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Category: Editor’s Blog

The blog posts of Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones and Editor John O’Neill

John Joseph Adams Interviews Jonathan L. Howard

John Joseph Adams Interviews Jonathan L. Howard

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cabalJonathan L. Howard, author of the Johannes Cabal novels (Johannes Cabal the Necromancer and Johannes Cabal the Detective), had the lead story in Black Gate 13, the popular tale “The Beautiful Corridor.” It followed the exploits of the master thief Kyth, as she took on a commission from the jovial lich Maten Shal to explore an impossibly deadly tomb (read an excerpt here.)

Now Jonathan’s story “The Ereshkigal Working,” also featuring Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, appears in the new anthology The Way of the Wizard. Editor John Joseph Adams has interviewed Jonathan  in conjunction with the book launch:

A necromancer’s lot is not a happy one… Horrible things befall him on a regular basis, although this story is the first time his experimental subjects have reanimated before he’s done anything necromantic to them at all. The story came from wondering how Cabal would handle a full-on zombie outbreak.

Adams: Most authors say all their stories are personal. If that’s true for you, in what way was this story personal to you?

That’s a very true statement. I myself halted a zombie apocalypse a couple of years ago, and I remember thinking at the time, “This would make a good story.”

The Way of the Wizard looks like a terrific book, with both classic tales of wizards from some of the best names in fantasy, and new fiction from a lot of hot new talent. The book’s website features seven “Free Reads” from Adam-Troy Castro, Jeremiah Tolbert, David Barr Kirtley, and John R. Fultz’s “The Thirteen Texts of Arthyria.” We reported on John Joseph Adams’ interview with John Fultz last month.

Jonathan’s next story featuring Kyth, “The Shuttered Temple,” in which Kyth attempts to solve the mystery of a sealed and very deadly temple, appears in the upcoming Black Gate 15.

The complete interview with Jonathan L. Howard is here.

Jan/Feb Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine Now on Sale

Jan/Feb Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine Now on Sale

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fsf033The big January/February double issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction goes on sale today.

The issue features four novelettes by Matthew Corradi, Albert E. Cowdrey, Pat MacEwan, and “The Bird Cage,” by Kate Wilhelm. There are short stories from Alan Dean Foster, Rick Norwood, Chris Lawson, James Stoddard, Jim Young, Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg, and Richard A. Lupoff.

Asked about the issue, Editor Gordon van Gelder had this comment:

I hope the presence of a Ghost Wind and a Whirlwind in the issue won’t lead anyone to conclude the issue is long-winded.

F&SF is published six times a year; issues are 258 pages.  It is the longest-running professional fantasy magazine in the country, and has been published continuously since 1949.

The new cover price is $7.50; cover artist this issue is Kristin Kest. The magazine’s website, where you can order subscriptions and browse their blog, is at www.sfsite.com/fsf/.

We covered the Nov/Dec issue of F&SF here.

New Treasures: Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez

New Treasures: Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez

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too-many-cursesI have the week off between Christmas and New Year’s. Much of will be spent laying out Black Gate 15, to be sure, as well as catching up on my towering e-mail backlog.

But if you can’t recline in the glow of the Christmas tree and read at least one new book, it hardly counts as a vacation, does it? Santa brought me several great titles this year, but the one I’ve got my eye on at the moment is the latest novel by A. Lee Martinez: Too Many Curses. Martinez is the author of The Automatic Detective, Gil’s All Fright Diner, and A Nameless Witch, and his newest promises to continue in the same light-hearted vein as those:

The wizard Margle the Horrendous takes special pride in never killing his enemies. Instead, he transforms them into various accursed forms and locks them away in his castle. His halls are filled with his collection of fallen heroes and defeated villains, along with a few ordinary folk who were just unfortunate enough to draw Margle’s attention.

It’s Nessy’s duty to tend this castle. It’s a lot of work, but she manages, taking pride in housekeeping talents that keep the castle from collapsing into chaos. But when Margle suddenly dies, everything begins to unravel. Nessy finds herself surrounded by monsters, curses, a door that should never be opened, and one very deadly dark wizardess.

Happy Holidays to all Black Gate readers out there, and here’s hoping that your loved ones found a way to express their affection for you in the form of a great book.

C.S.E. Cooney’s The Big Bah-Ha Now Available

C.S.E. Cooney’s The Big Bah-Ha Now Available

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bah-haBlack Gate‘s C.S.E. Cooney’s dark fantasy novella The Big Bah-Ha is finally available from Drollerie Press in a variety of electronic formats.

The Big Ba-Ha is a post-apocalyptic fairy tale, following a band of near-feral children who brave a plague-ridden landscape on a desperate quest to rescue one of their own:

Beatrice, who only moments before was the eldest member and leader of the Barka gang, wakes up dead. She was almost, probably, 12. Either the slap rash got her, as it gets everyone over the age of 12, or the Flabberghast got tired of waiting for her to drop dead and took her skin for a door and her bones for his stew. Who can say? What she can say is that she didn’t get to wake up in heaven. Instead, she’s in the Big Bah-Ha, a place that’s supposed to be a comfort to children after they pass on. Only something’s very, very wrong here and, despite all her bravery and cunning, she’s not quite sure how to fix it or if she’ll survive the afterlife long enough to try.

