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Future Treasures: The Vanished Queen by Lisbeth Campbell

Future Treasures: The Vanished Queen by Lisbeth Campbell

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The Vanished Queen (Saga Press, 2020). Cover design by Alan Dingman.

On Monday I mentioned that the publishing house that’s impressed me the most with their late-summer line up was Skybound Books, in large part because of Linden A. Lewis’s debut The First Sister, an epic space opera that Library Journal selected as their Debut of the month. Coming in a close second is the always-reliable Saga Press, and the star in their crown is Lisbeth Campbell’s debut fantasy The Vanished Queen, which Beth Cato calls “One of the best fantasy books out this year.” It arrives in hardcover next week.

Buzzfeed‘s feature 17 Summer Must-Reads For Fantasy Lovers called The Vanished Queen “One of the best epic fantasies I’ve read in a long time,” and the starred review at Library Journal says it’s “filled with political intrigue, personal anguish, and family ties that bind.” Here’s an excerpt from the Publishers Weekly review.

Campbell skillfully balances action and introspection as rebellion rises against an oppressive regime in this promising epic fantasy debut. The city of Karegg is under the control of the brutal King Karolje. When college student Anza breaks into one of the libraries that Karolje has ordered closed, she discovers the journal of Mirantha, the former queen who Karolje had disappeared. After Anza’s father is executed for unknown reasons, Anza joins the resistance movement against Karolje, inspired, in part, by reading Mirantha’s tale… By situating Anza within a larger resistance movement, Campbell steers refreshingly clear of typical “chosen one” tropes, instead illuminating the collective effort required for revolution while drawing pointed parallels to the current U.S. political climate.

The Vanished Queen will be published by Saga Press on August 18, 2020. It is 488 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $7.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Alan Dingman. Read the complete first chapter (14 pages) or listen to an audio excerpt at the Simon & Schuster website.

See all our coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy here.

New Treasures: The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis

New Treasures: The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis

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The First Sister (Skybound Books, 2020). Jacket design by Nerd Productions.

When the pandemic hit the US hard in mid-March, the flow of review copies to the Black Gate offices dried up virtually overnight. It’s like the whole publishing industry came to a complete standstill, holding its collective breath.

Things are slowly returning to normal in August, and we’re starting to receive a regular flow of books again. And to my surprise, the publishing house with the most impressive late-summer line up (so far) is Skybound Books. It includes Linden A. Lewis’s debut The First Sister, an epic space opera which follows a comfort woman, a soldier questioning his allegiances, and a non-binary hero seeking save the solar system. Library Journal selected it as the Debut of the month, calling it “A layered, action-filled plot… a powerful entry into the space opera genre.” And in her feature review at NPR, Jessica Wick said it “might be just the book you’ve been waiting for.”

Are you interested in political maneuverings and space economics, fantastically rich worldbuilding and sneaky spy stories? … First Sister might be just the book you’ve been waiting for….

The titular First Sister’s role is to act as confessor and provide wordless “comfort” for any Gean soldier — unless the captain claims exclusive rights by naming her “First.” Abandoned by one captain, she scrambles to keep her position when a new captain — the dashing hero, Saito Ren — takes command of the warship Juno. Then she is tasked by her Sisterhood with breaking their own commandments to report her captain’s secrets…

There’s a great deal of heart in The First Sister, where the future is sleek and messy, saturated colors and gritty shadows both. The scientific marvels of the Icarii will stay with me, poisonous environment and physical bodies transformed, as full of glory as a sunset… The First Sister is also an enjoyable action-adventure in space with likable characters, engagingly cinematic visuals, and high Cool Factor.

