Black Gate

Vaughn Entwistle is the author of two volumes in The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Revenant of Thraxton Hall and The Dead Assassin, atmospheric mysteries featuring the detecting duo of Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde.

The Angel of Highgate is a prequel to those books, but to reveal exactly how would be telling. It was published in trade paperback this month by Titan.

People die… but love endures immortal.

Lord Geoffrey Thraxton is notorious in Victorian society — a Byronesque rakehell with a reputation as the “wickedest man in London.” But on a fog-shrouded morning in Highgate Cemetery, Thraxton encounters a spectral wraith that stirs his morbid fascination with death and the supernatural. After surviving a pistol duel, Thraxton boasts his contempt for death and insults the attending physician. It is a mistake he will regret, for Silas Garrette is a deranged sociopath and chloroform-addict whose mind was broken on the battlefields of Crimea. When Thraxton falls in love with a mysterious woman who haunts Highgate Cemetery by night, he unwittingly provides the murderous doctor with the perfect means to punish a man with no fear of death.

The Angel of Highgate was published by Titan Books on December 1, 2015. It is 377 pages, priced at $12.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

I’ve been looking forward to Lawrence M. Schoen’s Barsk since I first glimpsed the cover over the summer. It will be released this week, and the pre-release buzz has been impressive. Nancy Hightower at The Washington Post ranked it as one of the Best SF and Fantasy titles of December, saying:

Barsk is set 62,000 years into a human-less future, where anthropomorphic animals rule the galaxy. There is no record of human existence, and while the different species get along relatively well, the Fant, an elephant-like hybrid, are completely shunned and exiled to live on a rainy planet called Barsk. While labeled less intelligent and “dirty,” the Fant nonetheless are the only species to produce a drug that allows clairvoyants known as Speakers to commune with the dead. When the planet is threatened with invasion and annihilation by the galaxy Senate, Jorl, a Fant Speaker, must race to save it by communing with ancient beings who hold even darker truths. Suspenseful and emotionally engaging, Barsk brings readers into a fascinating speculative world.

Lawrence has been nominated for the Nebula Award three times, and the Hugo Award once. The early reviews for Barsk have been glowing, with Karl Schroeder calling it “A compulsive page-turner and immensely enjoyable,” and James L. Cambias proclaiming it “Captivating… [a] heartwarming story in a unique and fantastic world… as rich and mysterious as Dune.” We first covered the book last month.

Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard will be published by Tor Books on December 29, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The marvelous cover is by Victo Ngai.

Ben Elton has written fourteen international bestsellers, including Dead Famous and Two Brothers. His latest novel is a time-travel mystery which Sir Kenneth Branagh calls “An exceptional thriller. Darkly comic, richly humane, and seriously entertaining. The final twist is spine chilling.” It was released in hardcover on Tuesday.

It’s the first of June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer is quite literally the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps now they never will be.

Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal madness that will destroy European civilization and bring misery to millions in the century to come. He knows this because, for him, that century is already history.

Somehow he must change that history. He must prevent the war. A war that will begin with a single bullet. But can a single bullet truly corrupt an entire century? And, if so, could another single bullet save it?

Time and Time Again was published by Thomas Dunne Books on December 22, 2015. It is 387 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 in digital format. The cover was designed by Mulcahey & Claire Ward/TW. Click on the images above for bigger versions.

Now here’s something interesting that may have slipped past most BG readers… a gothic fantasy set in 13th-century Bohemia that has been getting some excellent reviews. Publishers Weekly calls it “A deliciously creepy debut… [with] an intricate world full of terrifying details,” and Kirkus Reviews sums it up as “Part history, part horror, part love story… does a good job of interweaving history with mythology and the supernatural… Brings the Dark Ages to strange and bewitching life.”

Set against the historical reign of the Golden and Iron King, Bohemian Gospel is the tale of a bold girl with unusual gifts who finds herself at odds with supernatural forces in a world rich with superstition. Well worth a look.

