accommodate the cynicism of Glen Cook and the lyricism of Patricia McKillip, that can hold the clarity of Robert E. Howard and the ambiguity of John Crowley, that can contain the brutality of George R.R. Martin and the hilarity of Terry Pratchett… well, there’s nothing it can’t do. Fantasy contains multitudes.

There’s a problem with being a member of a multitude, however — it’s easy to get lost, easy to be pushed to the back of the line by the ever-swelling mob of new books, new writers, new modes, easy to be misplaced or forgotten. It’s happened to many worthwhile writers. It’s happened to John Collier.

John Henry Noyes Collier, who died in 1980 at the age of seventy-eight, specialized in “slick” fantasy stories, “slick” because they generally appeared in “slick-paper magazines” as opposed to the cheap-paper pulps, upscale publications like The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, or Esquire. Characterized by modern, urban settings, a sophisticated, often satirical tone, and the irony-laced employment of traditional figures such as witches, genies, angels, devils, magicians, and ghosts, slick fantasy flourished during the twenties, thirties, and forties, and manifested itself in many different media. The humorous supernatural novels of Thorne Smith such as Topper (1926) and The Night Life of the Gods (1931), plays like Noel Coward’s breezy mix of marriage farce and spiritualism, Blithe Spirit (1941), and films like René Clair’s screwball comedy, I Married a Witch (1942, and itself the progenitor of one of the most popular television series of the 60’s, Bewitched), are all examples of this effervescent mode. John Collier may have been its greatest prose practitioner. …

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