The First Sister was published by Skybound Books on August 4, 2020. It is 344 pages, priced at $26 in hardcover and $13.99 in digital formats. The jacket design is by Nerd Productions. Read a generous excerpt, the complete first two chapters (33 pages) at Tor.com.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

The Alternate History You’ve Been Waiting For: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry

The Alternate History You’ve Been Waiting For: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry

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A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians-smallA Declaration of the Rights of Magicians
H.G. Parry
Redhook (545 pages, $28 in hardcover/$14.99 digital, June 23 2020)
Covered designed by Lisa Marie Pompilio

Susanna Clarke’s monumental Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell created a believable history of English magic and interwove this history into the story of her main characters. In A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, H. G. Parry attempts to do something similar. Whereas Clarke’s book was set during the Napoleonic Wars, Parry’s takes place in the decades leading up to this, chronicling the abolitionist movement in England, slave revolutions in the Caribbean, and the French Revolution. And whereas Clarke invented her own eponymous characters, Parry brings actual historical actors to life in her magical alternate history.

In 1779, the trade in African slaves flourishes. Besides the horror of kidnapping and the Middle Passage, in Parry’s history slaves are also force-fed alchemical substances that make it physically impossible for them to resist commands. They are imprisoned in their own bodies. In England, where only the aristocracy can use magic freely, the young member of parliament William Wilberforce is working with his close friend and eventual Prime Minister William Pitt to pass legislature outlawing the slave trade. In France, meanwhile, magic is even more tightly regulated, with commoner magicians forced to wear bracelets that burn when they illegally use their magic. (For commoners, this means any time they use their magic.) This system of control exists because of the Vampire Wars of the previous centuries, when vying vampire sovereigns used Europe as their personal chessboard. When the vampires were defeated, dark magic was banished outright and nations signed a concord to never use magic in war again.

This is the background against which Parry’s novel follows three main strands of revolution: a revolution of slaves in Haiti through the eyes of Fina, a former slave learning she has a unique magic; the French Revolution, triggered by the desire to give commoners the right to practice magic but quickly becoming something much darker; and the idealistic revolution for abolition Wilberforce and Pitt are pursuing in the halls of the British Parliament. The plot has the feel of a gathering storm, as our characters realized someone is pulling strings to plunge Europe back into war.

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Vintage Treasures: Land of Dreams by James P. Blaylock

Vintage Treasures: Land of Dreams by James P. Blaylock

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Land of Dreams (Ace, 1988). Cover by James Warhola

In 1986 James Blaylock’s novelette “Paper Dragons,” originally published in Robin McKinley’s anthology Imaginary Lands, was nominated for a Nebula award, and received a World Fantasy Award. A year later Blaylock returned to the same setting with Land of Dreams, a contemporary fantasy that Science Fiction Chronicle called “Blaylock’s best novel to date, one that will undoubtedly catapult him into prominence,” and which caused Gardner Dozois to proclaim, “James P. Blaylock is one of the most lyrical and inventive of all new writers.”

Land of Dreams was Blayock’s hardcover debut, originally published by Arbor House with a colorful but rather middlin’ cover by Viido Polikarpus. It was reprinted in paperback by Ace a year later, with a spectacular wraparound cover by James Warhola that definitely got my attention. So did the rave review from Kirkus.

Striking, beautifully turned surreal fantasy, Blaylock’s remarkable hardcover debut. In the alternate-world northern California coastal village of Rio Dell, strange events mark the approach to the eerie, highly magical 12-year Solstice. Hungry young Skeezix and his friend Helen live at the orphanage run by the stern, repellent Miss Flees (she feeds them nothing but cabbage soup) and her horrid sidekick, Peebles. Along with their friend Jack, Skeezix and Helen discover a gigantic shoe washed up on the beach, and haul it to Dr. Jensen, who’s already puzzling over a collection of similarly enormous artifacts. The beach is invaded by hermit crabs, small at first; but, as Solstice approaches, the crabs grow larger — the last is the size of a house. A darkly ominous Carnival arrives, travelling magically along train tracks that have decayed into uselessness… Skeezix and Jack unravel the multiple mysteries in a stunning and satisfying conclusion. Weird, complex, wise, original, delightful: pounce!

