New Treasures – Page 149

Clarkesworld 100 Now on Sale

Friday, January 2, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The award-winning Clarkesworld magazine published its 100th issue this month — a landmark by any measure. Very few SF and fantasy magazines have made it to 100 issues, and this is something that deserves to be celebrated.

This bigger-than-average issue contains fiction from Naomi Kritzer, Kij Johnson, Catherynne M. Valente, Jay Lake, Damien Broderick, Karl Schroeder, and others. The four non-fiction pieces are “Song for a City-Universe: Lucius Shepard’s Abandoned Vermillion,” by Jason Heller, “Exploring the Frontier: A Conversation with Xia Jia,” by Ken Liu, “#PurpleSF” by Cat Rambo, and an editorial by Neil Clarke: “On the Road to One Hundred.”

This issue’s podcast is “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight” by Aliette fde Bodard, read by Kate Baker.

Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, & Sean Wallace won the World Fantasy Award in the Special Award Non-Professional category for Clarkesworld in November (see our complete report here).

We last covered Clarkesworld with Issue 97 and the anthology Clarkesworld: Year Six edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace. The anthologies are inexpensive and a great way to introduce yourself to Clarkesworld. Every purchase helps support the magazine… definitely worth considering if you’re at all a fan of short fiction.

Clarkesworld 100 was published by Wyrm Publishing. The contents are available for free online; individual issues can be purchased for $3.99, and monthly subscriptions are $2.99/month. A 6-month sub is $17.94, and the annual price is $35.88. Learn more and order individual issues at the magazine’s website.

This issue’s cover is by Julie Dillon. See the complete issue here.

See all of our recent magazine coverage here.

Uncanny Magazine Issue 2 on Sale January 6

Thursday, January 1, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

The second issue of Uncanny Magazine goes on sale next week, and it looks terrific.

Issue #2, cover dated January/February 2015, contains new fiction by Hao Jingfang, Sam J. Miller, Amal El-Mohtar, Richard Bowes, and Sunny Moraine, and a classic reprint by Ann Leckie. There’s also poetry from Isabel Yap, Mari Ness, and Rose Lemberg. Nonfiction this issue includes Jim C. Hines’s “The Politics of Comfort,” “The Future’s Been Here Since 1939: Female Fans, Cosplay, and Conventions” by Erica McGillivray, “Age of the Geek, Baby” by Michi Trota, and Keidra Chaney on “The Evolution of Nerd Rock.”

Black Gate‘s website editor emeritus C.S.E. Cooney joined Uncanny last month as their newest podcast reader, and this issue includes two full podcasts, with C.S.E. and Amal El-Mohtar reading two stories and two poems. I admit I puzzled over exactly how a magazine could include a podcast, before I remembered that Uncanny is digital-only. Shows you how old school I am.

We last covered Uncanny Magazine with Issue #1, which contained new fiction by Maria Dahvana Headley, Kat Howard, Max Gladstone, Amelia Beamer, Ken Liu, and Christopher Barzak, and a reprint from Jay Lake, plus poetry by Neil Gaiman, Amal El-Mohtar, and Sonya Taaffe.

Uncanny Magazine is edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Michael Damian Thomas, and Michi Trota, and published bi-monthly. This issue’s cover is by Julie Dillon. The issue is priced at $3.99, and is available as an eBook (PDF, EPUB, MOBI). eBook Subscriptions are available at Weightless Books. See all the details at the magazine’s website.

New Treasures: The Waking Engine by David Edison

Wednesday, December 31, 2014 John ONeill Comments 9 comments

At we wrap up each year, I usually look back at all the new books we’ve highlighted over the past twelve months and make one final effort to slip in a few titles we’ve overlooked. If a hardcover has been on the shelves too long to showcase as a New Treasure without embarrassing myself, I sometimes feature the paperback reprint instead. Usually I get away with it without too many complaints — Black Gate readers are an indulgent lot, especially when it comes to books.

I’m in bit of a jam with The Waking Engine, though. David Edison’s debut novel has received lots of terrific press… I’m not sure how I managed to miss it when it first came out, but I can’t let the year close out without at least a mention. The paperback’s not due until May 5th, however, so it looks like I need to fess up that I’m trying to pass off a February 2014 title as a new release, and hope everyone is too distracted by New Year’s festivities to notice. Thank you for your indulgence, and Happy New Year.