Gene Wolfe said:

It is deep and wise and fabulous, and will leave you shuddering and strangely at peace. You could found a religion on it — or it may found a religion without you. Or found some new thing that humankind has not yet seen. Only God knows what would happen after the founding. As someone (you’ll find out who) says deep in the story, ‘We’re all clowns now.’”

The Big Ba-Ha is available for just $4.25. You can also read an excerpt or pre-order the print (both trade paperback and signed and lettered hardcover) versions here.

Check it out!  You’ll thank us later.

The Top 100 Out of Print Books of 2010

The Top 100 Out of Print Books of 2010

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she-is-the-darknessTis the season for Top Ten lists (again), and there are plenty to be had. But Black Gate is all about the best in neglected fantasy and sadly, there aren’t nearly as many “Top Ten Most Neglected” book lists out there as there should be.

However, BookFinder.com recently published their list of the Top 100 in-demand out-of-print titles for 2010, and that’s pretty close. The list includes titles from Philip K. Dick, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Glen Cook, C.S. Lewis, Ray Garton, Ben Bova, Madeleine L’Engle, Cameron Crowe, and many others.

The Number One Out-of-print book for 2010 was Sex, Madonna’s 1992 collection of erotic photographs, good-condition copies of which still sell for $200 and up. I remember peeking at that book in Borders when it first came out; it’s not hard to understand why there aren’t a lot of copies that haven’t been pawed through.

Also on the list was Glen Cook, with the 1998  novel  She Is The Darkness, seventh in The Black Company series; Philip K. Dick’s early novel Gather Yourselves Together, first published posthumously in 1994; Ray Bradbury’s 1947 collection Dark Carnival, and two novels by Stephen King: Rage (by “Richard Bachman”) and the limited edition My Pretty Pony.

There are several surprises on the list, including a few books that aren’t widely known for being in hot demand.  For example, fan legend has it that Ben Bova’s The Star Conquerors (#23) is scarce because Bova has been gradually buying up all the copies on the market to remove it from circulation.

dark-carnivalSome of the titles of interest to fantasy fans on the list include:

2 – Ray Garton, In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting
9 – Stephen King (as Richard Bachman), Rage
22 – Stephen King, My Pretty Pony
23 – Ben Bova, The Star Conquerors
33 – Cameron Crowe, Fast Times at Ridgemont High
36 – Ray Bradbury, Dark Carnival
38 – Philip K. Dick, Gather Yourselves Together
40 – Glen Cook, She Is The Darkness
47 – Walt Kelly, I Go Pogo
56 – C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition
63 – Madeleine L’Engle, Ilsa

BookFinder.com’s  complete list of Top 100 out-of-print titles for 2010 is here.

Black Gate 14: Game Reviews

Black Gate 14: Game Reviews

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cryptofeverflameWe’re finally nearing the end of the Black Gate 14 online tour, just as issue 15 nears completion. Whew! Timing is everything.

Today we’re looking at the Gaming column, edited by Howard Andrew Jones. Like Reviews Editor Bill Ward, Howard pulled out all the stops to make sure it was the best we’d ever had for our blockbuster 14th issue.  The result was 20 pages of in-depth reviews of the most exciting gaming products of the year, including:

Alien Module 1: Aslan, Gareth Hanrahan (Mongoose Publishing)
Traveller: Tripwire, Simon Beal (Mongoose Publishing)
Traveller: FASA and Gamelords, CD ROM (Far Future Enterprises)
HeroScape Expansion Pack 1-4: Blackmoon’s Siege (Wizards of the Coast)
Legends of Steel: Savage Worlds, Jeff Mejia (Evil DM Games)
Level UP Issue 1, Magazine (Goodman Games)
Far Avalon, Martin Dougherty (Avenger/Comstar Games)
Shard RPG Basic Compendium, Aaron de Orive and Scott Jones (Shard Studios)
Hero’s Handbook: Tieflings, Edited by Ken Hart (Goodman Games)
Hero’s Handbook: Dragonborn, Edited by Aijalyn Kohler (Goodman Games)
Forgotten Heroes: Fang, Fist, and Song, Edited by Aeryn Blackdirge Rudel (Goodman Games)
Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud, Edited by Aeryn Blackdirge Rudel (Goodman Games)
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook, Jason Bulmahn (Paizo Publishing)
Pathfinder Module: Crypt of the Everflame, Jason Bulmahn (Paizo Publishing)

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Black Gate 14: Review Features

Black Gate 14: Review Features

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deader-stillBlack Gate 14 was the biggest issue in our history, with 158,000 words of fiction. We knew the Review Features had to be just as impressive, and the job of ensuring that fell to Contributing Editor Bill Ward.

To that end, Bill assembled a team of over a dozen of our top writers and reviewers.  The final result: a massive 32 pages of reviews, covering thirty of the finest fantasy books to cross our path in the last nine months:

Swords From the West, Harold Lamb (Bison Books)
Swords from the East, Harold Lamb (Bison Books)
Blood of Ambrose, James Enge (Pyr)
This Crooked Way, James Enge (Pyr)
Summa Elvetica: The Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy, Theodore Beale (Marcher Lord Press)
The Vampire Tarot, Robert M. Place (St. Martin’s Press)
Drood, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
Treason’s Shore, Sherwood Smith (DAW)
Black Horses for the King, Anne McCaffrey (Magic Carpet)
Dark Road Rising, P.N. Elrod (Ace)
The Stepsister Scheme, Jim C. Hines (DAW)
Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman (Simon & Schuster)
Deader Still, Anton Strout (Ace)
Gamer Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Kerrie Hughes (DAW)
Intelligent Design, edited by Denise Little (DAW)

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New Treasures: A Salute to ChiZine Publications

New Treasures: A Salute to ChiZine Publications

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monstrous-affectionsAt the end of October I found myself at the World Fantasy Convention, with Howard Andrew Jones, Bill Ward, Ryan Harvey, and pretty much the entirety of Team Black Gate — talking publishing with other small press owners on panels, attending late-night parties, and cheering on the mighty James Enge during the World Fantasy Awards.

It wasn’t all fun and games, of course. We bought a table in the Dealer’s Room, and for most of the convention I was parked behind it, selling magazines. It was a chance to meet some of our authors and subscribers face-to-face, and put Black Gate in the hands of folks who’d never beheld it before. Always a pleasure to see the looks on their faces as they hefted the latest issue, and to hear them say “Wow — this is a magazine? It’s enormous!”

There were slow moments, of course. And during those I had a chance to catch up with friends who came to hang out at the booth, like author Ted Chiang, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly editor Adrian Simmons, SF Signal‘s John DeNardo, and many others. More rarely I’d steal a moment to wander the rest of the Dealer’s Room, an Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders for fantasy readers, where you can find virtually any book, no matter how rare or obscure. I’ve made many a prize find there over the years — that’s how I ended up paying $575 for a copy of Robert E. Howard’s Skull-Face And Others, the beautiful and seminal Arkham House edition from 1946, which I bought (after some hard negotiating) at the 2006 convention.

Right across from the Black Gate table were the friendly folks of ChiZine Publications, with hands-down the most handsome and impressive collection of new releases at the con. I found myself sneaking over to their booth every chance I got, returning with a volume or two each time. Eventually I purchased over half a dozen and only now, six weeks later, am I truly beginning to realize what treasures I brought home.

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Dark City Games Christmas Special

Dark City Games Christmas Special

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raid-on-cygnosaWe’re big fans of Dark City Games at Black Gate. Todd McAulty first reviewed their solitaire fantasy adventure The Island of Lost Spells  in Black Gate 10, and Andrew Zimmerman Jones picked up the thread with a look at Wolves on the Rhine (BG 11), and Void Station 57 (BG 13). Howard Andrew Jones carries on the tradition in the upcoming BG 15 with a review of one of their latest titles, The Oracle’s Breath.

We even included a complete solo adventure from Dark City Games in Black Gate 12, Orcs of the High Mountains, and posted a short solitaire SF adventure by Dark City here on the BG website, S.O.S, a prelude to their At Empire’s End.

Dark City have re-captured the spirit of the best solitaire adventures from the dawn of role-playing, particularly the classic Metagaming titles like Death Test. Their games are easy to learn, quick to play, and a lot of fun.

To celebrate their success during the year, Dark City Games is offering a buy 4 get 1 free special on their website — a 20% discount.

Select any four games from their extensive catalog of Ancient World (fantasy), Time and Space (science fiction), or Untamed West (western) titles, and receive a fifth game of your choice free. The sale even includes their newest titles, such as Raid on Cygnosa and At Empire’s End.

And tell them Black Gate sent you!

50% off all Books at Golden Gryphon Press

50% off all Books at Golden Gryphon Press

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wreckOne of my favorite small press publishers, Golden Gryphon Press, is having a 50% off sale.

Golden Gryphon was founded by Jim Turner, the esteemed editor at Arkham House, in 1997. When Jim died in 1999 his brother Gary took over, and over the past 13 years the imprint has published an extremely impressive array of titles, including 62 archival quality hardcovers, four limited edition chapbooks, and 13 trade paperback reprints.

They specialize in short story collections from modern authors, and their books have included some of the best collections of the past decade, including  The Dragons of Springplace by Robert Reed, The Robot’s Twilight Companion by Tony Daniel, Beluthahatchie and Other Stories by Andy Duncan, Strange Tides by Paul Di Filippo, Secret Life by Jeff VanderMeer, Wild Galaxy by William F. Nolan, and The Wreck of the Godspeed, by James Patrick Kelly.

Unlike most small presses, Golden Gryphon works very hard to keep their prices in line with regular hardcovers, and their books range from $20 to $24.95 — meaning you can nab virtually all of these titles for $12.50 or less during their sale.

More details on the sale are here [Link no longer active], and you can see Rodger Turner’s checklist of all their titles at SF Site. I would suggest you move quickly, however. The sale is for a limited time, and a handful of their most famous titles, such as Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly, The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant and Other Stories by Jeffrey Ford and The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross, are already sold out and out of print.