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

Christmas for the Paperback Collector

Christmas for the Paperback Collector

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$18 eBay lot 65 novels Nov 14-small

Back in October I was doing an innocent eBay search on R.A. Lafferty, and I stumbled on the lot of vintage science fiction paperbacks above. 65 titles from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, in what looked like pretty good shape, for the Buy-It-Now price of $18.

Well, this was a pickle. The way the books were laid out I couldn’t even see them all, which was annoying. And the vast majority of the ones I could see, I had already.

On the other hand, 65 books, 18 bucks, that’s…. what, like a quarter per book? At that price, it’d be well worth it just to upgrade my existing copies with ones in better shape. And there were a handful of tantalizing titles I didn’t have, like The Rainbow Cadenza by J. Neil Schulman, The Crystal Memory by Stephen Leigh, Conscience Place by Joyce Thompson, and The Steps of the Sun by Walter Tevis. Plus that Lafferty paperback, The Devil is Dead. And y’know, it was true that I couldn’t see all the covers, so who knew what treasures were lurking in all that jumble?

In the end, it was just too tempting. I pulled the trigger on the auction, shelled out the $18 (plus shipping), and waited impatiently to find out exactly what I’d bought.

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The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017

The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017

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Amberlough-small An Excess Male-small Borne Jeff VanderMeer-small

Happy New Year, all you marvelous Black Gate readers! We love you, each and every one.

And to prove it, we continue to compile lists of overlooked and neglected books for you. While others are slowly straggling home from all-night revels, we’re up early combing through Best of the Year lists to find the titles we managed to miss in 2017. Case in point: The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog and their annual Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2017, a massive compilation of 25 top-notch novels (plus 12 “Alternate Universe” Picks), includes plenty of books we showcased for you last year, like The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard, Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill, Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames, and The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley.

But it also contains a handful of titles we somehow overlooked, including novels by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, Kim Stanley Robinson, Annalee Newitz, and James Bradley. We’re very sorry. To make up for it, here’s a look at three of the more intriguing novels we neglected from the B&N list.

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The Guardian on the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017

The Guardian on the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017

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Paul McAuley Austral-small Djinn City-small Under the Pendulum Sun-small

As we continue the countdown towards New Years, here at Black Gate we continue to survey the best of the Best of the Year lists. Tonight I want to showcase British writer Adam Roberts’ Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017, published in The Guardian. Roberts kicks off his list talking about Kim Stanley Robinson, “the unofficial laureate of future climatology, and his prodigious New York 2140,” and then pivots to another climate-apocalypse novel:

Just as rich, though much tighter in narrative focus, is Paul McAuley’s superb Austral (Gollancz), set in a powerfully realised near‑future Antarctica transformed by global warming.

Paul McAuley was Black Gate‘s first book reviewer; we recently covered his early novel Red Dust. Austral (a word which means “south”) was published by Gollancz on October 19, 2017 (288 pages, £14.99 in trade paperback).

Next on Roberts list is a novel and writer much less familiar to me — but no less fascinating for all that.

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Merry Christmas From All of Us at Black Gate

Merry Christmas From All of Us at Black Gate

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Black Gate Christmas Tree-small

The Black Gate offices are dark and empty and, just like last Christmas, the only illumination is from the tiny tree the interns put on top of the filing cabinets during one of the brief moments Goth Chick wasn’t watching. Another year gone. Another 618 books and magazines discussed, 62 games reviewed, 29 comics examined, and numerous issues of critical importance to the genre fiercely debated. The staff are all at home with their loved ones, sleeping the sleep of the just (and the exhausted), and the office is strangely quiet.

It’s only during moments like this that I can truly reflect on how we’ve grown over the last 17 years. When we’re busy chasing deadlines, sometimes it can seem that we’re just another genre site, one more stop on the Internet where people loudly promote their opinions. But if that were true, Black Gate would still just be me, toiling away in my basement in St. Charles in near-total obscurity. Instead, we have grown into a thriving and growing collective of writers and artists who care about fantasy. We work together to promote forgotten classics and celebrate overlooked modern writers. And to help each other.

