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Black Gate Online Fiction: An Excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna

Black Gate Online Fiction: An Excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna

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Mad Shadows 2 cover by Erika M. Szabo-small MAD SHADOWS 2 BACK Cover-small

Joe Bonadonna’s Dorgo the Dowser novelette “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” part of Joe’s first swords and sorcery collection, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, is one of the most popular pieces of fiction ever posted at Black Gate. Joe’s other contributions to the Black Gate Online Fiction library include an exclusive excerpt from Waters of Darkness, his supernatural pirate dark fantasy novel co-written with David C. Smith, and his recent story “Queen of Toads,” an old-fashioned pulp horror tale.

Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Part Three of Mad Shadows II — Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent, published in trade paperback and digital formats this month.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Holmes Christmas Carol

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Holmes Christmas Carol

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A Holmes Christmas Carol – By Bob Byrne

christmastree_victorianIt is with a certain sense of misgiving that I relate the following tale, which took place during the Christmas season of 1902. I had moved out of our Baker Street lodgings earlier that year, having married only a few months before that most festive of holidays. I now had rooms in Queen Anne Street and was quite busy with my flourishing medical practice. A newly married man, I once again found myself as head of a household, with all of the duties thereof. I saw Holmes infrequently, but had found the time to visit him the day before Christmas. Certain that he would have no plans of any kind, I extended to him an invitation to join my wife and I for Christmas day.

Holmes rebuffed my attempts to have him share in the holiday spirit with us. “Watson, I have no use for the Christmas season. Is it rational to believe a man rose from the dead? And even if it were, do you not see the hypocrisy of it all? For one day, a man will give a beggar a farthing, because it is Christmas. He would pass by that beggar 364 other days and pay him no mind. That is Christmas?”

I could not recall Holmes being so churlish. When we had roomed together, he had not been an avid celebrator of Christmas, but he did accommodate my warm feelings towards the season. Now, left to his own devices, it seemed that his natural contrariness was shining through. I made one last effort to have him spend a pleasant dinner at the Watson household. It was to no avail.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: An Exclusive Excerpt from The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu

Black Gate Online Fiction: An Exclusive Excerpt from The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu

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Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Chapter One of Ken’s Liu’s The Wall of Storms, the second novel of The Dandelion Dynasty, published in hardcover and digital formats last month by Saga Press. Here’s the description.

In the much-anticipated sequel to the “magnificent fantasy epic” (NPR) Grace of Kings, Emperor Kuni Garu is faced with the invasion of an invincible army in his kingdom and must quickly find a way to defeat the intruders. Kuni Garu, now known as Emperor Ragin, runs the archipelago kingdom of Dara, but struggles to maintain progress while serving the demands of the people and his vision. Then an unexpected invading force from the Lyucu empire in the far distant west comes to the shores of Dara — and chaos results.

But Emperor Kuni cannot go and lead his kingdom against the threat himself with his recently healed empire fraying at the seams, so he sends the only people he trusts to be Dara’s savvy and cunning hopes against the invincible invaders: his children, now grown and ready to make their mark on history.

The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu’s debut novel and the opening novel of The Dandelion Dynasty, was nominated for the Nebula Award, and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. His short story collection The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories was called “Profound enough to hurt” by Amal El-Mohtar of NPR, and his acclaimed translation of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “Queen of Toads” by Joe Bonadonna

Black Gate Online Fiction: “Queen of Toads” by Joe Bonadonna

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joe-bonadonna-smallWe posted Joe Bonadonna’s Dorgo the Dowser novelette “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” part of Joe’s first swords and sorcery collection, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser, way back in December 2011. It quickly became one of our most popular online stories, and it has remained so for nearly five years. We also presented an exclusive excerpt from Waters of Darkness, his supernatural pirate dark fantasy novel co-written with David C. Smith, in 2013. Since then, Joe has become one of our most reliable and popular reviewers.

We are very pleased to have the opportunity to present “Queen of Toads,” an old-fashioned pulp horror tale, for your reading pleasure.

In the marsh out back, these strange creatures. I’ve seen them at night, hopping back and forth across Venn Road, coming from and heading to the marsh. They must be going out hunting, though what they might prey upon sure has me stumped. Maybe fish or small game. Hell, they’re as big as some breeds of dogs. And the way those strange feathers of theirs glow in the moonlight — the same colour as the rocks! — makes me wonder how they could possibly sneak up on anything! Makes me wonder if they came here with those rocks, came from inside them, maybe. They look like frogs and toads, but like none I’ve ever seen before. I surely won’t be frying up and eating their legs! I told my Minerva to steer clear of the things, too. Told her not to touch or try to catch them. You never know where they might have come from and what sickness they might carry.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, Michael A. Armstrong, C.S.E. Cooney, Vaughn Heppner, E.E. Knight, Jason E. Thummel, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Harry Connolly, and others, is here.

“Queen of Toads” is a complete 9,000-word humorous Lovecraft-pastiche offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

Read an Original Short Story in the World of The Lazarus Gate and The Iscariot Sanction at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi Blog

Read an Original Short Story in the World of The Lazarus Gate and The Iscariot Sanction at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi Blog

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Mark Latham’s new novel in The Apollonian Case Files, The Iscariot Sanction, was published by Titan Books on September 20. It’s the follow-up to The Lazarus Gate and, in honor of the occasion, the popular Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog at BarnesandNoble.com has posted a brand new story set in the same world, “The House of the Dead.”

