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Category: Future Treasures

Future Treasures: Courtney Crumrin Volume 7: Tales of a Warlock by Ted Naifeh

Future Treasures: Courtney Crumrin Volume 7: Tales of a Warlock by Ted Naifeh

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Courtney Crumrin Volume 7 Tales of a Warlock-smallNearly three years ago, I reviewed the first volume of the new hardcover editions of Courtney Crumrin, concluding that “Courtney Crumrin is one of the finest comics produced in the 21st Century.”

In his Black Gate blog post on Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, renamed Courtney Crumrin Volume One: The Night Things in its expanded hardcover edition, Michael Penkas did a far better job than I of describing the appeal of this brilliant comic:

Be honest. If you had magical powers when you were a teenager, what would you have done? How long would you have walked the path of righteousness before cursing the school bullies? Before casting a spell to make yourself popular? Before just flat-out killing bad people? Would you have made friends with elves… or goblins?

Ted Naifeh’s series of fantasy comics… introduces us to Courtney Crumrin on the day her vapid parents move in with her grand-uncle, Aloysius… Going through his collection of grimoires, she begins her own self-guided education in the magical arts. In the first volume, she traps a child-eating goblin, enchants herself to become the most popular girl in school, travels to the faerie kingdom to swap out a changeling for a human infant, and gets replaced by a doppelganger who turns out to be nicer than her.

Like Michael, I was thrilled to find the early black & white issues of Courtney Crumrin gradually being collected in handsome and affordable hardcover editions — and in color! I was purchasing them steadily, until I kinda lost track of them. (Cut me some slack… I collect a lot of stuff.) Shortly after Christmas, when I noticed that it was now 2015, I did a quick check to see how many volumes were out. I was startled to see that no less than six had already been released, and a seventh, Tales of a Warlock, was on its way.

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Future Treasures: The Sculptor by Scott McCloud

Future Treasures: The Sculptor by Scott McCloud

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Scott McCloud The Sculptor-smallScott McCloud is one of my all-time favorite comic creators.

I’ve been reading comics for 45 years, so it’s not easy to pick favorites. When pressed, I say Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, Spider-man by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Dave Sim’s Cerebus, Love and Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez… and Scott McCloud’s masterpiece, Zot!

Zot! is a pretty simple story. It’s about a boy with a rocket pack and a blaster, living in a futuristic version of the 1960s, who accidentally stumbles into our dark, gritty, and sometimes bleak world. It’s a kid’s comic, for sure, and a superb one, filled with a lot of action, great characters, fabulous villains, and laugh-out-loud humor. I’ve read thousands of comics since I set down the last issue of Zot! in 1990, many of them excellent, but I can’t recall a single one with the same joyous sense of fun and madcap love of the medium. Just ask everyone who sent in letters (pre-Internet!) to vote on which character should get a pie in the face in issue #27.

McCloud had substantial success with his groundbreaking books on the comic medium, Understanding Comics (1994) and Reinventing Comics (2000). But his fans have been waiting over a decade for him to return to comics as a storyteller, and the long wait is finally over. His first work of adult fiction, The Sculptor is a complete, self-contained graphic novel of love, loss… and a deal with Death.

David Smith is giving his life for his art — literally. Thanks to a deal with Death, the young sculptor gets his childhood wish: to sculpt anything he can imagine with his bare hands. But now that he only has 200 days to live, deciding what to create is harder than he thought, and discovering the love of his life at the 11th hour isn’t making it any easier!

The Sculptor will be published by First Second on February 3, 2015. It is 490 pages, priced at $29.99 in hardcover. No digital edition has been announced.

Bird People, Evil Clowns, and the Crooked One: Bone Swans by C.S.E. Cooney

Bird People, Evil Clowns, and the Crooked One: Bone Swans by C.S.E. Cooney

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Bone Swans CSE Cooney-smallC.S.E. Cooney reports that she has signed a contract with Mythic Delirium Press for her newest collection Bone Swans, coming this summer.

Bone Swans will contain several of her most popular novellas, including The Big Bah-Ha, which Gene Wolfe called “Deep and wise and fabulous… [it] will leave you shuddering and strangely at peace. You could found a religion on it — or it may found a religion without you.” It also includes “The Bone Swans of Amandale,” the first installment of Silver and Bone: The Pied Piper Tales, and “Life on the Sun,” originally published here at Black Gate. Here’s the complete table of contents, with links to online versions where available:

Life on the Sun
The Bone Swans of Amandale
Martyr’s Gem
How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One
The Big Bah-Ha

C.S.E. Cooney is a podcast reader for Uncanny Magazine; Amal El-Mohtar recently reviewed her short story “Witch, Beast, Saint” at Tor.com, and Mark Rigney interviewed her in late October. The two C.S.E. Cooney short stories we presented here, “Godmother Lizard” and “Life on the Sun,” consistently rank among the most popular pieces we’ve ever published. She is a past website editor of Black Gate, and the author of How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes and Jack o’ the Hills.

Bone Swans will be published by Mythic Delirium Press on July 7th, 2015. Get more details on their website.