As Fletcher Vredenburgh has recounted here at Black Gate, he discovered Blaylock with the delightful trilogy that began with The Elfin Ship (1982), but Land of Dreams was the book that really put Blaylock on the map for me. The Ace edition was handed around and excitedly discussed among my circle of friends in Ottawa in 1988.

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We Are All Genetic Brothers: The Life and Fiction of Clifford D. Simak

We Are All Genetic Brothers: The Life and Fiction of Clifford D. Simak

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Time and Again (Ace, 1976), Way Station (Manor Books, 1975), and A Choice of Gods (Berkley Medallion, 1977).
Covers by Michael Whelan, unknown, and the great Paul Lehr

116 years ago this week, one of the finest science fiction authors or the 20th century was born. He died 32 years ago, in 1988. And currently he is almost forgotten, which is a great shame and also a great pity, since his humanism, his respect for all living creatures and his tolerance for the alien, the divergent, the different viewpoints, backgrounds and expectations are qualities no less needed now than when he was alive.

I’m talking about Clifford D. Simak, author of seminal works of sf like Time and Again (1951), City (1952), Time Is the Simplest Thing (1961), Way Station (1963), All Flesh Is Grass (1965), A Choice of Gods (1972), as well as of dozens of unforgettable short stories. The author who said, in an interview,

When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe. It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose. If the means were available, we could trace our ancestry – yours and mine – back to the first blob of life-like material that came into being on the planet. The same thing could be done for the spider that spun his web in the grass, and of the grass in which the web was spun, the bird sitting in the tree and the tree in which he sits, the toad waiting for the fly beneath the bush, and for the fly and bush. We are all genetic brothers. The chain of life, tracing back to that primordial day of life’s beginning, is unbroken…

Clifford Simak was a newspaper man and an author. He wrote of love for all living things, of respect for life and of acceptance both of the supreme importance of life and of the inevitable differences between living things. Reading him as a child, I learned from him the importance of tolerance and inclusiveness. His was one of the important voices in science fiction. He still should be.

Your Standard Consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy Deal: Aurora Burning, Book 2 of The Aurora Cycle by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Your Standard Consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy Deal: Aurora Burning, Book 2 of The Aurora Cycle by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

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Covers by Charlie Bowater

Aurora Rising, the first volume of The Aurora Cycle by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, had Black Gate reviewer Elizabeth Galewski drawing comparisons to Firefly, Anne McCaffrey’s The Rowan, The Fifth Element and Star Wars.

Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff [are] the New York Times bestselling authors of The Illuminae Files… While this novel features all new characters and a different universe from their previous books, it offers the same nonstop action, messy romantic relationships, sarcastic voice, and space operatics that will please longtime fans and win new ones… The perspective shifts between many different characters, and fun schematics interrupt the flow of text at intervals. The Hadfield’s survivor, Aurora, has a similar plot function to the weird psychic girl in the Firefly movie Serenity and looks like Anne McCaffrey’s famous female telepaths in The Rowan and Damia. There appears to be a cameo by the opera diva from The Fifth Element, as well as a scene set in the famous Star Wars bar.

Kaufman and Kristoff both live in Melbourne, Australia. The second volume in The Aurora Cycle, Aurora Burning, features “an ancient evil — you know, your standard consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy deal… [but] Squad 312 is standing by to save the day.” It was published by Knopf Books on May 5, 2020. It is 512 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $10.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Charlie Bowater (who also produced the stellar cover for Shveta Thakrar’s upcoming Star Daughter.) Get all the details on the first volume here.

See all our coverage of the best new SF and Fantasy series here.

In 500 Words or Less: Dominion: An Anthology, edited by Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald

In 500 Words or Less: Dominion: An Anthology, edited by Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald

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Dominion An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora-smallDominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and and the African Diaspora (Volume 1)
Edited By Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald
Aurelia Leo (270 pages, $18.99 paperback, $8.99 eBook, August 17, 2020)
Cover by Henrique DLD

Dominion is a tough one to accurately summarize. During the Kickstarter way back, the editors said they were looking for speculative fiction about “the legacy and future of Africa and the African diaspora.” As I read, I had to remind myself how complicated that legacy is – which is reflected in these myriad and complicated stories.