Contrary to popular wisdom, death is not the end, nor is it a passage to some transcendent afterlife. Those who die merely awake as themselves on one of a million worlds, where they are fated to live until they die again, and wake up somewhere new. All are born only once, but die many times… until they come at last to the City Unspoken, where the gateway to True Death can be found.

Wayfarers and pilgrims are drawn to the City, which is home to murderous aristocrats, disguised gods and goddesses, a sadistic faerie princess, immortal prostitutes and queens, a captive angel, gangs of feral Death Boys and Charnel Girls… and one very confused New Yorker.

Late of Manhattan, Cooper finds himself in a City that is not what it once was. The gateway to True Death is failing, so that the City is becoming overrun by the Dying, who clot its byzantine streets and alleys… and a spreading madness threatens to engulf the entire metaverse.

The Waking Engine was published by Tor Books on February 11, 2014. It is 396 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Stephan Martiniere. Read an excerpt at Tor.com.

New Treasures: Fearsome Magics: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Tuesday, December 30, 2014 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

Back in September, I told you about Jonathan Strahan’s newest fantasy collection Fearsome Magics: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy, the follow-up to his acclaimed Fearsome Journeys. Fearsome Magics has a stellar list of contributors, including Ellen Klages, Robert Shearman, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Tony Ballantyne, and many more. I’m too lazy to copy over the complete list and the back copy text from my prior post, but you can read them here.

Here’s what James McGlothlin said in his review of the first volume:

Many of Fearsome Journeys’ stories fit squarely within the tradition of fantasy — which I love! For instance, many contain typical tropes such as magic, dragons, wizards, fighters, thieves, etc., as well as familiar plot angles like quests to recover treasure or kill some monster or dragon. However, as one would expect from this lineup, many are fairly experimental attempts to push the boundaries of what is, or should be, considered fantasy…

I can say — without any reservation — all of stories contained within Fearsome Journeys are extremely well-crafted… There’s no doubt that these are some of the best writers in the field today.

Solaris Books continues to single-handedly fuel a renaissance in paperback anthologies, including two top notch science fiction anthology series: Ian Whates’s Solaris Rising and Jonathan Strahan’s Reach for Infinity. I’m very pleased to see a fantasy series join that august list. They’ve shown no signs of resting, either — their newest anthology is Dangerous Games, edited by Jonathan Oliver.

Fearsome Magics is edited by Jonathan Strahan and published by Solaris Books. It was published on October 7, 2014. It is 352 pages, priced at $7.99. The cover is by Tomasz Jedruszek. Our last report on Solaris was Tor.com Salutes Solaris Books on September 30.

Clashing Blades, Hairbreadth Escapes, and Daring Rescues: The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, edited by Lawrence Ellsworth

Monday, December 29, 2014 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Back in May, BG blogger Lawrence Schick (who also writes as Lawrence Ellsworth) told us about his huge upcoming anthology The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure: Classic Tales of Dashing Heroes, Dastardly Villains, and Daring Escapes. Now the book has arrived, and it looks very appetizing indeed. If you enjoy tales of adventure, this one looks like it would make a splendid late Christmas present to yourself.

The word “swashbuckler” conjures up an indelible image: a hero who’s a bit of a rogue but has his own code of honor, an adventurer with laughter on his lips and a flashing sword in his hand. This larger-than-life figure is regularly declared passé, but the swashbuckler is too appealing to ever really die. Who wouldn’t want to face deadly danger with confidence and élan? Who can deny the thrill of clashing blades, hairbreadth escapes, and daring rescues, of facing vile treachery with dauntless courage and passionate devotion?

The swashbuckler tradition was born out of legends like those of the Knights of the Round Table and of Robin Hood, revived in the early 19th century by Romantic movement authors such as Sir Walter Scott. The genre caught hold with the publication of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers in 1844, and for the next century it was arguably the world’s leading form of adventure fiction.

