Browsed by
Category: Fiction

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part III

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part III

donald-crankshaw-smallThis week, we present the epic conclusion of Donald S. Crankshaw’s short novel, A Phoenix in Darkness, as Seth, Aulus, and Nathan discover the breathtaking scope of the Necromancer’s plans, hidden for generations in their underground lair in the Hollow Hills.

Nathan shivered. He was trying to figure out whether it was the threat in Kulsin’s eyes or the chill air, when he realized it was neither. The chill came from inside, like an icicle impaling his chest. Aulus and Kulsin both looked around, feeling the same thing and searching for the source, but Nathan knew. He didn’t know how a sensation he’d never felt before could seem so familiar, or how he could understand its meaning so instinctively, but he did.

Nathan straightened up, trying to get their attention, and felt a weight slap against his chest. That thing the Necromancers had placed around his neck was still there. He could feel the chain now, but there were more urgent matters to worry about. “Wraiths!” he managed in a hoarse whisper.

They were coming.

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

A Phoenix in Darkness is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge, published in three parts. The story began with Part One, here.

Read Part Three of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: Pathfinder Tales: Queen of Thorns by Dave Gross

Black Gate Online Fiction: Pathfinder Tales: Queen of Thorns by Dave Gross

pathfinder-tales-queen-of-thorns-smallBlack Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive first look at the latest Pathfinder Tales novel by Dave Gross, the acclaimed author of Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils.

In the deep forests of Kyonin, elves live among their own kind, far from the prying eyes of other races. Few of impure blood are allowed beyond the nation’s borders, and thus it’s a great honor for the half-elven Count Varian Jeggare and his hellspawn bodyguard Radovan to be allowed inside. Yet all is not well in the elven kingdom: demons stir in its depths, and an intricate web of politics seems destined to catch the two travelers in its snares. In the course of tracking down a missing druid, Varian and a team of eccentric elven adventurers will be forced to delve into dark secrets lost for generations — including the mystery of Varian’s own past.

Dave Gross is the former editor of Dragon, Star Wars Insider, and Amazing Stories. His adventures of Radovan and Count Jeggare include the Pathfinder Tales novels Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils, as well as many novellas and short stories available at Paizo.com. His other novels include Winter Witch with Elaine Cunningham, and the Forgotten Realms novels Black Wolf and Lord of Stormweather.

We previously reviewed the Pathfinder Tales novels Death’s Heretic by James L. Sutter, Master of Devils by Dave Gross, and Howard Andrew Jones’s Plague of Shadows, and introduced you to BG Contributing Editor Bill Ward’s Pathfinder Tales story “The Box, and “The Walkers from the Crypt” by Howard Andrew Jones.

Pathfinder Tales: Queen of Thorns is published by Paizo Publishing and is part of their Pathfinder Tales Subscription. It is a 432-page mass market paperback available for $9.99 ($6.99 ePub and PDF). The digital versions are available today; the print version is officially on sale November 13, 2012. Learn more at Paizo.com.

“The Midsummer Masquerade,” the complete first chapter of Queen of Thorns, is presented exclusively here at Black Gate; Chapters Two and Three are available at Flames Rising and SF Signal.

Read Chapter One of Queen of Thorns here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part II

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw, Part II

donald-crankshaw-smallThis week, we bring you Part II of Donald S. Crankshaw’s epic short novel, as young members of a secretive Order of wizards track a sinister group of Necromancers to their underground lair.

The corridor opened into a wide, circular room, the smooth, polished stone of the walls gleaming from the light that hung from the ceiling on a chain. It was like no lamp that Seth had ever seen; it appeared to be a sphere filled with an steady, harsh white light. Someone moved across the wide floor with a sluggish limp.

It took Seth a moment to realize what he was looking at. The man wore dark pants and a black, short-sleeved shirt, leaving pale skin visible. Unnaturally pale, even for someone who lived in this darkness. Patches of it showed through where clumps of his limp black hair had fallen out. His hands hung slack at his sides, and his feet dragged forward step by lurching step. His whole mode of movement hinted at some terrible deformity hidden just beneath the skin. The mouth was sewn shut, and the wide-open, glassy eyes stared straight ahead.

Seth tightened his grip on his sword. “What the Shol is that? We should kill it.”

“It’s already dead,” said Aulus.

