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New Realm March 2015 Now on Sale

New Realm March 2015 Now on Sale

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New Realm magazine March 2015-smallI discovered New Realm last week, as I was preparing my update on magazine coverage here at Black Gate. It’s one of seven new monthly digital magazines launched at FictionMagazines.com over the past few years; the others are eFiction (literary fiction), FIVE Poetry, Heater (mystery/thriller), Nebula Rift (science fiction), Romance Magazine (romance/adult), and Under the Bed (horror).

eFiction was the first; it was started by Doug Lance in his college apartment, and published its first issue April 1st, 2010. The others were added in 2012. The magazines rely on a community to produce each issue; volunteers read and vote on story submissions, and those with the most votes end up in each issue. It’s a daring and unusual approach to short fiction publishing.

Each issue of New Realm contains five stories; there’s no non-fiction mentioned, although the guidelines talk about book reviews and interviews. Looking over the 23 monthly issues published so far, I notice two things. First, the covers, by Doug Lance and a team of artists, are excellent, easily a notch or two above most other small press fantasy magazines. Second, I don’t recognize any of the contributors, which tells me the mag is looking far afield of the usual sources to bring new voices into the genre.

The March 2015 issue contains the usual five stories. Here’s the complete table of contents.

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Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel edited by D.M. Ritzlin

Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel edited by D.M. Ritzlin

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oie_3111058UFfTOs2zWhen John O’Neill posted a few weeks ago about Swords of Steel, edited by D.M. Ritzlin, I knew I had to read it. The hook was simple: swords & sorcery stories written by members of metal bands. Tons of heavy bands — Uriah Heep, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Metallica, Megadeth, to name several — have drawn on the themes of heroism, monster-fighting, and sorcery for lyrics and look. Sometimes they lift stuff directly from favorite authors, like the UK band called Conan, or Texas band The Sword with the song “Beyond the Black River.”

When I read Tolkien I hear folk music in my head; when I read Karl Edward Wagner I hear Black Sabbath. So although I recognized the name of only one band represented in the collection, I was stoked to dive in. With an amazingly cool cover by Martin Hanford and its back cover claim that it’s “NOT FOR WIMPS!,” I was expecting great things from Swords of Steel. It came tantalizingly close.

Set in England during the reign of Elizabeth I,”Into the Dawn of Storms” by Byron A. Roberts (vocalist, Bal-Sagoth) gets the book off to a solid start. Captain Blackthorne is plagued with dreams of death and magic and seeks help from the legend-shrouded scholar, John Dee. It’s billed as the first chapter in an ongoing saga and I’ll be keeping my eyes open for Chapter Two.

From the author bio (and there’s a nice one included for everybody), I learned that Roberts has developed a mulitverse that forms the foundation of his band’s music. This story, with references to past exploits and multiple worlds, is set there as well.

“The Riddle Master” by Ernest Cunningham Hellwell (bassist, Hellwell) is one of the best stories in the collection but, sadly, not S&S at all. A nameless writer narrates his run-in and bet with a demon, made to ensure eternal fame.

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New Treasures: The Haunting of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie and Alyssa B. Sheinmel

New Treasures: The Haunting of Sunshine Girl by Paige McKenzie and Alyssa B. Sheinmel

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The Haunting of Sunshine Girl-smallThe Haunting of Sunshine Girl is a popular YouTube web series starring Paige McKenzie, created by Nick Hagen and Mercedes Rose. The series focuses of 16-year old Sunshine following her move to Washington state from Texas with her mother, as she enters a new school, meets new friends (and boys)… and discovers her hew house is haunted by a host of malevolent spirits.

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is the first book based on the web serial, and it has received a lot of attention all on its own. Written by star Paige McKenzie and author Alyssa B. Sheinmel (Second Star, The Beautiful Between), it is the opening book in a promising horror series aimed at young adults.

Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Sunshine Griffith and her mother Kat move from sunny Austin, Texas, to the rain-drenched town of Ridgemont, Washington. Though Sunshine is adopted, she and her mother have always been close, sharing a special bond filled with laughter and inside jokes. But from the moment they arrive, Sunshine feels her world darken with an eeriness she cannot place. And even if Kat doesn’t recognize it, Sunshine knows that something about their new house is just … creepy.

In the days that follow, things only get stranger. Sunshine is followed around the house by an icy breeze, phantom wind slams her bedroom door shut, and eventually, the laughter Sunshine hears on her first night evolves into sobs. She can hardly believe it, but as the spirits haunting her house become more frightening — and it becomes clear that Kat is in danger — Sunshine must accept what she is, pass the test before her, and save her mother from a fate worse than death.

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl was published by Weinstein Books on March 24, 2015. It is 304 pages, priced at $16 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. Check out the YouTube series here.

Fantasy Scroll Magazine 5 Now Available

Fantasy Scroll Magazine 5 Now Available

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Fantasy Scroll Magazine 5-smallThe fifth issue of the Kickstarter-funded online-only Fantasy Scroll Magazine is now available.