Featuring selections by twenty hugely popular writers from the last century including Rafael Sabatini; Johnston Mcculley (creator of the Zorro character); Alexandre Dumas: Arthur Conan Doyle; and Pierce Egan (author of Robin Hood), this anthology is dedicated to the swashbuckler’s roots: historical adventures by the masters of the genre. Most of these stories have been out of print for decades; some have never before been collected in book form. All are top-notch entertainment.

The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure was published by Pegasus on December 15, 2014. It is 604 pages, priced at $24.95 in paperback or $20.08 for the digital edition.

New Treasures: Trail of Cthulhu: Mythos Expeditions from Pelgrane Press

Saturday, December 27, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I honestly don’t know why no one has done this before: created an anthology of Cthulhu-based RPG adventures based around dangerous expeditions to the four corners of the earth.

Pelgrane Press does absolutely top-notch game products. The production values are excellent, the art is terrific, and the writing is marvelous. Mythos Expeditions was released to support their Trail of Cthulhu role playing game earlier this year; I bought a copy as soon as it became available and I haven’t been disappointed.

Bon voyage! You are about to depart on ten journeys into the unknown, following the trail of Cthulhu to isolated Pacific islands, into the icy wastes of the Arctic, through jungles and war zones and even off the Earth itself. In the blank spaces of the map, dark deities flourish and evil festers… but the truth waits to be discovered, secret knowledge that man may not be meant to know but that Miskatonic University covets. Into that mystery your Investigators go, armed with gun and camera and notebook, risking their own survival to keep those blank spaces from swallowing up the world. Hurry on board — the gangplank is going up!

…

Fearie Tales Has the Best Cover Art of the Year

Friday, December 26, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

One thing I miss about the lack of a print edition of Black Gate is that I no longer shop for cover art.

I still do, sort of, by keeping an eye on the best pieces of art every year. And as we close out 2014, I think I can say that my favorite cover this year was for the deluxe limited edition of PS Publishing’s Fearie Tales, painted by Alan Lee (click on the image at left for a bigger version.) What can I say? I’m a sucker for castles and crows.

Fearie Tales was edited by Stephen Jones and takes inspiration from the original versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Jones invited some of today’s top fantasy and horror writers to create new Grimm Fairy Tales, with a decidedly darker twist. It contains retellings of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Robber Bridegroom, and more from Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Garth Nix, Robert Shearman, Michael Marshall Smith, Christopher Fowler, Angela Slatter, Brian Hodge, Joanne Harris, John Ajvide Lindqvist, and many others. Check out Goth Chick’s review of the US edition here.

Cover artist Alan Lee was, along with John Howe, the lead concept artist for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films. He has illustrated dozens of fantasy novels, including the covers of the 1983 Penguin edition of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, and several works by J.R.R. Tolkien, including the centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings (1995), a 1999 edition of The Hobbit, and The Children of Húrin (2007).

Fearie Tales was published PS Publishing in a deluxe signed traycase edition limited to 200 copies on July 1, 2014, priced at £249.00. It is also available in a trade edition (with a different cover), published by Jo Fletcher Books on September 23, 2014, priced at $24.99.

New Treasures: Night Shift by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Milla Vane and Lisa Shearin

Thursday, December 25, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

You know why I enjoy anthologies so much? Because they allow you to sample so many great new writers. Of course, that asset can be mitigated somewhat by the length of short stories — just as you discover a terrific new writer, the story is over. That’s why I enjoy these Berkley novella collections. They invite some of the best urban fantasy writers working today to contribute an original novella. Here’s your chance to sample four brand new tales of dark fantasy by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Milla Vane, and Lisa Shearin, all under one cover.

Four masters of urban fantasy and paranormal romance plunge readers into the dangerous, captivating world unearthed beyond the dark…

New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh delivers a smoldering story with Secrets at Midnight, as the scent of Bastien Smith’s elusive lover ignites a possessiveness in him that’s as feral as it is ecstatic. And now that he’s found his mate, he’ll do anything to keep her.

In #1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews’ novella, Magic Steals, when people start going missing, shapeshifting tigress Dali Harimau and jaguar shifter Jim Shrapshire must uncover the truth about the mysterious creatures responsible.

From Milla Vane — a warrior princess must tame The Beast of Blackmoor to earn a place among her people. But she quickly discovers that the beast isn’t a monster, but a barbarian warrior who intends to do some taming himself.

