Black Gate

Woo hoo! We have three winners!

Last week we invited you to enter a contest to win one of three copies of The Final Programme, the opening volume in Michael Moorcock’s classic Cornelius Quartet, available again in a brand new edition from Titan Books. To enter, all you had to do was send us an e-mail with a one-sentence review of your favorite Michael Moorcock tale.

We don’t have room to present all the entries here, but we can offer up a half-dozen of the best. The very first one we received was from Stu White, who gets extra points for using our word of the week, ‘reconceptualization,’ in a grammatically correct sentence:

Elric of Melnibone is a stellar reconceptualization of the fantasy genre, and was perhaps the first time I read a book that focused on an antihero.

Meanwhile, Stephen Milligan gets points for taking the pulp angle.

The Jewel in the Skull is a masterclass in pulp, introducing exquisitely-named hero Dorian Hawkmoon and his battle against the inspired evil empire that mixes history and horror equally well, all in a swift little volume that sates the need for sword and sorcery while whetting the appetite for the next volume.

While Rob Baseel sounds just like a 1970s Marvel supervillian villain, by making terrific use of the phrase ‘musclebound do-gooder.’

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Brandon Sanderson’s The Bands of Mourning, the latest novel in the Mistborn series, was published today by Tor Books. To celebrate, Tor is making one autographed copy available to readers of Black Gate — and it could be yours.

How do you win? Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “The Bands of Mourning,” and a one-sentence summary of why you’d like to read it, and we’ll enter you into the contest.

That’s it! That’s all it takes. One winner will be drawn at random from all entries, and we’ll announce the winner here.

No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Not valid where prohibited by law, or anywhere postage for a hefty hardcover is more than, like, 10 bucks (practically, that means US and Canada).

The Bands of Mourning was published today by Tor Books. It is 448 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover, or $14.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Chris McGrath.

Learn more about The Bands of Mourning, and the previous books in the Mistborn series, in our previous coverage here.

On Oct. 29 author Julie Czerneda and Allyson Johnson, the voice of the audible.com audiobook edition of This Gulf of Time and Stars, had a delightful conversation right here at Black Gate.

Now DAW Books has offered us one copy of the hardcover edition This Gulf of Time and Stars, and Audible Studios has offered one copy of the audiobook, to give away to you, our readers.

How do you make one of them yours? Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “This Gulf of Time and Stars,” and we’ll enter you into the contest.

That’s it! That’s all it takes. Two winners will be drawn at random from all entries, and we’ll announce the winners here. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Not valid where prohibited by law, or anywhere postage for a heavy hardcover is more than, like, 10 bucks (practically, that means US and Canada).

This Gulf of Time and Stars was published by DAW Books on November 3, 2015. It is 464 pages, priced at $25.95 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Danie Ware’s Ecko series is one of the most talked-about on the market. James Lovegrove calls it “The Matrix meets Game of Thrones,” and Lavie Tidhar noted the opening volume “explodes onto the page with the manic energy of Richard Morgan’s cyberpunk novels, before taking a surprise turn into Thomas Covenant territory.” Now Titan Books has offered us three copies of the latest book, Ecko Endgame, to give away to you, our readers. How do you make one of them yours? Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “Ecko Endgame,” and we’ll enter you into the contest.

That’s it! That’s all it takes. Three winners will be drawn at random from all entries, and we’ll announce the winners here. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Not valid where prohibited by law, or anywhere postage for a hefty trade paperback is more than, like, 10 bucks (practically, that means US and Canada).

Ecko Endgame was published by Titan Books on November 10, 2015. It is 528 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, and $3.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Amazing15.