I should warn you that some of its stories are rough. I choose that word carefully, and for multiple reasons. There’s a lot of dark fantasy and horror in here, some of it graphic and hard to read. But it reflects horror and darkness that’s real, making for some powerful stories.

“The Unclean” by Nuzo Onoh, for example, doesn’t pull its punches examining oppression of women, specifically through a problematic arranged marriage that can’t be easily escaped, even through supernatural means. Neither does Michael Boatman with “Thresher of Men” – a story that felt viscerally angry to me, channeled through a goddess of vengeance set upon an American town with a deep history of racist violence.

As a reviewer, it was interesting to find a balance of lighter stories, too – or at least stories where the issues the characters face are more microscopic and focused. Nicole Givens Kurtz ‘s “Trickin’” is still bloody but also kind of delightful, following a half-forgotten trickster looking for tributes on Halloween night. (Also love the mystery of the post-downturn city where it’s set – what happened there, Nicole?) “Sleep Pap, Sleep” by Suyi Davies Okungbowa is fabulous Africanjujuism (I believe “The Unclean” fits that genre, too), in this case weaving the understanding that you shouldn’t grave-robbing a blood relative with a young man’s guilt about his father’s death and how he treats his closest friend.

On the science fiction side, one of my favorites is Marian Denise Moore’s “A Mastery of German” about a young up-and-comer at a research firm, assigned to evaluate a project on transferring learned memories. There’s a neat implication discussed about ancestral memory and slavery, told through Candace’s relationship with her history-hunting father (which is an adorable sidebar, by the way). But the focus is mostly on ethics: is it all right to pay someone to take their memory of learning German (for example) and then do whatever you want with it? No easy answer there.

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New Treasures: Savage Legion by Matt Wallace

New Treasures: Savage Legion by Matt Wallace

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Cover by Chris McGrath

Matt Wallace is the author of the 7-volume Sin du Jour series from Tor.com, which began with Envy of Angels. I first heard whispers of his ambitious new fantasy trilogy Savage Rebellion back in 2018, when the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog announced “a Trope-Smashing New Epic Fantasy Trilogy from Matt Wallace,” saying (in part)

You probably know [Matt] for the Sin du Jour novellas. It’s a brilliantly subversive, totally wackadoo contemporary fantasy series about a NYC catering company that services the supernatural communities of the world, from goblin kings to the lord of Hell, and for fantasy fans or foodies, it’s a full meal… A few years from now, however, Matt will likely be best known for something else: today, we’re pleased to announce that he’s signed a deal with Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press to publish his first novel — or rather, his first trilogy. It’s a fantasy epic that promises to be just as daring as his novellas. The first book is called Savage Legion, and it sounds primed to grind genre tropes into a fine paste.

What’s so different about Savage Legion? It has a very different take on fantasy action. I think the Publishers Weekly starred review encapsulates it nicely.

Cunning plotting and brisk action elevate this impressive tale of swords and super-science, the first in the Savage Rebellion series from Hugo Award winner Wallace (Sin du Jour). At first glance, Evie is a belligerent drunk. That’s why the Empire of Crache dragoons her into the Savage Legion, a hapless mob of suicide commandos culled from the downtrodden masses of the empire and forced to fight and die on its behalf. But Evie is secretly a warrior on a mission, infiltrating the Legion to rescue her former lover who was kidnapped after discovering government corruption… Wallace masterfully subverts readers’ expectations. As the plot spins through convincing battlefield combat and personal confrontations, Evie rallies the Savage Legion to turn against the empire that exploits them. Readers will be left thoroughly satisfied and eager to know what’s to come.