Mark Latham’s two novels of The Apollonian Case Files, The Lazarus Gate and The Iscariot Sanction, take place in an alternate Victorian Age in which Her Majesty’s Empire is under attack by supernatural threats, and only a mystery “gentlemen’s club” stands in the way of total oblivion. They’re great fun, mixing elements of Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft, James Bond and H.G. Wells, with a setting we love spending time in — which is why, in honor of the release of the latest in the series, we’re pleased to present an original short story set in the same universe. Enjoy!

Read the complete story here.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “Grady Spades Second Opinion” by Levi Black

Black Gate Online Fiction: “Grady Spades Second Opinion” by Levi Black

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Red Right Hand Levi Black-smallBlack Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive short story by Levi Black, author of Red Right Hand, on sale now from Tor Books.

“Is that an agreement?”

“Yes. Take away my cancer. I want to party some more.”

The words were barely past his lips when the Man In Black was on him.

The coat wrapped around Grady, slithering over his head and face, making the world go dark. Cold, so bone-achingly cold, seared his chin and cheeks. He couldn’t breathe.

He felt something digging in the crease of his hip and then a rough tearing sensation, as if his skin had been ripped asunder, and the pain flared to a white hot scorch.

Something curled in his guts and it sent a wet tickle up his spine and into his brain. Tug. Yank.

And something tore free.

Levi Black lives in Metro Atlanta with his wife and an array of toys, books, records, and comics.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, John Fultz, Jon Sprunk, Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe, E.E. Knight, Vaughn Heppner,  Howard Andrew Jones, David Evan Harris, John C. Hocking, Michael Shea, Aaron Bradford Starr, Martha Wells, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, C.S.E. Cooney, and many others, is here.

“Grady Spades Second Opinion” is a complete 1,500-word short story of dark fantasy.

Read the complete story here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong

Black Gate Online Fiction: Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong

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Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong, published in deluxe trade paperback and digital formats this month by Perseid Press. Here’s Janet Morris, publisher of Perseid.

Is Truck Struck Earth a memoir? Science fiction? New Pulp? Paranormal (or paranoid) fantasy? Noir in the Shaver tradition? UFOlogy? Magical realism? Social Commentary? Black humor? We dunno. But we’re proud to bring you this tough, dangerous book that breaks every rule you thought separated true from false, good from bad, and literature from trash.

Michael A. Armstrong’s first novel was After the Zap. His short fiction has been published in Asimov’s, The Magazine of Science Fiction, Fiction Quarterly, and various anthologies, including Not of Woman Born, a Philip K. Dick award nominee, and several Heroes In Hell anthologies. His other novels include Agviq, The Hidden War, and Bridge Over Hell, part of the Perseid Press Heroes in Hell universe.

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In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Fifteen (The End!)

In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Fifteen (The End!)

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In The Wake of Sister Blue Mark Rigney-medium

Linked below, you’ll find the final installment of a brand-new serialized novel, In the Wake Of Sister Blue. Yes, you heard a’right. This, me hearties, do be the closing section. For now. This will be Book One of a pair (but no, not an ongoing, endless cycle), and you have reached the Continental Divide between the two.

As part of the work of laboring on to the end, I’ve also gone back to the beginning with an eye toward cleaning up typos, improving the prose as needed, and catching the odd mistake. Let’s face it, serialization (at speed) is an invitation to inconsistency. More on that another day, but for now, suffice it to say that the manuscript as a whole is now a good deal neater and cleaner.

A number of you will already be familiar with my Tales Of Gemen (“The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone“), and if you enjoyed those titles (or perhaps my unexpectedly popular D&D-related post, “Youth In a Box,”) I think you’ll also find much to like in this latest venture. Oh, and if you’re only now discovering this portal, may I suggest you begin at the beginning? The Spur awaits…

Read the first installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

Read the fifteenth and final installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

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In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Fourteen

In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Fourteen

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In The Wake of Sister Blue Mark Rigney-medium

Linked below, you’ll find the fourteenth installment of a brand-new serialized novel, In the Wake Of Sister Blue. The battle for the armory is the main order of business, followed by a benedictory aftermath. But wait, we’re not done yet! The final installment will follow in two weeks’ time, so stay tuned –– and for those who fear I’m writing a doorstop, be reassured. This will be Book One of a pair (but no, not an ongoing, endless cycle), and the Great Divide between the two is all but in reach.

A number of you will already be familiar with my Tales Of Gemen (“The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone“), and if you enjoyed those titles (or perhaps my unexpectedly popular D&D-related post, “Youth In a Box,”) I think you’ll also find much to like in this latest venture. Oh, and if you’re only now discovering this portal, may I suggest you begin at the beginning? The Spur awaits…

Read the first installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

Read the fourteenth and latest installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

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In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Thirteen

In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Thirteen

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In The Wake of Sister Blue Mark Rigney-medium

Linked below, you’ll find the thirteenth installment of a brand-new serialized novel, In the Wake Of Sister Blue. Urnua lives to see the secrets of the armory unveiled, Mother Coal instigates a disturbing extrication, and Maer escapes the Middle Isle. Chapter Fourteen will follow in two weeks’ time, so stay tuned –– and for those who fear I’m writing a doorstop, be reassured. This will be Book One of a pair (but no, not an ongoing, endless cycle), and the Great Divide between the two will be reached in Chapter Fifteen.

A number of you will already be familiar with my Tales Of Gemen (“The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone“), and if you enjoyed those titles (or perhaps my unexpectedly popular D&D-related post, “Youth In a Box,”) I think you’ll also find much to like in this latest venture. Oh, and if you’re only now discovering this portal, may I suggest you begin at the beginning? The Spur awaits…

Read the first installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

Read the thirteenth and latest installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

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