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Close to the Borders of Fairyland: Dark Breakers by C.S.E. Cooney

Close to the Borders of Fairyland: Dark Breakers by C.S.E. Cooney

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Dark Breakers by CSE Cooney (Mythic Delirium, February 15, 2022). Cover by Brett Massé

It’s been a delight watching the meteoric career of C.S.E. Cooney, Black Gate‘s first Website Editor. Her short fiction has been reprinted in Jonathan Strahan’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year and Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (five times); her novella “The Bone Swans of Amandale” was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2015, and in 2016 she won a World Fantasy Award for her collection Bone Swans.

Somewhere in there she also found the time to release three albums (Alecto! Alecto!, The Headless Bride, and Corbeau Blanc, Corbeau Noir), and a poetry collection, How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes, containing her 2011 Rhysling Award-winning “The Sea King’s Second Bride.” More recently she published a Tor.com novella (Desdemona and the Deep, 2019), and in April of this year Solaris releases her long-awaited first novel, Saint Death’s Daughter.

Last week Mythic Delirium Books published her newest book Dark Breakers, a collection of five linked stories — including three never before published — all set in the same world as Desdemona and the Deep. ZZ Claybourne calls it “an art deco mural under the guidance of Galadriel, Zora Neale Hurston and the Brothers Grimm,” and Publishers Weekly proclaims it “Extravagant and gorgeous.”

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Vintage Treasures: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace by Tim Powers

Vintage Treasures: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace by Tim Powers

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Dinner at Deviant’s Palace (Ace, 1985). Cover by John Berkey

Tim Powers is a much beloved figure among American fantasy fans. As Gabe Dybing pointed out here in 2020:

He has a strange sort of fame. The most obvious cause for his celebrity is that twice he has won the World Fantasy Award for best novel (Last Call, 1992, and Declare, 2000). He also has been credited with inventing, with The Anubis Gates (1983), the steampunk genre… Finally, for whatever reasons, Disney Studios optioned his 1987 novel On Stranger Tides for its Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

In my own reading circle in the mid-80s however, it wasn’t The Anubis Gates that generated the most excited chatter about Powers, nor his (considerable) steampunk cred. No, it was his Mad Max-inspired novel of a scavenger culture in post-apocalyptic LA, Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, which was nominated for a Nebula and won the Philip K. Dick award for best original paperback in 1986.

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The Eclectic 1965 Ace Catalog: Avram Davidson, Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, and Andre Norton

The Eclectic 1965 Ace Catalog: Avram Davidson, Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, and Andre Norton

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Rogue Dragon (Ace Books, 1965, cover by Jack Gaughan) and the back-page Ace paperback catalog

As ludicrous as it might sound, I have a few books I bought more than half a century ago and still haven’t got around to reading. This short Avram Davidson novel was one of them, until I dusted it off last night.

Looking at the ads in the back of the book — from a time when publishers could do direct mail-order sales — I was struck by how eclectic the Ace catalog was. A couple of great anthologies there, including Carr and Wollheim’s 1965 World’s Best; some recycled pulp-era stuff; ersatz Edgar Rice Burroughs from Lin Carter; two Andre Norton juveniles; the first publication of Delany’s The Ballad of Beta-2 (as half an Ace Double, paired with something by the now sadly forgotten Emil Petaja); an excellent collection of Avram Davidson’s short stories; Philip K. Dick’s Dr. Bloodmoney…

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New Treasures: Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley

New Treasures: Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley

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Shadow in the Empire of Light (Solaris, January 2021). Cover by Head Design

I’ve got a soft spot for Jane Routley. In the early days of my career — when I had nothing more than a 386 desktop, a dial up connection, and dreams of a vast blogging empire — I chased publishers relentlessly, sending countless review notices and badgering them with requests for review copies. Andy Heidel at AvonNova was the first publicist to take me seriously. Or maybe just the first to ship out a box of books to shut me up, I’ll never know sure.

Whatever the truth, tearing open that very first box of new releases in my living room in July, 1996, felt like Christmas. And the fist one I took out of the box, and the very first book to get a review assignment at my fledgling website SF Site, was Mage Heart by Jane Routley. I’ve followed her career with great interest ever since, and I was delighted to snap up a copy of her newest, Shadow in the Empire of Light, when it was released by Solaris last year.

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If Jack Reacher Came to Westeros: The Chronicles of Stratus by Mark De Jager

If Jack Reacher Came to Westeros: The Chronicles of Stratus by Mark De Jager

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Infernal and Firesky (Solaris, 2020/21). Covers by Head Design

I’m not one to complain how things were better in the Good Old Days of fantasy in the 70s and 80s. (I know, I know — I had trouble keeping a straight face even as I typed that.) But at least mass market paperbacks were plentiful in those days, and you could escape from your neighborhood bookstore with a couple slender paperbacks, a chance to try out some exciting new authors, and change from a ten dollar bill.

There’s still plenty of exiting new authors to enjoy today, and fantasy is certainly richer and more diverse than those long-ago glory days (especially if you’re looking for something that wasn’t written by a straight white male). But mass market has gone the way of the Dodo. Nowadays the shelves are crowded with expensive trade paperbacks, and a pair of new authors will set you back 35 bucks or more.