The Early Novels of Jack Vance: Grand Crusades: The Early Jack Vance, Volume Five, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan

The Early Novels of Jack Vance: Grand Crusades: The Early Jack Vance, Volume Five, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan

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Grand Crusades The Early Jack Vance Volume Five-smallSubterranean Press is now accepting pre-orders on the fifth volume of their landmark series The Early Jack Vance.

New titles in the series are released every March. I covered Volume Two, Dream Castles, after I unexpectedly found a copy in the Dealer’s Room at Capricon 33 in 2013, and I reported on Volume Three, Magic Highways, last March.

Volume Five is by far the largest so far (at 472 pages); I was also surprised to see that it contains only five stories, all short novels, most published in pulp magazines between 1950 and 1954.

The Rapparee (Startling Stories, November 1950)
Crusade to Maxus (Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1951)
Gold and Iron (Space Stories, December 1952)
The Houses of Iszm (Startling Stories, Spring 1954)
Space Opera (Pyramid Books, 1965)

This volume also contains a new introduction by the editors.

The first four books in The Early Jack Vance were a treasure trove for collectors, as they contained Vance stories that have been out of print for decades — and many that have never been reprinted. In contrast, this volume contains four short novels that have appeared in a handful of paperback editions over the decades (and under multiple titles), and one that has never been reprinted. This is first time they’ve been collected under one cover and the first time any have been in print for at least 30 years. I’ve selected a dozen covers from earlier printings below.

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Future Treasures: The Liar’s Key, by Mark Lawrence

Future Treasures: The Liar’s Key, by Mark Lawrence

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The Liar's Key-smallThe Liar’s Key, the second book in Mark Lawrence’s new series The Red Queen’s War, will be published this June. The first volume, Prince of Fools, was released in June 2013; this new volume continues the story of the unusual fellowship between a rogue prince and a weary warrior. It is set in the same world as his previous trilogy The Broken Empire (Prince of Thorns, King of Thorns, and the 2014 David Gemmell Legend Award winner Emperor of Thorns).

We published the first chapter of Prince of Thorns, with a brand new introduction by Mark, here, and Howard Andrew Jones’s interview with him is here. Mark’s long article on writing and selling The Prince of Thorns (and the rejections he got from Black Gate in the meantime) is here.

After harrowing adventure and near-death, Prince Jalan Kendeth and the Viking Snorri ver Snagason find themselves in possession of Loki’s Key, an artefact capable of opening any door, and sought by the most dangerous beings in the Broken Empire — including The Dead King.

Jal wants only to return home to his wine, women, and song, but Snorri has his own purpose for the key: to find the very door into death, throw it wide, and bring his family back into the land of the living.

And as Snorri prepares for his quest to find death’s door, Jal’s grandmother, the Red Queen continues to manipulate kings and pawns towards an endgame of her own design…

The Liar’s Key will be published by Ace Books on June 2, 2015. It is 496 pages, priced at $29.95 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Future Treasures: Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas

Future Treasures: Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas

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Aickman's Heirs-smallI admit that I’d never heard of Undertow books before March of this year, when they announced they’d be publishing the first volume of a new Year’s Best collection, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, edited by Laird Barron.

I’ve heard about them a great deal in the last few months, however. While I was at the World Fantasy Convention in November, I heard a lot of good things about their annual journal of the fantastic, Shadows & Tall Trees, edited by Michael Kelly; the sixth volume, Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, was released in trade paperback in June. And back in October, Undertow made the following announcement on their website:

Coming Spring of 2015, Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas, an anthology of strange, weird tales by modern masters of weird fiction, in the milieu of Robert Aickman, the master of strange and ambiguous stories. Editor and author Strantzas, an important figure in Weird fiction, has been hailed as the heir to Aickman’s oeuvre, and is ideally suited to edit this exciting volume. Cover art by Yaroslav Gerzhedovich. Cover design by Vince Haig.

This is great news. Robert Aickman is one of the most revered ghost story writers of the past 50 years. In October I reported on the beautiful new Faber & Faber editions of his classic ghost story collections, Dark Entries, The Unsettled Dust, The Wine Dark Sea, and Cold Hand in Mine. Aickman’s Heirs’s will contain stories by Nina Allan, Michael Cisco, Brian Evenson, John Langan, Helen Marshall, David Nickle, Lisa Tuttle, and many others.

Undertow is an imprint of the highly regarded ChiZine Publications (whom we examined in detail just last week.) We discussed Simon Strantzas’s fourth collection, Burnt Black Suns, in November.

See all our recent coverage of upcoming books here.

Future Treasures: Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

Future Treasures: Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh

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Near Enemy-smallAdam Sternbergh’s debut novel Shovel Ready (which I just covered below a few minutes ago) is now being marketed as part of a series (Shovel Ready: A Spademan Novel). Usually that means more than one book is involved and a little digging last night turned up a sequel: Near Enemy, coming next month.

This one features a job gone wrong, terrorists, Egyptian radicals, and underhanded New York politics. Looks like I’ll have to add this one to the pile.

