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New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six

New Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six

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years-best-sf-sixIn the days of my halcyon youth (no, I’m not 100% sure what that word means either, but I’ve always liked it), I used to look forward to the Year’s Best SF collections from Terry Carr, Lin Carter, and Donald Wollheim. I was still being introduced the riches of the field, and those Best Of volumes were a terrific shortcut to discovering the finest writers out there.

In our modern times this tradition is carried on by Rich Horton, David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer, Gardner Dozois, and the talented Mr. Jonathan Strahan, who’s now up to his sixth volume of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year.

I’ve found his past collections excellent, and this year looks to be no exception. Here’s a peek at the contents:

An ancient society of cartographer wasps create delicately inscribed maps; a bodyjacking parasite is faced with imminent extinction; an AI makes a desperate gambit to protect its child from a ravenous dragon; a professor of music struggles with the knowledge that murder is not too high a price for fame; living origami carries a mother’s last words to her child; a steam girl conquers the realm of imagination; Aliens attack Venus, ignoring an incredulous earth; a child is born on Mars…

For the sixth year in a row, master anthologist Jonathan Strahan has collected stories that captivate, entertain, and showcase the very best the genre has to offer. Critically acclaimed, and with a reputation for including award-winning speculative fiction, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year is the only major “best of” anthology to collect both fantasy and science fiction under one cover.

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Six is published by Night Shade Books. It is 606 pages for $19.99 in trade paperback, with a cover by Sparth.  Buy it online from one of my favorite book sellers, Mark V. Ziesing at Ziesing.com.

Alan Garner: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, and Elidor

Alan Garner: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, and Elidor

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The Weirdstone of BrisingamenIn mid-March the news emerged that writer Alan Garner was returning to the storylines of his first two books, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath. His next novel, Boneland, to be published this August, will complete the trilogy he’d always envisioned. Garner was quoted as saying

“Trilogies are strange creatures. The lack of the third book, I discovered, gave the readers of the first two a sense of urgency. There are nuggets in the text that hint of unfinished business. The links to the book-not-written had become subliminal cliffhangers. Why did it take so long for Boneland to gestate? All I can say is that it took as long as it took.”

Garner’s longstanding fans are elated. The first two books in the series came out in the early 1960s, so this really has been some time in coming. In the interim, Garner’s published fairy tale collections and several non-fantasy novels. He’s said that he’s never written specifically for children, but for whatever reason children seem to respond more directly to his work than adults. Not that praise from adults is lacking; the fiftieth-anniversary republication of Brisingamen contained testimonials from Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and Susan Cooper.

I had vague memories of reading Brisingamen when I was very young. Since I’d picked up an omnibus collection of three of Garner’s books — Brisingamen, Gomrath, and the non-related Elidor — the announcement prompted me to sit down and take another look at Garner’s work. I was impressed.

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The 2011 Bram Stoker Award Winners

The 2011 Bram Stoker Award Winners

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flesh-eatersThis week the Horror Writers Association announced the winners of the 2011 Bram Stoker Awards at its annual banquet at the World Horror Convention. This year it was held in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it marked the 25th Anniversary of the awards. A total of 12 awards were given in 11 categories, including one tie:

    Superior Achievement in a NOVEL
    Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle Books)
    Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL
    Isis Unbound by Allyson Bird (Dark Regions Press)
    Superior Achievement in a YOUNG ADULT NOVEL (tie)
    > The Screaming Season by Nancy Holder (Razorbill)
    > Dust and Decay by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

    Superior Achievement in a GRAPHIC NOVEL
    Neonomicon by Alan Moore (Avatar Press)

    Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION
    “The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine” by Peter Straub (Conjunctions: 56)

    Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION
    “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” by Stephen King (The Atlantic Magazine, May 2011)

    Superior Achievement in a SCREENPLAY
    American Horror Story, episode #12: “Afterbirth” by Jessica Sharzer (20th Century Fox Television)

    Superior Achievement in a FICTION COLLECTION
    The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)

    Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY
    Demons: Encounters with the Devil and his Minions, Fallen Angels and the Possessed edited by John Skipp (Black Dog and Leventhal)

    Superior Achievement in NON-FICTION
    Stephen King: A Literary Companion by Rocky Wood (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers)

    Superior Achievement in a POETRY COLLECTION
    How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addison (Necon Ebooks)

The HWA, in conjunction with the Bram Stoker Family Estate and the Rosenbach Museum & Library, also presented the special one-time only Vampire Novel of the Century Award to:

    I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

Read complete details about this year’s awards at the Horror Writers Association website.