Thirteenth-century Bohemia is a dangerous place for a girl, especially one as odd as Mouse, born with unnatural senses and an uncanny intellect. Some call her a witch. Others call her an angel. Even Mouse doesn’t know who — or what — she is. But she means to find out.

When young King Ottakar shows up at the Abbey wounded by a traitor’s arrow, Mouse breaks church law to save him and then agrees to accompany him back to Prague as his personal healer. Caught in the undertow of court politics at the castle, Ottakar and Mouse find themselves drawn to each other as they work to uncover the threat against him and to unravel the mystery of her past. But when Mouse’s unusual gifts give rise to a violence and strength that surprise everyone — especially herself — she is forced to ask herself: Will she be prepared for the future that awaits her?

Bohemian Gospel was published by Pegasus on November 15, 2015. It is 367 pages, priced at $25.95 in hardcover and $22.73 for the digital edition. The cover was deigned by Faceout Studio.

There are a lot of new anthologies released every year, including around a dozen Year’s Best volumes. I frequently get asked which is the best single-volume collection showcasing the finest science fiction and fantasy of the year. And year after year, I always suggest the same book: the annual Nebula Awards Showcase, which contains the stories selected by the Science Fiction Writers of America for the prestigious Nebula Awards. It also includes many of the runners-up, author appreciations, yearly wrap-ups, novel excerpts, and other fascinating articles.

The annual Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published every year since 1966. The 2015 volume contains some of the most talked-about fiction of the past several years, including Rachel Swirsky’s “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,” Sophia Samatar’s “Selkie Stories Are For Losers,” Aliette de Bodard’s “The Waiting Stars,” and many others. Here’s the description.

The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published annually since 1966, reprinting the winning and nominated stories of the Nebula Awards, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). The editor, selected by SFWA’s anthology Committee (chaired by Mike Resnick), is American science fiction and fantasy writer Greg Bear, author of over thirty novels, including the Nebula Award-winning Darwin’s Radio and Moving Mars. This year’s volume includes the winners of the Andre Norton, Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, Rhysling, and Dwarf Stars Awards, as well as the Nebula Award winners, and features Ann Leckie, Nalo Hopkinson, Rachel Swirsky, Aliette de Bodard, and Vylar Kaftan, with additional articles and poems by authors such as Robin Wayne Bailey, Samuel R. Delany, Terry A. Garey, Deborah P Kolodji, and Andrew Robert Sutton.

We covered the previous volume, Nebula Awards Showcase 2014, edited by Kij Johnson, last May (and the TOCs for the now-classic first three volumes are here). Read all about this year’s Nebula winners here.

Nebula Awards Showcase 2015 was published by Pyr Books on December 8, 2015. It is 347 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by John Harris.

Paul Meloy is the author of Dogs With Their Eyes Shut, a horror novella from PS Publishing, and the short story collection Islington Crocodiles. His short fiction has appeared in places like Black Static, Interzone, and several anthologies.

His brand new debut novel The Night Clock, set in the same world as Dogs with Their Eyes Shut, is an intriguing blend of dark fantasy, science fiction and horror. The collaborative writing team S.L. Grey says it “isn’t just a good horror novel, it’s a great one. Superbly written, full of bite, originality, and, most importantly, heart and soul.”

And still the Night Clock ticks…

Phil Trevena’s boss is an idiot, his daughter is running wild, and his patients are killing themselves. There is something terrible growing in Phil that even his years as a mental health worker can’t explain — until he meets the enigmatic Daniel, and learns of the war for the minds of humanity that rages in Dark Time, the space between reality and nightmares measured by the Night Clock.

Drawn into the conflict, Phil and Daniel encounter the Firmament Surgeons, a brave and strange band that are all that prevents the nightmarish ranks of the Autoscopes overrunning us. The enemy is fueled by a limitless hatred that could rip our reality apart. To end the war the darkness that dwells in the shadow of the Night Clock must be defeated…

The Night Clock was published by Solaris on November 10, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $9.99 in paperback and just $0.99 for the digital version.