Fantasy Scroll was launched with an Introductory Issue #0 in January 2014, which was used as a proof-of-concept for a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign ended on April 23, 2014, raising $2,956 against a $2,500 goal, enough to fund a full year (four issues).

Fantasy Scroll has become a poster child for the right way to fund and launch a new fantasy magazine. All four issues were released last year, as promised, and the mag has been successful enough to self-fund issue #5. It’s accomplished that by selling merchandise, launching a mobile app, soliciting donations — and additional funding drives, creating a Starlight Patrol of enthusiastic backers and supporters at Patreon who help keep the magazine going.

Fantasy Scroll has published original short fiction by Ken Liu, Mike Resnick, Piers Anthony, Cat Rambo, Rachel Pollack, Seth Chambers, and many others. The magazine is edited by Iulian Ionescu, Frederick Doot, and Michelle Muller. It’s published quarterly, and the contents include all kinds of fantastic literature — science fiction, fantasy, horror, and paranormal short-fiction — and run the gamut from short stories to flash fiction to micro-fiction.

Issue #5 is cover-dated February 2015, and includes 10 short stories from Emily Cataneo, Laurie Tom, Jarod Anderson and others — including “How the Grail Came to the Fisher King,” a new story by Black Gate author and blogger Sarah Avery.

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New Treasures: Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson

New Treasures: Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson

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Unwrapped Sky-smallWhen Unwrapped Sky, the debut fantasy novel by Australian writer Rjurik Davidson, appeared in hardcover last April, it got solid reviews for its innovative world building and original setting. Locus praised its “tough urban setting, influenced by noir mysteries as well as steampunk,” and Hannu Rajaniemi, author of The Quantum Thief, called it “Brilliant… Caeli-Amur is one of the more memorable cities in recent fantasy.”

Rjurik Davidson is already being acclaimed as a young master of the New Weird. Unwrapped Sky arrived in paperback earlier this month, and I picked up a copy as soon as I saw it. This looks like the kind of book I could lose myself in.

A hundred years ago, the Minotaurs saved Caeli-Amur from conquest. Now, three very different people may hold the keys to the city’s survival.

Once, it is said, gods used magic to create reality, with powers that defied explanation. But the magic — or science, if one believes those who try to master the dangers of thaumaturgy — now seems more like a dream. Industrial workers for House Technis, farmers for House Arbor, and fisher folk of House Marin eke out a living and hope for a better future. But the philosopher-assassin Kata plots a betrayal that will cost the lives of godlike Minotaurs; the ambitious bureaucrat Boris Autec rises through the ranks as his private life turns to ashes; and the idealistic seditionist Maximilian hatches a mad plot to unlock the vaunted secrets of the Great Library of Caeli-Enas, drowned in the fabled city at the bottom of the sea, its strangeness visible from the skies above.

In a novel of startling originality and riveting suspense, these three people, reflecting all the hopes and dreams of the ancient city, risk everything for a future that they can create only by throwing off the shackles of tradition and superstition, as their destinies collide at ground zero of a conflagration that will transform the world… or destroy it.

Unwrapped Sky was published by Tor on March 3, 2015. It is 516 pages, priced at $8.99 for both the paperback and digital editions. The cover art is by Allen Williams.

New Treasures: Clarkesworld: Year Seven, edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace

New Treasures: Clarkesworld: Year Seven, edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace

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Clarkesworld Year Seven-smallThese annual Clarkesworld anthologies are a tremendous bargain. The individual magazines are $3.99 each, but these volumes collect all the original fiction for a full 12 months in a handsome package for just $16.99.

If you haven’t tried Clarkesworld, you’re missing out on one of the most vibrant and celebrated SF and fantasy magazines on the market. It is a three-time winner of the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine, and in 2013 it received more Hugo nominations for short fiction than all the leading print magazines (Asimov’s, Analog, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) combined. Last November the magazine was awarded a World Fantasy Award.

Clarkesworld Year Seven collects original fiction from many of the most exciting writers on the market, including Genevieve Valentine, Aliette de Bodard, James Patrick Kelly, E. Catherine Tobler, E. Lily Yu, and many others.

The book also serves as a fund-raiser for the magazine, and every purchase helps support one of the finest magazines out there.

This year’s edition contains a whopping 36 stories. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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New Treasures: Tales from the Nightside by Simon R. Green

New Treasures: Tales from the Nightside by Simon R. Green

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Tales From the Nightside-smallSimon R. Green’s first Nightside book, Something from the Nightside, was published a dozen years ago. Since then there have been eleven more; the most recent was The Bride Wore Black Leather (2012).

I always thought Nightside was a fascinating setting, but I’ve never had time to try one of the novels. But Tales from the Nightside, the first collection in the series, offers a chance to take a short trip to Nightside — just what I’ve been looking for. It includes ten stories, including “The Big Game,” a novella that has never before been published.