Letters to Black Gate: Poul Anderson, Digital Publishing, and The Dying Earth

Letters to Black Gate: Poul Anderson, Digital Publishing, and The Dying Earth

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Michael Fierce writes:

I just wanted to say that I really love Ryan Harvey’s article on Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword. I’ve read the revised version many times and have always wanted to read the original, and now, after reading his article, am even more enthused to do so. Really excellent breakdown and the format was very reader-friendly with some visually pleasing colors that really grabbed me.

I know many things about many great books but he definitely takes the cake on his knowledge on that one. I’m going to have to come to your site more if there’s quality writing at that level. Thanks again!

You’re welcome, Michael. And if you enjoyed Ryan’s post, you may enjoy Brian Murphy’s “In the grip of “The Northern Thing:” My Top 10 Northern Inspired Stories” (here), in which he examines Poul Anderson’s Hrolf Kraki’s Saga and The Broken Sword, Nancy Farmer’s The Sea of Trolls, and seven other neglected fantasy classics of the north.

I enjoy the Black Gate website. The posts are often interesting and cover such a broad range of ‘fantasy’ topics that there is something for every fan of the field.

I don’t recall seeing that you folks are open for submissions in the couple of years I’ve been an irregular reader (not that I read in an irregular fashion….). Has there been any thought to an online-only edition or two each year? I’m guessing you get a lot of publishable material that just doesn’t fit into the two print issues. And it would allow for additional as well as more timely reviews and whatnot.

Just curious. I know it would take a lot of work, but it wouldn’t have to have all the bells and whistles (i.e. tons of illustrations) that go in the print edition. My own online newsletters (solarpons.com and Baker Street Essays) are simple affairs put together in MS Publisher and I write almost all the content. I would think Black Gate could produce a content-filled online edition that would get a lot of readers. Perhaps you could include blog posts from some of your staff. I recently found Howard Andrew Jones’ blog post about the definition of sword and sorcery. Interesting read!

I am in no way minimizing the work required. But I would think you wouldn’t have much problem getting contributions, at least.

Keep up the great work!

Bob Byrne

Bob, your note is rather prophetic. As we’ve announced in the Black Gate newsgroup and other places, we are launching a digital version of the magazine this year.

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Sawyer’s Triggers Fires on All Cylinders

Sawyer’s Triggers Fires on All Cylinders

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triggers

Triggers (Amazon, B&N)
Robert J. Sawyer
Ace Hardcover (352 pages, $25.95, April 2012)

Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer returns with a new hard science fiction novel which pulls together elements of a gripping political thriller with cutting edge psychological insights to create a story that works on many levels. I had the pleasure of getting an advance look at Triggers over the last few months as it was serialized within the pages (digital pages, in my case) of Analog magazine. Triggers has the pacing of an episode of 24 and the philosophical sensibilities of an Isaac Asimov novel, so any readers who were introduced to Sawyer through his television series FlashForward (Amazon, B&N) will find it particularly interesting.

The Plot (High-Level Spoilers)

The novel begins in an America gripped by fear, victim of a series of domestic terrorism attacks attacks, administered with devastating explosives by an al Qaeda splinter group. During a speech about these attacks, the President is shot on the steps of Lincoln Memorial. On the brink of death, the President is rushed to a nearby hospital for life-saving emergency surgery.

Elsewhere in the hospital, an experimental procedure attempts to cure an Iraqi veteran of his PTSD.

In the middle of these two procedures, the city is struck by another devastating attack … one that leads to bizarre and unexpected side effects. A number of people within the hospital have become mentally linked, now associated in a chain where each person can access the memories of another person in the chain.

Complications continue to multiply as the President realizes that the terrorist attacks seem to be an inside job and that the key to solving them may lie in his very own memories. Memories that he is currently unable to access.

And, more importantly, memories which some unknown person now has the ability to access … along with all of his knowledge about America’s upcoming response to the terrorist attacks.

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Vintage Treasures: The Bantam Giant Novels of Lawrence Schoonover

Vintage Treasures: The Bantam Giant Novels of Lawrence Schoonover

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golden-exile3Who the heck is Lawrence Schoonover?