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“A Phoenix in Darkness” is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge. It will be published in three parts. The story began last week with Part One, here.

Read Part Two of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw

Black Gate Online Fiction: “A Phoenix in Darkness” by Donald S. Crankshaw

donald-crankshaw-smallYoung members of a secretive Order of wizards investigate a series of strange kidnappings, and discover a sinister and ancient conspiracy:

“Nathan, who do you think has the ability to turn a person into a puppet like that?” Aulus asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t think of anyone in the Order — ”

“Exactly. In the Order. What about outside the Order?”

Nathan looked at Aulus hard. “You’re not talking about a renegade Dominus, are you?”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking about a different society altogether.”

“But the only other society would be the Necromancers. We wiped them out centuries ago!” Nathan said.

“What if the Order is wrong about their fate?” Aulus stood up and began pacing in the tiny room. “What if there were more of them, and better hidden, than we thought? Nathan, that man today was dead and walking. He was undead, a Soulless.”

Nathan did not want to admit that the Necromancers might still be around. If they were, the world was a lot more dangerous than he wanted to believe. “But, Aulus, how have they remained hidden all these years? They would have died out years ago… unless you think they’ve finally discovered the secrets of immortality.”

“Who says they haven’t?”

Donald S. Crankshaw has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Aoife’s Kiss, and Coach’s Midnight Diner. He lives in Boston. Author photo by Kristin Janz.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“A Phoenix in Darkness” is a complete 50,000-word short novel of dark fantasy offered free of charge. It will be published in three parts.

Read Part One of “A Phoenix in Darkness” here.

Tangent Online on “The Daughter’s Dowry”: “A Story Such as This Deserves a World of its Own”

Tangent Online on “The Daughter’s Dowry”: “A Story Such as This Deserves a World of its Own”

daughters-dowry-cropTangent Online has weighed in on Aaron Bradford Starr’s novelette “The Daughter’s Dowry,” published here on Sunday, October 14:

A tale… that has the feel of being told around the fireplace in a fantasy setting. The protagonist, Gloren Avericci, is a freelance Gallery Hunter. This may be code for thief, but to hear Gloren tell it, he is an adventurer in true fantasy style. Even after knowing the story, it is debatable whether his cat, Yr Neh, is a familiar or a travelling companion, though said cat is presented as former royalty and sentient. One of the funniest bits here revolves around Yr Neh trysting with a female cat under Gloren’s bed. To say more would be to spoil the scene…

That very little is resolved in this tale is part of its charm… At times, he fills in his back story or gives teasers about other adventures by incorporating associated bits into his retelling of events. However, he warns us that he’s telling us what actually happened rather than embellishing with any of the literary conventions that a Chronicler might use. Just a moment before any of his many tangential anecdotes could become as annoying as a pebble in one’s shoe, Gloren draws his audience back into the main event — that of his happenstance finding of a very special key, and the events that occurred afterward.

This was a fast and pleasant read. A story such as this deserves a world of its own and more adventures from its hero.

Not surprisingly, we feel the same way. Aaron Bradford Starr’s “The Daughter’s Dowry” is the first in an exciting sequence of classic adventure fantasy tales. “The Tea Maker’s Task,” in which Gallery Hunter Gloren Avericci and Yr Neh journey to a remote and dangerous island which conceals a dark secret, will be published here in January, followed quickly by two major novellas. Stay tuned for details.

You can read the entire review at Tangent Online, and read the novelette “The Daughter’s Dowry” completely free here.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including the 25,000-word novella of dark fantasy “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly’s thrilling mystery “The Whoremaster of Pald,” and Jason E. Thummel’s adventure fantasy novelette, “The Duelist,” is here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Daughter’s Dowry” by Aaron Bradford Starr

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Daughter’s Dowry” by Aaron Bradford Starr

daughters-dowry-cropA famous explorer relates one of his earliest adventures, an exciting sea journey to a sunken tower where a legendary treasure awaits:

I inserted the key into the lock, amazed at how free of corrosion or accumulated grit the inner mechanism was. Yr Neh cocked his ears forward in surprise as well. Our eyes met, and we smiled to each other as I turned the key.

It didn’t open. I felt the tension in the key, then its complete freedom of movement. Puzzled, I put an ear to the side. It was ticking softly. Yr Neh backed away warily, and I had begun to do the same when the box jumped into the air before me.