Savage Legion was published by Saga Press on July 21, 2020. It is 498 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $7.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Chris McGrath. Listen to an audio excerpt at the Simon & Schuster website.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith: A Review and Oron Series Tour Guide

Tales of Attluma by David C. Smith: A Review and Oron Series Tour Guide

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David C. Smith was the 2019 Guest of Honor at Howard Days 2019 for good reason, having written the acclaimed Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography in 2018 to complement his decades of writing Sword & Sorcery (he has 26 novels written or co-written, including the Red Sonja series with Richard L. Tierney, the Oron and The Fall of the First World series, and more). He crafts his own flavor of adventure-horror with his Tales of Attluma (teased earlier at  Black Gate), heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard (REH) and Clark Ashton Smith (CAS). Attluma is an island continent inspired by the mysterious Atlantis. These sixteen tales cover its cursed history and doomed end. Many entries were written in the 1970’s and are gathered now in one place for the first time.

The collection fits the Sword & Sorcery label, with an emphasis on Sorcery, specifically necromancy and demon summoning. These are fantastically dark and exciting stories, a true blend of REH’s action and CAS’s dreaded atmosphere. On Attluma, ancient gods live in mountain temples and underground. Humans struggle to survive on the surface and intrude on land made for, and by, demons. Excerpts are the best way to share the poetic, dark conflict readers should expect:

“Dressed in scarlet wounds and running with blood, here was my mother, her face beseeching mercy, gashes across her face and body. There came my father, hobbling on a split foot and one arm gone, strings of meat and tendon trembling from the open shoulder. Here was my brother, once a strong and handsome man, now in death a broken thing with no legs, pulling himself forward with his arms, his wife beside him, on her belly and kicking her feet as her head rolled beside her.” — from “The Last Words of Imatus Istum”

“And there was Yadis, The All Mother, the hag with one eye and triple teats whose spittle had made the stars and whose defecation made the earth. Her mad singing had awakened humans to life; we crawled from the muck and ever since wondered about the dark heart of life.”  — from “Dark Goddess”

Interestingly, there are no Oron tales, Oron being the warrior protagonist (i.e., the heroic “Conan” of Attluma) that the original Zebra series was named after. Yet he is not needed here. Attluma is saturated with lore and conflict, armies of ghosts, lost loves seeking retribution, and hungry demons just looking for some attention. The last several stories ramp up the demonic uprising (or retaking) of the island continent. “The End of Days” finale is epic in scope, a sprawling battle with loads of mayhem and militant sorcery.
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Future Treasures: Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Future Treasures: Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

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Star Daughter-smallShveta Thakrar’s short fiction has appeared in the anthologies A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Toil & Trouble, The Underwater Ballroom Society, and Clockwork Phoenix 5, and magazines such as Uncanny, Enchanted Living, Faerie Magazine, Mothership Zeta, Mythic Delirium, and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. Her debut novel Star Daughter mixes Hindu mythology and contemporary fantasy into something quite original.

It arrives from HarperTeen next week. Here’s the description.

The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. Pretending to be “normal.” But when an accidental flare of her starfire puts her human father in the hospital, Sheetal needs a full star’s help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago.

Sheetal’s quest to save her father will take her to a celestial court of shining wonders and dark shadows, where she must take the stage as her family’s champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of the heavens — and win, or risk never returning to Earth at all.

Star Daughter has been warmly reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Nerd Daily, and other sites. But I think my favorite critique comes from the Utopia State of Mind blog. Here’s an excerpt.

Star Daughter is a gorgeous fantasy debut about love, family, and humanity. You’ll be enchanted by the blending of Stardust elements meets Hindu mythology. Then the gorgeous writing will captivate you until you fall into the story of family and humanity…. Torn in two, Sheetal must grapple with her love for her father, her feelings of abandonment towards her mother, and her new family’s past in the celestial court. She so desperately wants to feel like she belongs… I loved the added element of this talent competition meets political upheavals and family secrets. Star Daughter asks what we will do for family, the desperation and agony and love and resentment.

Star Daughter will be published by HarperTeen on August 11, 2020. It is 448 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $9.99 in digital formats. The beautiful cover is by Charlie Bowater. Read an excerpt at Enchanted Living.

See all our recent coverage of the best in upcoming SF and Fantasy here.