I had no idea. At least until I found myself in an unexpected bidding war for a beautiful collection of Bantam Giant paperbacks on eBay, including two by Mr Schoonover: The Golden Exile and The Burnished Blade (cover here).

Don’t know much more about him. I’m sure a trip to Wikipedia would tell me lots about Schoonover but, really, his covers tell me pretty much everything I need. Apparently he wrote big fat adventure novels featuring dudes with swords, exotic settings, and women who had little use for clothing. I’m a fan.

And it certainly doesn’t hurt that his novels were published as Bantam Giants.

There’s just something about the Bantam Giants that really brings out the collector in me. If you’re any kind of paperback aficionado, you know what I’m talking about.

The first Bantam Giants appeared in 1951, during the tenure of the legendary Ian Ballantine. I don’t believe they were numbered separately from Bantam’s usual sequencing, which makes cataloging them somewhat problematic, but their ranks included James Michener, Emile Zola, Harold Robbins, Sinclair Lewis, Robert Wilder, C. S. Forester and many, many more.

Some of the best literature of the 20th Century appeared in paperback as Bantam Giants, such as Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.

They also included a superb assortment of classic adventure novels from Rafael Sabatini, Thomas R. Costain, John Masters, John Dickson Carr, and even some dude named Lawrence Schoonover.

If you're the one who outbid me for this eBay lot, you should be ashamed of yourself.
If you're the one who outbid me for this eBay lot, you should be ashamed of yourself.

There was also a smattering of science fiction and fantasy, such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Ray Bradbury’s classic anthology The Circus of Dr. Lao and Other Improbable Stories, John Collier’s Fancies and Goodnights, and novels by Bradbury and Jerry Sohl.

I think a large part of the appeal of Bantam Giants is their sheer size. They promise a lot of reading for your 35 cents. And dang, they look good don’t they? Just check out that beautiful eBay lot at left (click for bigger version.)

‘Course, I’d know a lot more about Schoonover if I’d just managed to win that damn auction. Since I didn’t, I was forced to hunt down virtually every single title in the set individually on eBay. I finally managed to complete that daunting task late last week. It’s okay, I’m sure the kids didn’t really need that college fund.

And before you ask which I’m going to read first, I think that should be fairly obvious. I’m curious about all of them, but before anything else I have to find out just what the Great Folly of that young lady in the bottom right is.

Even though I think I have a pretty good idea.

This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Games at Amazon.com

This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Games at Amazon.com

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underdarkI keep sitting down at my computer to write Black Gate blog posts, and then spending all my time browsing Amazon.com.

I used to think Amazon would never replace brick and mortar bookstores, “because you can’t browse books online, you know.” Shows you what I know. Amazon has turned online browsing into an art. These days I browse in my jammies with my iPad, both feet on the back of the couch.

I need to reclaim some of these lost hours by pretending I’m doing something useful. Get your feet off the couch and mow the lawn!, my wife says. Can’t, working on a blog post, I tell her. And pass me that blanket, my toes are cold.

Which brings us nicely to this week’s list of discount SF and fantasy titles at Amazon.com, compiled through countless hours of diligent research by your faithful scout. Don’t thank me, glad to do it. At least until the damn lawn stops growing.

In the spirit of the excellent recent gaming posts, this week I’ve been shopping for discount game titles. I’ve found more than a few — including the splendid D&D supplements Underdark, Death’s Reach, and Demon Queen’s Enclave from Wizards of the Coast, and the excellent computer RPG Mount & Blade.

As long as we’re talking about computer games, I slipped in some of my recent favorites: the popular RPG Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold, the complete Dawn of War collection, the space empire sim Sword of the Stars Ultimate Collection, the new-generation platform game Trine, space fighting sim X3: Terran Conflict 2.0, and the criminally overlooked action RPG Titan Quest Gold.

All these titles are eligible for free shipping on orders over $25.

Many of the discounts we told you about last week are still available; you can see that list here.