Flashing and turning, the box changed shape as it fell, landing again on the floor completely transformed. It was now a complex faceted spike of brightest gold. The point pounded into the floor and continued through the stone.

I lunged for the rope, diving through the shallow water on the floor. There followed a moment of silence, broken only by the squeak of the rope from which I still clung, soaked to the skin. Yr Neh sighed in relief, and I joined him. Then the shattered floor collapsed.

Aaron’s first published story was “Mortal Star” in Black Gate 8, which SF Site called “complex and fascinating in design… A very fine story that is impossible to predict.”

You can read the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including last week’s 25,000-word novella of dark fantasy “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan, and Jason E. Thummel’s adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist,” here.

“The Daughter’s Dowry” is a complete 9,000-word novelette of heroic fantasy offered at no cost, with original art by Aaron Bradford Starr.

Read the complete story here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Whoremaster of Pald” by Harry Connolly

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Whoremaster of Pald” by Harry Connolly

w-master2One of the most popular pieces of short fiction we’ve published in Black Gate magazine was Harry Connolly’s first fiction sale, “The Whoremaster of Pald,” which originally appeared in Black Gate 2.

Since that early sale, Harry has become a celebrated fantasy novelist, with titles including the Twenty Palaces novels Child of Fire and Game of Games. Featuring a brilliant and resourceful merchant in a corrupt and violent port city, “The Whoremaster of Pald” has all the hallmarks of his later fiction, and is filled with mystery, surprising twists, and great characters. Here are the opening paragraphs:

My prison cell stank like a bird cage. It was terribly dark, and I listened for the sound of rats. I despise rats. I lay down on the wooden plank that would serve as my bed for the night. My bruised back throbbed, but at least I could still breathe. It’s always nice to breathe after a beating.

In the morning a sweet little sparrow of a girl would testify against me. The charge was murder, and she had seen me do it. It had started only the evening before, when I decided that something had to be done about the new Warden.

RPGNet called the story “remarkably rich and textured,” and Locus magazine said:

[“The Whoremaster of Pald”] was one of my favorites. Harry James Connolly’s unlikely hero is a fat master of a whorehouse who cringes before bullies; not your usual fantasy hero at all. His story is told with smooth, vivid prose that is strongly reminiscent of Jack Vance, Connolly’s Zed gradually engages reader sympathy as he veers between bullying protection racketeers, a new worker who decides she can’t really stick to prostitution, a conniving rival, and the mayor’s lout of a nephew… an unputdownable tale. Connolly works the twists and turns so cleverly it’s impossible to guess what will happen. It’s hard to believe this is Connolly’s first published story.

Several years ago, we published the story in its entirety on the Black Gate website; we’re proud to offer it again here as part of the new line up of Black Gate weekly Online Fiction.

Read the complete story here, and the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including the adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist” by Jason E. Thummel and Sean McLachlan’s novella of dark fantasy, “The Quintessence of Absence,” here.

Art by Chris Pepper.

Adventures Fantastic on “The Duelist”: “Black Gate‘s Online Fiction Debut Has Set a High Standard”

Adventures Fantastic on “The Duelist”: “Black Gate‘s Online Fiction Debut Has Set a High Standard”

jason-e-thummelOur first Online Fiction Feature of 2012 was Jason E. Thummel’s adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist,” posted last Sunday. Adventures Fantastic was one of the first to review it this week:

Was it worth the wait? The answer is “Yes!”… This is a tale of a drunken duelist who is the top in his field… the plot is a solid sword and sorcery story. First I like the protagonist, Androi Karpelov, because even though he’s a very flawed hero, he’s still a man with honor. And he’s willing to take great risks to satisfy that honor… The story moves at a nice clip, never dragging.

Black Gate‘s online fiction debut has set a high standard of quality. That’s a good thing.

Thummel is also the author of the novel The Spear of Destiny and the short story collection In Savage Lands… I liked them a lot. Look for a review sometime in the next few months. This is a writer whose work I’m going to keep an eye out for.

I’m looking forward to more of Black Gate‘s fiction offerings. It’s been one of my favorite publications for a long time.