New York is toxic — decimated by a dirty bomb years ago. The limnosphere is a virtual safe haven — if you’re rich enough to buy in. Spademan is a hit man — box-cutter at the ready.

His latest job is to snuff out Lesser, a lowlife lurking around other people’s fantasies. As Spademan is about to close the deal, Lesser comes back from the limn with a wild claim: terrorists are planning to attack New York. Again. This time from the inside out.

The warning sends Spademan down a dark path full of unsavory characters and startling revelations. A shadowy political fixer tells him of a long-running power struggle that goes all the way to City Hall. A brilliant Egyptian radical brings Spademan to the mysterious far-reaches of the limn. And a beautiful nurse holds the secret to what, and who, is behind these attacks — and she seems to want to help Spademan stop them. But he works best alone. Or so he thinks.

Spademan has always had his share of enemies, but now they’re coming at him from all sides and it’s impossible to know whom to trust. To stay sharp, his only option might be the one thing he swore he’d never do again.

Near Enemy will be published by Crown on January 13, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $24 in hardcover.

Explore a Haunted Cyberpunk City in Punktown from Miskatonic River Press

Explore a Haunted Cyberpunk City in Punktown from Miskatonic River Press

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Punktown-smallI was at the Chronicle City website today, looking for updates on one of my favorite new science fiction RPGs, Cold & Dark, when I stumbled on an interesting update for an upcoming product.

Punktown is a setting book for the Call of Cthulhu and Basic Roleplaying systems. It explores a dark, haunting, cyberpunk city full of aliens, robots and mutants all set in the world of Jeffrey Thomas’ novel series.

With Punktown being the last project by Miskatonic River Press before they wind down operations MRP’s President, Tom Lynch, approached Chronicle City’s founder, Angus Abranson, about looking after the project… The partnership also means that Punktown will live on beyond the core book as Chronicle City and author Jeffrey Thomas will be collaborating on developing future products to support, explore and grow the game.

This is definitely a good-news, bad-news scenario. First, I’m a huge fan of Miskatonic River Press, and it’s great to hear they have something new in the works. They’ve produced some really terrific Call of Cthulhu products, including New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Our Ladies of Sorrow, and their Roman-era adventure The Legacy Of Arrius Lurco.

The bad news of course, is that they’re closing. I noticed they hadn’t published anything for a while, but to hear they were folding up shop is distressing, to say the least. Still, I’ve heard great things about Jeffrey Thomas’s Punktown books, and if Miskatonic River has to end their illustrious publishing career with one book, I’m pleased it’s this one.

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Future Treasures: Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

Future Treasures: Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

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Get in Trouble Kelly Link-smallKelly Link is one of the most exciting writers working in fantasy today. Her previous short story collections, Stranger Things Happen (2001), Magic for Beginners (2006), and Pretty Monsters (2008), are some of the most acclaimed fantasy books of the century. Her short stories have won a Hugo, three Nebulas, and a World Fantasy Award.

Her time these days is taken up with publishing award-winning novels and collections through her publishing company, Small Beer Press — books like Sofia Samatar’s World Fantasy Award winning A Stranger in Olondria, Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters, and Nicole Kornher-Stace’s upcoming Archivist Wasp.

But I’m delighted to see that she has another collection in the works. Get in Trouble will be published in hardcover by Random House in February, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as “a national treasure.” Now Kelly Link’s eagerly awaited new collection — her first for adult readers in a decade — proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.

Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers.

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Future Treasures: Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

Future Treasures: Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

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Foxglove Summer-smallBen Aaronovitch began his writing career with two Doctor Who serials, Remembrance of the Daleks (broadcast 1988) and Battlefield (1989), which means he’s already living the dream life millions of aspiring American fantasy writers. He was a regular writer on the Galaxy Channel’s science fiction series Jupiter Moon.

He became a novelist in 1990 with his first Doctor Who book, a novelization of Remembrance of the Daleks. He produced three more (and one featuring the adventures of companion Benny Summerfield), before launching the best selling series Rivers of London in 2011. The fifth volume, Foxglove Summer, will be published in paperback on January 6th.

When two young girls go missing in rural Herefordshire, police constable and wizard-in-training Peter Grant is sent out of London to check that nothing supernatural is involved. It’s purely routine — Nightingale, Peter’s superior, thinks he’ll be done in less than a day.

But Peter’s never been one to walk away from someone in trouble, so when nothing overtly magical turns up he volunteers his services to the local police, who need all the help they can get. But because the universe likes a joke as much as the next sadistic megalomaniac, Peter soon comes to realize that dark secrets underlie the picturesque fields and villages of the countryside and there might just be work for Britain’s most junior wizard after all.

Soon Peter’s in a vicious race against time, in a world where the boundaries between reality and fairy have never been less clear….

I’m a big fan of this series. We covered the first novel, Rivers of London (published as Midnight Riot in the US), which Diana Gabaldon describes as “What would happen if Harry Potter grew up and joined the Fuzz,” in March 2011, and the fourth, Broken Homes, back in February. Foxglove Summer will be published by DAW Books on January 6, 2015. It is 326 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition.