Black Gate

New Voices I (Jove/HBJ, 1978). Cover by Tripshur

The Campbell Award anthologies, published between 1977-84 by Macmillan, Jove / HBJ, Berkley, and Bluejay Books, were intended to help promote neglected and overlooked SF and fantasy writers whose careers were just getting started. In that regard they were a huge success. Just check out the list of struggling and underappreciated contributors: George R. R. Martin, John Varley, C. J. Cherryh, Stephen R. Donaldson, Bruce Sterling, Jerry Pournelle, Suzy McKee Charnas, George Alec Effinger, Joan D. Vinge, Tom Reamy, Jack L. Chalker, Felix C. Gotschalk, Lisa Tuttle, Ruth Berman, Arsen Darnay, M. A. Foster, Carter Scholz, Elizabeth A. Lynn, Thomas F. Monteleone, Spider Robinson, and many others.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of returning to the late 70s and early 80s to read early stories from “promising young writers” like George R. R. Martin, C. J. Cherryh, Bruce Sterling, Suzy McKee Charnas, Tom Reamy, and Felix C. Gotschalk is pretty exciting. Unfortunately, while the series was artistically successful, it struggled commercially, and after just five volumes was finally killed by the collapse of Bluejay Books. (Except for an ultra-rare sixth volume that we’ll get to in a minute.)

But we still have those five volumes, and I’m sure it will come as no surprise to hear that they’re well worth a look today. The first, edited by George R.R. Martin and published in hardcover in 1977 by Macmillan, included stories by George R. R. Martin, Ruth Berman, George Alec Effinger, and Robert Thurston — plus a long novella by Lisa Tuttle and a Falkenberg’s Legion novella by Jerry Pournelle. Here’s Ben Bova, from his introduction.

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I’m a Jack Higgins fan. I’ve got 49 of his books on the shelves, and one more on my Kindle. He writes page-turning adventures which I usually tear through pretty quickly. I haven’t read all of the books of his which I own, but I’ve read most. And the ones set in WW II, more than once.

After reading James Lee Burke’s Swan Peak, which was my first Dave Robicheaux book in over a decade (and still a fantastic series), I decided to revisit Higgins. It had been more than ten years since reading him, too. I wanted one of his pot-boilers: Quick, action-packed reads. And the earlier ones were slim volumes. I decided on one I had not read yet and picked The Khufra Run.

Jack Nelson runs a charter seaplane in the Mediterranean. A beautiful, young, naked woman runs out in front of his car in the hills. This type of thing is not uncommon in a Higgins novel. Aided by an off-the-rails former fellow POW, Nelson ends up helping the woman – who has a secret or two, of course – recover a lost treasure. Which is more or less in a plane wreck in a swampy marsh. And a really bad guy also wants it. Higgins wrote a lot of these types of books, and they’re fun reads.

I thought about revisiting another old favorite, Robert Ludlum. But I stuck with Higgins and resumed the Sean Dillon series. I had stopped at Dark Justice. I like Dillon, but at about book ten, it felt like the books were all becoming pretty much the same. And I wasn’t that interested in his war with the Rashid Family (which continued on even after Dillon ‘took care of them,’ as it were). Add in the constant overlap with the ‘American connection,’ and there wasn’t much appeal.

The book wasn’t doing much for me early on. But I think that series is at its best when Higgins works the Irish angle in. The latter half, which included some of Higgins’ former IRA associates, improved the book. I didn’t mind it. But I didn’t feel the need to continue on to the next one. So, which of his to read?

You ask me for my favorite Higgins, and I’m gonna answer The Eagle Has Landed before you can blink.

A lot of folks are familiar with the hit film from 1976. I have it on VHS, and it’s fantastic. Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Jenny Agutter, Anthony Quayle, Larry Hagman, and Treat Williams are all part of a great cast. Several components of the book were dropped, but the movie still works. I always enjoy it. Several top-flight performances are delivered. Highly recommended.

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The Black Grail (Avon Books, September 1986). Cover by Luis Royo

I picked up Damien Broderick’s The Black Grail mostly because of the great Luis Royo cover (which speaks to me vividly of 80s-era SF and fantasy), but it turns out to have a pretty interesting back story.

The Black Grail is Broderick’s sixth novel, a substantial expansion and retelling of his first novel, 1970’s Sorcerer’s World. Most sources list them as separate books since, to quote from the ISFDB, “their difference is substantial enough to consider this a different work.” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls it “a far more complex and sophisticated rewrite of Sorcerer’s World… [depending] upon elaborate plotting involving alternative timelines and temporal paradoxes.”

That alone was enough to pique my interest, and that was before I found this brief 4-star review on Goodreads that compared it to Jack Vance’s masterwork:

I really enjoyed this book from the Dying Earth sub-genre. It had a lot of ideas packed into the 310 pages. I found it to be a fairly quick read that moved along with an action packed plot and interesting twists on familiar Dying Earth themes…

Lightsabers, elaborate plotting, temporal paradoxes, and Dying Earth motifs? I’m sold. This one has shot to the top of my TBR pile. The Black Grail was published by Avon Books in September 1986. It is 310 pages, priced at $3.50. It has never been reprinted in the US, and there is no digital edition. The cover is by Luis Royo. It’s part of the 6-volume Faustus Hexagram series that also includes The Judas Mandala (1982), Striped Holes (1988), and The Sea’s Furthest End (1993).

See al our recent Vintage Treasures here.