Author Donald Crankshaw turns a critical eye to our format at the Back of the Envelope blog:

How well does Black Gate‘s new format work for reading stories? Are they comfortable to read? Is it easy to keep track of your place? I find these questions particularly interesting… the story uses the same unusual color-scheme, light blue letters on a black background, as for Black Gate‘s blog… Surprisingly — or perhaps not so surprisingly, assuming that their web designer knows what he’s doing — I found the blue-on-black color scheme to be comfortable to read, and had no trouble with eye strain. Another thing that surprised me was that the lettering was large enough to read clearly on a mobile device…

Black Gate‘s blog posts have in-line commenting on the article page. This is how I prefer to see comments on blogs, but it can work to the detriment of long stories, partly by making a long page even longer, and partly because spamming and trolling can distract from the story. The solution Black Gate came up with works well. The story does not contain in-line comments, but a link to the blog post announcing the story, allowing readers to comment there. It also keeps all the comments in one place, to prevent a proliferation of pages.

Overall, I think the formatting that Black Gate used worked well. My only real concern is how well it will handle even longer stories, and I suppose we’ll see that when it happens.

Our complete schedule of upcoming fiction is here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan

sean-mclachlan-smallA young wizard in the grip of addiction discovers his drug of choice is at the center of a sorcerous conspiracy in Sean McLachlan’s urban fantasy novella, “The Quintessence of Absence.”

“Herr Eisenbach has a problem,” Francesco said.

“Then fix it yourself. You got me fired, remember?”

“You got yourself fired, smoking that noxious paste… I’ll get straight to the matter at hand. Herr Eisenbach recently discovered Birgit is smoking nepenthe.”

“But she’s just a kid,” Lothar said. He remembered Eisenbach’s daughter, a bright-eyed child who was the joy of the household.

“She’s sixteen now, and arranged to be married to the Margrave of Nordhausen. When Herr Eisenbach found out she was smoking, he locked her in her room. Unfortunately she escaped and hasn’t been seen in a couple of weeks. We’ve been looking all over for her, but we were hoping someone with your… connections… might have better luck.”

“How much is in it for me?”

“A hundred franks, more if you can return her, ah, intact. She’s due to be married, after all.”

“If she’s living on the street, don’t count on it.”

Sean McLachlan is the author of the collection The Night the Nazis Came to Dinner, and Other Dark Tales; A Fine Likeness, a horror novel set in Civil War Missouri; and numerous history books on the Middle Ages, the Civil War, and the Wild West. Author photo courtesy of Leo Stolpe.

You can read the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including last week’s adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist” by Jason E. Thummel, here.

“The Quintessence of Absence” is a complete 25,000-word novella of dark fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Duelist” by Jason E. Thummel

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Duelist” by Jason E. Thummel

jason-e-thummelA master swordsman finds himself caught in a web of deceit and intrigue in Jason E. Thummel’s fast-paced tale of action in a violent city.

Androi Karpelov watched with detached calm the youngster’s cool and confident demeanor slowly erode, and felt a certain amount of empathy. But not much.

“Do you yield, Sir, and admit that the insult which your patron directed at my liege was incorrect and entirely without merit?” It was a formulaic question which Androi had asked times beyond count.

“Sir?” his opponent wheezed, keeping up a respectable guard despite the obvious signs of fatigue. “I fear I cannot. It is to the death.”

“Ah, then… ” Androi paused. “I suppose your last lesson will be that it is foolish indeed to undertake such a contract when you will be matched against your superior. Shall we?”

The boy nodded in acknowledgement. He took one deep and lasting breath, glanced over his right shoulder to where a young woman watched, striving to quench her great heaving sobs with a small silk kerchief, gave her a short curt bow that almost broke Androi’s heart, and then came at him.

Androi allowed him some ground, parrying and dodging with a show of far more concentration than he felt. The swordsmanship was truly uninspired and his muse had abandoned him. It was all for the best, he supposed, for it gave the lad some time to make an impression on the young woman. Perhaps she would remember him, but most likely would find herself another to whom she would attach her dreams in short order. Such always seemed to be the way.

Jason E. Thummel’s fiction has appeared in Rage of the Behemoth, Flashing Swords magazine, and Magic and Mechanica. His first novel, The Spear of Destiny, was published in 2011 and his short story collection In Savage Lands appeared earlier this year.

“The Duelist” is a complete novelette of adventure fantasy offered at no cost. You can read the complete story here.