It’s seer Makenna Frazier’s first day on the job at Supernatural Protection and Investigations, and her first assignment is more than she bargained for when bodyguard duty for a leprechaun prince’s bachelor party goes every which way but right in national bestselling author Lisa Shearin’s Lucky Charms.

Night Shift was published by Berkley on November 25, 2014. It is 378 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital version.

More Hardboiled than the Dresden Files: The Way Into Chaos: Book One of The Great Way by Harry Connolly

Monday, December 22, 2014 Comments 1 comment

Great-Way-Final-Cover-eBook-1-copy-678x1024 — A good… Big Fat Heroic Fantasy Epic

I’m starting to think that writing a good — by good, I means delivers the tropes while meeting wider literary standards — Big Fat Heroic Fantasy Epic is like squaring a circle, reconciling Justice with Mercy, bringing World Peace… an exercise in balancing seemingly irreconcilable opposites.

You need to have the world building of Tolkien but the pacing of Ian Fleming, the escapism of C.S. Lewis but the grit and cynicism of John Steinbeck. It has to be an armchair-by-the-fire-dog-at-my-feet-on-a-winter-day read, and yet not pretend that pre-modern societies are anything but structurally unpleasant. It needs to take you on a flight of fancy, but ground you in the familiar. And, given that we live in the 21st century, despite the pre-modern setting, it’s nice to have believably empowered women helping to shape the story.

In his new book The Way Into Chaos, Book One of The Great Way, Harry Connolly has somehow managed to do this. Before I put on my writer hat, let me speak as a reader:

I approached this book with some trepidation because I was already a fan of Harry Connolly’s Twenty Palaces urban fantasy series (interview here).

More hardboiled than the Dresden Files, Connolly’s take on the UF genre has a delicious bleakness to it. His hero faces not just a nihilistic a-human magical world with shades of Lovecraft (…more grown up, more disquieting; you could almost call it Atheist Urban Fantasy) but also the bleaker corners of America. His mean streets and bedeviled small towns are as alienating as the magic, not leather-jacket-cool, not picket-fence cozy. His magic feels real in a maggots-under-the-skin way, and his horror elements throw into relief the things we truly care about. The plot and pacing meanwhile makes what could be an emotional battering into an adventure.

…

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

Sunday, December 21, 2014 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Clarkesworld Magazine is one of the finest online outlets for science fiction and fantasy. Edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, it has been published monthly since October 2006. Fiction from the magazine has been nominated for countless awards — including the Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, WSFA Small Press, World Fantasy, Hugo, and Nebula — and the magazine has been nominated for the Chesley, Hugo, World Fantasy, Locus, and Nebula awards. It won the 2010, 2011, and 2013 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine, the 2014 British Fantasy Award for Best Magazine, and the 2014 World Fantasy Special Award in the Non-Professional category.

Every year, the editors gather all the online fiction from the previous year into a single generous volume and this year is the biggest yet: 427 pages, collecting all 34 stories published in 2013, from authors like Aliette de Bodard, Robert Reed, Mari Ness, Erik Amundsen, Catherynne M. Valente, Carrie Vaughn, Suzanne Church, Kij Johnson, Sofia Samatar, Lavie Tidhar, Ken Liu, and many others.

The book also serves as a fund-raiser for the magazine (which is available free), and every purchase helps support one of the finest magazines out there. In his introduction to this year’s volume, Neil says:

In July of 2012, I had a “widow-maker” heart attack that nearly killed me. Afterwards, I took a long, hard look at my life and started pruning away the unnecessary…

Since then Clarkesworld has slowly, but steadily, grown. I can’t quit the day job just yet, but thanks to people like you, I’m even more confident it will happen. By purchasing this book, subscribing to Clarkesworld, writing a review, or supporting us at Patreon, you are helping me realize that dream. Thank you! It means a lot.

Clarkesworld: Year Six was edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace and published by Wyrm Publishing on May 24, 2014. It is 427 pages, priced at $16.95 in trade paperback, and $6.99 for the digital version. I bought my copy in the Dealers Room at the World Fantasy Convention. Visit the Clarkesworld website here or subscribe for just $2.99/month.

Black Gate

Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Browsed by
Category: New Treasures