Seven Princes by John R. Fultz, a Review

Seven Princes by John R. Fultz, a Review

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seven-princesSeven Princes
John R. Fultz
Orbit (526 pp., $15.99, trade paperback January 2012)
Reviewed by Brian Murphy

What do you want out of your fantasy? Mythmaking in the mold of JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion? Freebooting adventure, decaying civilizations, and heroic swordplay a-la Robert E. Howard? Weird, extraplanar demonic horrors like those encountered in the fiction of HP Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith? You get all of this stuff in John Fultz’ gonzo debut novel Seven Princes, both to our benefit and occasionally our detriment.

Seven Princes is bold, brash, and big. This is a novel written with bright strokes of character and setting, bursting with world-shaking adventure, intrigue, and conflict. It reads big, and feels big, and it’s unrepentantly so. In a “Meet the Author” Q&A at the back of the book Fultz describes the influences and raw materials that underlie Seven Princes. These are legion—Lord Dunsany, Howard, Lovecraft, Smith, Tolkien, Tanith Lee, Darrell Schweitzer, and others—so it’s no surprise Seven Princes contains multitudes. But underneath it all is a strong epic fantasy undercurrent, shot through with swords and sorcery. Says Fultz:

A writer’s sensibility is, I think, determined largely by his or her influences… what you’ve read most and where your passions lie. You write what you love. That said, writers like to stretch themselves too. For me, the whole epic/heroic fantasy realm is where I’ve been heading since I began reading fantasy as a kid in the late 1970s. Some have also called my work “sword and sorcery” but nobody can give a solid definition of what that actually is. For me, the bottom line is that I just Do My Thing and let my passion for storytelling lead me where I need to go.

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Goth Chick News: You’re Going to Hell Jack Nightingale

Goth Chick News: You’re Going to Hell Jack Nightingale

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nightfallNormally a crime drama, or anything that smells like one, wouldn’t get much of my attention.

It’s nothing personal you understand.  It’s just my concern that any tale of violence and blood-letting that’s too close to real CNN headlines serves more as sociopathic training material than relaxing escapism.

That, and the fact I’m skeeved out rather than entertained by realistic stories depicting man’s inhumanity to man.  Ghosts being mean to man is perfectly fine.

So when our friends over at Wunderkind PR contacted me about Nightfall promising it was “right up my alley,” I wondered if my alley had suddenly detoured from behind a haunted mansion to behind the city crime lab when I wasn’t looking.  I determined to give it no more than a cursory look.

Nightfall’s English author Stephen Leather is the creator of over 20 thrillers which frequently include themes of crime, imprisonment and military service, and lately terrorism: manly pursuits all, but nary a ghost or zombie in sight.

Well to be fair, there was that one from last year, Once Bitten, which had vampires in it… sort of.  But I’m not sure even Leather himself counts it since no mention is made of the book even on the author’s own website.

But because in the past Wunderkind has been the source of new material that I have loved much more often than not, I decided to dig a bit deeper when it arrived.  After all, Nightfall premiered in the US last week, but in the UK it’s only the first in a series of three novels published there in 2009.

Once again, Wunderkind knew exactly what they were doing.

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Gill Alderman and The Memory Palace

Gill Alderman and The Memory Palace

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The Memory PalaceSometimes, you need to grow as a reader to be able to appreciate a certain book. In 1996, I bought a paperback fantasy novel called The Memory Palace, by Gill Alderman. It was a whim, I suppose; maybe something about the cover appealed to me, or more likely something in the synopsis on the back, promising a story about a fantasy writer who gets lost in his fictions and confronts an archmage of his own making. Whatever the reason, I started in on it, swiftly lost interest, set it aside, and only came back to it sixteen years later.

I was 22 or 23 when I first tried to read The Memory Palace. I can see now why I didn’t respond to it — to start with, the main character’s middle-aged, with a middle-aged man’s fears and desires, and I suspect that was difficult for me as a younger man to parse, never mind relate to. The novel has a low-key opening, as well, which may not have helped; but the tone and emotional terrain I think has to do with a certain maturity, a certain perspective that comes with age. By no means do I think it’s impossible for younger readers to enjoy or appreciate the book, but I have to admit I’m not surprised it didn’t make an impact on me personally at 22. At any rate, the other week I came across it again and decided to give it another try. I’m very glad I did.

This book isn’t just good, it’s brilliant. I genuinely wonder why it didn’t win major awards in and out of the fantasy field. (I note that it was nominated for the 1996 BSFA Award for Best Novel, and made the long list for the 1996 James Tiptree, Jr. Award.)

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