Black Gate

Concerning Ian Tregillis, last year Howard Andrew Jones wrote:

Ian is an extremely gifted writer… I have to wait to read his books until I have a substantial amount of time in front of me, because I usually can’t stop reading once I begin… I power read the last two [of the Milkweed Triptych] because I couldn’t stand not knowing what happened next. Blew an entire writing day. His work is dangerous for me that way as few modern authors are.

High praise indeed from our Managing Editor. But he’s not alone in his assessment — Publishers Weekly called The Mechanical, the opening volume in his new trilogy, “Superb alternate history filled with clockwork men and ethical questions on the nature of free will… a gripping story,” and George R.R. Martin labeled Ian “A major talent” (a quote that’s been slapped on every single volume of The Alchemy Wars). Now the long-awaited third and final volume in the trilogy will finally be released next month by Orbit.

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When I was a teenager in Ottawa I attended the local SF convention, Maplecon, a marvelous con that I still miss today, without fail every year. In 1984 I was a volunteer, and I was assigned as the liaison for our Guest of Honor, author and editor Ben Bova. I picked Ben and his wife up from the airport and drove them around town, and got to know them pretty well. Ben was gracious, kind, and a marvelous conversationalist, and we talked about everything — various ways to express the laws of thermodynamics, the re-election of Ronald Reagan, his time as editor of Analog, and lots more. In fact, Ben was one of the first industry professionals I got to know personally, and he made a big impression on me.

As a writer, he’s been amazingly prolific over the past few decades, releasing 22 books in his Grand Tour SF series, which explore the solar system, as well as his Voyager series, his Sam Gunn stories, six novels in the Orion sequence, and nearly two dozen standalone novels and collections. His current project is the Star Quest Trilogy (part of the Grand Tour), which takes the series outside the solar system for the first time. New Earth (2013) sets the stage for the trilogy, which began with Death Wave (2015), and continues with Apes and Angels, arriving in hardcover from Tor Books at the end of this month.

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I know a few collaborative writing teams who publish under a joint pseudonym (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, for example, who publish the Expanse novels under the name James S. A. Corey), and I even know a few husband and wife writing teams (like Ann & Andres Aguirre, who write urban fantasy under the name A. A. Aguirre, and bestselling fantasy authors Ilona and Andrew Gordon, who write under the name Ilona Andrews). But I’d never heard of a pair of siblings writing under one name — or at least I hadn’t, until I came across Sherylyn and Karen Dunstall, who write together under the name “S.K. Dunstall.”

Their first book was Linesman, published in paperback by Ace in June of last year. My friend Sharon Shinn called it “Full of fast action, interplanetary intrigue, appealing characters, and a fascinating new take on the idea of the sentient spaceship.” My son Tim, who’s currently studying physics in college, read it in virtually one sitting, and loved it — so much so that when I gave him an advance proof of the second volume, Alliance, for Christmas last year, he happily disappeared for hours.

The third volume in what’s now being called the Linesman series, Confluence, arrives in paperback from Ace at the end of this month. Great timing! That’s my Christmas shopping for Tim done.

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