We have some of the finest writers in the industry and they work tirelessly week after week to keep you informed on a genre with hidden depths and constant surprises. It’s been an incredible run the last few years —  an Alfie Award, a World Fantasy Award, and many other honors. The source of all that newfound fame has been you, the fans, who have helped spread the word and bring new traffic to our humble site.

So thank you once again, from the bottom of our hearts. On behalf of the vast and unruly collective that is Black Gate, I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Continue being excellent — it’s what you’re good at.

Celebrate the Spirit of the Holidays With The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler

Celebrate the Spirit of the Holidays With The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, edited by Otto Penzler

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The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries-small The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries-back-small

Here in the Midwest we got a 2-inch dusting of snow on Christmas Eve, just enough to put everyone in the mood for the holidays. When it comes to a White Christmas, there’s nothing like a little just-in-time inventory.

We have our share of holiday traditions here in the O’Neill-Dechene household. And one of them is reading a mystery tale or two from Otto Penzler’s Big Book of Christmas Mysteries over the holidays, curled up in the living room by the fire, next to the Christmas tree. There aren’t a lot of things in this modern world that bring peace to a body. But lemme tell you, that’s definitely one of them.

Otto Penzler’s brick-sized Big Book anthologies are some of the great unsung bargains of modern publishing. We’ve covered a few of them over the years, and he publishes a new one every October (this year’s was The Big Book of Rogues and Villains, which we discussed two months ago.) But The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, an imposing 672-page volume containing yuletide ctime stories from Ellery Queen, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Ellis Peters, Donald E. Westlake, Damon Runyon, Thomas Hardy, Arthur Conan Doyle, John D. MacDonald, Peter Lovesey, Max Allan Collins, Marjorie Bowen, Ed McBain, Sara Paretsky, Mary Higgins Clark, Ngaio Marsh, Isaac Asimov, Ed Gorman, G. K. Chesterton, Rex Stout, O. Henry, and Agatha Christie, is one of my favorites. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Decide the Fate of the World With Tiny Plastic Ships: Axis & Allies by Avalon Hill

Decide the Fate of the World With Tiny Plastic Ships: Axis & Allies by Avalon Hill

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Axis and Allies Aniversary Edition-small

When I was in grad school at the University of Illinois in the early 90s we used to play games in the lobby of Daniels Hall. I played things like Star Trek: The Adventure Game from West End Games, and card games like Hearts. But the hardcore gamers in the corner would push a bunch of tables together and cluster around a massive game board, playing Axis & Allies.

I admit to an enduring fascination with Axis & Allies. It reminded me of the obsessive games I used to play with my gaming group back home in Ottawa, like SPI’s War of the Ring and 4000 A.D. The board was huge, there were hundreds of playing pieces, and every game seemed a constant back-and-forth of razor-thin victories, crushing setbacks, unexpected reversals, and hard-won strategic triumphs. I never had the time (or the courage) to commit to a weekend-long session of Axis & Allies though, and when I graduated I lost my chance. I lost contact with a permanent gaming group… and without that incentive, I never shelled out the (considerable) cash for a copy of the game.

Turns out that was a mistake. The gaming fiends in central Illinois weren’t the only people who loved to simulate the epic struggle of World War II, apparently. Milton Bradley’s Axis & Allies, an expensive game in a niche market, eventually went out of print, but not before enjoying a lengthy and historic run. Over the years the game acquired an almost mythic reputation among strategy gamers, and the few complete copies in circulation quickly became collectors items — and very hard to obtain. I eventually set out to acquire a copy for my collection, and for over a decade I’ve failed.

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The Top Black Gate Posts in November

The Top Black Gate Posts in November

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Sean McLachlan was the Black Gate MVP for November, with two articles in the Top 5: “Happy Halloween! Here’s Some Nightmare Fuel” at #3, and “Ten Ways You Know Your Evil Empire Is Doomed,” which scored the #5 slot. Hot on Sean’s heels was Ryan Harvey with two Pellucidar posts, his review of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Savage Pellucidar (#6) and the Series Wrap-Up (#10).

The most popular article last month was our survey of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress anthology series, which has been published semi-continuously since 1984. The post spawned at least one follow-up, a more personal look back on the series by Elizabeth Cady, to be published here in the next next few days. Coming in at #2 was Bob Byrne’s review of the film Murder on the Orient Express. Rounding out the Top Five was our look at S. A. Chakraborty’s new novel The City of Brass.

An update on Beneath Ceaseless Skies placed seventh, followed by Fletcher Vredenburgh’s review of Robert E. Howard’s The Road of Azrael. And Steven H Silver nabbed the ninth slot on the list, with his Michael Moorcock re-read “Elric and Me.”

The complete list of Top Articles for November follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular overall articles, online fiction, and blog categories for the month.

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Alfred Bester on “My One Demented Meeting with the Great John W. Campbell, Jr.”

Alfred Bester on “My One Demented Meeting with the Great John W. Campbell, Jr.”

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Alfred BesterI’m a long-time student of science fiction history, and I enjoy reading it whenever I can. On the train yesterday I read “My Affair with Science Fiction,” a delightful bit of memoir by the great Alfred Bester, author of The Demolished Man and The Stars Our Destination. It contains one of the most revealing tidbits on John W. Campbell I’ve ever read.

I wrote a few stories for Astounding, and out of that came my one demented meeting with the great John W. Campbell, Jr. I needn’t preface this account with the reminder that I worshipped Campbell from afar… I sent off another story to Campbell, one which no show would let me tackle. The title was “Oddy and Id” and the concept was Freudian… Campbell telephoned me a week later to say that he liked the story but wanted to discuss a few changes with me. Would I come to his office?….

Campbell arose from his desk and shook hands. I’m a fairly big guy but he looked enormous to me, about the size of a defensive tackle. He was dour and seemed preoccupied by matters of great moment. “You don’t know it,” Campbell said, “you can’t have any way of knowing it, but Freud is finished…”

“Oh come now, Mr. Campbell. Surely you’re joking.”

“I have never been more serious in my life. Freud has been destroyed by one of the greatest discoveries of our time. Dianetics… Come and have lunch.”

We sat down at a small table while he continued to discourse on dianetics, the greatest salvation of the future when the world would at last be cleared of its emotional wounds. Suddenly he stood up and towered over me. “You can drive your memory back to the womb,” he said. “You can do it if you release every block, clear yourself and remember. Try it.”

“Now?”

“Now. Think. Think back. Clear yourself. Remember! You can remember when your mother tried to abort you with a button hook. You’ve never stopped hating her for it.”

Around me there were cries of “BLT down, hold the mayo. Eighty-six on the English. Combo rye, relish. Coffee shake, pick up.” And here was this grim tackle standing over me, practicing dianetics without a license. The scene was so lunatic that I began to tremble with suppressed laughter. I prayed. “Help me out of this, please. Don’t let me laugh in his face. Show me a way out.” God showed me.

“My Affair with Science Fiction” originally appeared in Harry Harrison’s 1974 anthology Nova 4, three years after Campbell died. It’s been reprinted a handful of times, including in Hell’s Cartographers (1975), and Bester’s collection Starlight (1976). The Stars My Destination is included in the Library of America’s gorgeous boxed set American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, and you can read “My Affair with Science Fiction” online at the Library of America here. It’s long but well worth the read.

A Return to Terry Carr’s Best Science Fiction of the Year

A Return to Terry Carr’s Best Science Fiction of the Year

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Terry Carr Best Science Fiction of the Year-small

My taste in science fiction — like my taste in music and film — was shaped early. What I learned to love as a teen I largely still enjoy… with some exceptions. One of those exceptions is Terry Carr’s Best Science Fiction of the Year. I picked up my first one in 1977, at the age of 13, and I discovered pretty quickly that they weren’t for me. I went back to reading pulp SF in books like Before the Golden Age, and was blissfully happy to do so for many years.

I’ve returned to Carr’s Best Science Fiction of the Year recently, and discovered why I didn’t connect with them four decades ago: unlike many of his contemporaries, Carr brought an adult eye to SF, and the fiction he selected spoke to adults. It still speaks to adults today, clearly and with no loss of voice, and I now consider Carr’s Best volumes — especially the ones he did in the mid-70s — to be some some of the best SF anthologies ever printed. Here’s what I said last year about #3, published in 1973.

How incredible was The Best Science Fiction of the Year #3? It contains some of the finest science fiction stories of all time, packed into one slender volume. Like “The Women Men Don’t See” by James Tiptree, Jr… perhaps her most famous story, and that’s saying something. And Vonda N. McIntyre’s Nebula Award-winning “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” which became the basis of her 1978 novel Dreamsnake (which swept the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards the following year.) And Harlan Ellison’s classic “The Deathbird,” the Hugo and Locus Award-winning title story of his celebrated 1975 collection Deathbird Stories. Plus Gene Wolfe’s famous “The Death of Dr. Island,” winner of the Locus and Nebula awards for Best Novella.

And an unassuming little story by a young writer named Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” which won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story, and is considered by many (me included) to be one of the finest short stories ever written. And lots more — including a Jack Vance novella, plus stories by Philip José Farmer, Alfred Bester, R. A. Lafferty, Robert Silverberg, and F. M. Busby. All for $1.50!

Last month I purchased a fine collection of six Best Science Fiction of the Year volumes (pictured above) on eBay for the criminally low price of $7. They arrived a few weeks ago, and I’ve stolen a few minutes here and there to dip into them. It’s been an enormously rewarding experience.

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True to the Specters of the Dead: The Big Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Otto Penzler

True to the Specters of the Dead: The Big Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Otto Penzler

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The Big Book of Ghost Stories-small The Big Book of Ghost Stories-back-small

Two weeks ago I wrote a quick piece on Otto Penzler’s latest anthology, The Big Book of Rogues and Villains. I dashed off a list of the previous Penzler books we’d covered over the years… and I realized to my dismay that we’d somehow overlooked one of my favorites, The Big Book of Ghost Stories, an 836-page treasure trove released in 2012. I figured the time was right to rectify that oversight.

Michael Dirda gives a great summary in his Washington Post review.

Otto Penzler’s The Big Book of Ghost Stories largely focuses on classic tales. No one should go through life (let alone death) without experiencing W.W. Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw,” Perceval Landon’s “Thurnley Abbey,” Ambrose Bierce’s “The Moonlit Road” and M.R. James’s “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad.” But Penzler also includes many stories that should be equally well known. This year, for instance, I read for the first time Ellen Glasgow’s “The Shadowy Third,” a wonderfully ambiguous tale of a nurse hired by a charismatic doctor to care for his apparently demented wife. Yet Mrs. Maradick is strangely afraid of her handsome husband, and there is something odd about her silent young daughter. Glasgow’s narrative is deeply haunting, in more ways than one.

Penzler stresses that he has “tried to remain true to the notion that ghosts are spirits or specters of the dead. Some stories that frequently have appeared in other ghost story anthologies have nothing at all to do with ghosts. They may be trolls, or evil plants, vile fungi, monsters, or other creatures of that ilk. Rightly or not, I have attempted to be a bit of a narrow-minded purist about it all.” This means that there is nothing here by Arthur Machen, who specialized in ancient and malignant races lurking in the Welsh hills, while Algernon Blackwood is represented by “The Woman’s Ghost Story” instead of his masterpiece, “The Willows.”

The book contains tales by HP Lovecraft, Conrad Aiken, Rudyard Kipling, Ramsey Campbell, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Donald E. Westlake, Fritz Leiber, Albert E. Cowdrey, Wilkie Collins, Manly Wade Wellman, Saki, Edith Wharton, and many others. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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