Which is one of the reasons I’m so grateful for Solaris, who’ve held the price of the trade paper volumes to just $11.99 for much of their introductory line — including South African writer Mark De Jager, whose debut fantasy Infernal was described as “If Jack Reacher came to Westeros” by Sebastien de Castell.

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Set in Stone: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

Set in Stone: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

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The Fifth Season (Orbit, 2015). Cover by Lauren Panepinto

So, there I was, strolling through the endless corridors of Black Gate’s Indiana compound, when I chanced upon a book shelf I hadn’t noticed before. Over it hung a sign, carved in blasted stone, reading, The Fifth Season. I picked up the lone book on the shelf, toted it home, and read, with increasing awe, one of the finest science fiction novels of my adult life.

Strike that. The Fifth Season is one of the finest novels I have read, period.

Maybe that’s why it won the 2016 Hugo Award.

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Vintage Treasures: The Arbor House Treasury of Short Science Fiction Novels edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg

Vintage Treasures: The Arbor House Treasury of Short Science Fiction Novels edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg

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The Arbor House Treasury of Short Science Fiction Novels (Arbor House, 1980). Cover design by Antler & Baldwin

Last Saturday I talked about the highly regarded Arbor House Treasuries, a set of a dozen genre-focus anthologies assembled in the early 80s by a round-robin team of distinguished editors: Robert Silverberg, Martin H. Greenberg, Bill Pronzini, Charles G. Waugh, Barry Malzberg, and John Duning.

Today I want to take a closer look at the one that first caught my eye, The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels, mostly because I find it a really terrific collection of novellas, and a great mix of classics — including Samuel R. Delany’s famous Hugo nominee “The Star Pit,” “The Golden Helix” by Theodore Sturgeon, “The Miracle-Workers” by Jack Vance, and Silverberg’s Nebula winner “Born with the Dead”– and some long-overlooked gems, like Charles V. De Vet and Katherine MacLean 1958 Hugo nominee “Second Game,” Wyman Guin’s “Beyond Bedlam,” and Damon Knight’s “Dio.”

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Saving Pets (and One Human) in a Zombie Apocalypse: The Hollow Kingdom Series by Kira Jane Buxton

Saving Pets (and One Human) in a Zombie Apocalypse: The Hollow Kingdom Series by Kira Jane Buxton

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Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures (Grand Central Publishing,
August 2019 and August 2021). Covers by Jarrod Taylor

Kira Jane Buxton’s debut novel Hollow Kingdom was the sleeper fantasy hit of 2019. The tale of a zombie apocalypse seen through the eyes of a caustic (and foul-mouthed) crow was a finalist for the 2020 Thurber Prize for American Humor, and chosen as a Best Book of the Year by Book Riot, NPR, and Good Housekeeping (And that’s not something you see every day. I challenge you to find another zombie novel with a Good Housekeeping endorsement.)

Jeff Somers at the B&N Blog turned me onto Hidden Kingdom in his list of the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of August 2019, calling it “a darkly hilarious twist” on the zombie formula. The sequel, Feral Creatures, finally arrived last summer, and sees the return of our favorite apocalyptic corvid and his faithful friends as they try to keep the last human alive in a rapidly worsening apocalypse.

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New Treasures: Beyond the Veil edited by Mark Morris

New Treasures: Beyond the Veil edited by Mark Morris

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Beyond the Veil (Flame Tree Press, October 26, 2021). Cover by Flame Tree Studio

Mark Morris has a good thing going with his new series of annual, non-themed horror anthologies from Flame Tree Press. The first, After Sundown, which we covered at the end of 2020, was nominated for both the Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Awards, and the second, Beyond the Veil, arrived right on time last October.

It’s packed with 20 original stories by some of the biggest names in modern horror, including Nathan Ballingrud, Gemma Files, Aliya Whitely, Christopher Golden, Lisa Tuttle, Peter Harness, Lynda E Rucker, John Everson, and many others. Most interesting to me, according to the publisher description only 16 stories were commissioned, while four were “selected from the 100s of stories sent to Flame Tree during a 2-week open submissions window.” A curated mix of modern horror masters and talented newcomers? Yes please.

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Were-Antelopes, Haunted Cabins, and the Horror of Retail: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII (1979), edited by Gerald W. Page

Were-Antelopes, Haunted Cabins, and the Horror of Retail: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII (1979), edited by Gerald W. Page

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII (DAW, July 1979). Cover by Michael Whelan

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII was the seventh volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, published in 1979. This was the fourth and final installment edited by horror author and editor Gerald W. Page (1939–). Given the strength of his anthologies, I doubt that Page was let go; but I don’t know why this was his last. Perhaps he returned to his own writing.

Michael Whelan’s (1950–) artwork appears for a fifth time in a row on the cover. His subject matter was quite eclectic for DAW, including this depiction of a grisly ghoul attack, one presumably interrupted by you or I the reader. It is a pretty terrifying and mesmerizing cover. I wonder if there’s not some humor mixed in as well. The foremost tombstone bears the name Carter. Is this a jibe at writer and editor-extraordinaire Lin Carter, editor of the competing Year’s Best Fantasy volumes? Or a political comment towards President Jimmy Carter?

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