Welcome to the Nightside. It’s the secret heart of London, beating to its own rhythm, pumping lifeblood through the veins of its streets and alleys hidden in eternal darkness, where creatures of the night congregate and where the sun is afraid to shine. It’s the place to go if you’re looking to indulge the darker side of your nature — and to hell with the consequences.

Tales from the Nightside presents ten macabre mysteries that shine a dim beam into the neighborhood’s darkest corners to reveal things that should never come to light. Take a walk with such deadly and dangerous denizens of the Nightside as Razor Eddie, Dead Boy, and Larry Oblivion as they encounter things even more inhuman and inhumane than they are. And join John Taylor, the PI with a knack for finding lost things, as he confronts Sir Francis Varney, King of the Vampires, in a never-before-published novella-length adventure.

There may be nothing to be afraid of in the dark, but there’s plenty to be afraid of in the Nightside…

Tales from the Nightside includes the following stories.

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March 2015 Lightspeed Magazine Now on Sale

March 2015 Lightspeed Magazine Now on Sale

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Lightspeed Magazine March 2013-smallAs promised in my fantasy magazine survey this morning, we kick off our coverage of John Joseph Adams’ excellent online magazine Lightspeed with #58, the March 2015 issue.

Lightspeed publishes both fantasy and SF, both new fiction and reprints. Among other stories, the March issue contains “A Face of Black Iron” by Matthew Hughes, the tenth standalone installment in his long-running Kaslo Chronicles, all of which are available online. Here’s the tantalizing blurb:

An ancient evil, lurking in another dimension through all the aeons since magic last ruled the universe, is striking out at Erm Kaslo, former hardboiled confidential operative (op) turned wizard’s henchman, and his employer, the proto-thaumaturge Diomedo Obron. Now the two, along with the mysterious Archon Filidor of Old Earth, must re-enter the Seventh Plane, discover what awaits them there, and try to destroy it before it destroys them.

You can read all ten stories in the series at the Lightspeed website.

The complete contents of the March issue are:

Fantasy

“A Face of Black Iron” by Matthew Hughes
“Documentary” by Vajra Chandrasekera — available March 24
“The Way Home” by Linda Nagata (from Operation Arcana)
“The Good Son” by Naomi Kritzer (from Jim Baen’s Universe, February 2009)

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Expanding Our Magazine Coverage at Black Gate

Expanding Our Magazine Coverage at Black Gate

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New Realm magazine February 2015-smallI’ve slowly been expanding our coverage of fantasy magazines here at Black Gate. Despite how dramatically the industry has changed over the decades since I started reading it, I still consider magazines the heart of the field. Our coverage is not nearly as comprehensive as I’d like it to be, but we’re getting there. I thought I’d pause for a moment and take stock of those publications we currently cover, and see if there are any obvious holes. They are:

Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by C.C. Finlay
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews
Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, edited by Adrian Simmons, David Farney, William Ledbetter and James Frederick William Rowe
Nightmare, edited by John Joseph Adams
Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace
The Dark, edited by Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace
Uncanny, edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota
Weirdbook, edited by Douglas Draa‎
Interzone, edited by Andy Cox
Black Static, edited by Andy Cox
Weird Tales, edited by Marvin Kaye
Swords and Sorcery Magazine, edited by Curtis Ellett
Shimmer, edited by E. Catherine Tobler
Fantasy Scroll, edited by Iulian Ionescu, Frederick Doot, and Alexandra Zamorski
Gygax, edited by Jayson Elliot
Weird Fiction Review, edited by S.T. Joshi

Whew. That’s more than I thought.

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New Treasures: Old Man’s Ghosts by Tom Lloyd

New Treasures: Old Man’s Ghosts by Tom Lloyd

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Old Man's Ghosts-smallI’ve gotten to know a lot of writers — and aspiring writers — through my association with Black Gate over the years. Which means I’ve had the pleasure of reading many fine novels well before they’re released. Sometimes in draft, sometimes as an advance galley, and sometimes just as a favor to folks hoping for an advance review or a quick cover blurb. For a while in fact, it seemed I didn’t even pick up a novel unless I knew the author personally.

Recently I’ve been trying to change that. To go far afield, and seek out new talent from all corners of the world. I don’t know a single thing about author Tom Lloyd, for example, but I know I like the cover of his new book, and the description. What more do I need?

Some men can never outrun their ghosts. Enchei thought he’d found a home at last — a life of quiet obscurity far removed from the horror of his military days. After a decade in the Imperial City his mistakes have been few, but one has now returned to haunt him. As Narin’s pregnant lover comes to term, life has never been so perilous. There couldn’t be a worse time for a nightmare to be unleashed on the Imperial City, but luck’s rarely been on Narin’s side. Once, Enchei swore he’d take his own life rather than let his past catch up with him, but now it’s not just his own in the balance. Demons, rogue mages and vengeful noblemen haunt the city – and a man’s ghosts are always watching and waiting..

Old Man’s Ghosts was published by Gollancz on March 19, 2015. It is 400 pages, priced at $16.95 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital version.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.