Browsed by
Category: New Treasures

Gifts From the Godfather of Space Opera: The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Four

Gifts From the Godfather of Space Opera: The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Four

Comments 5 comments

The Collected Edmond Hamilton Volume Four-smallCancel all my appointments! My copy of The Reign of the Robots, The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Four arrived today.

Edmond Hamilton is my favorite pulp writer, and has been ever since I encountered his work in Isaac Asimov’s seminal anthology Before the Golden Age. I talked about my early affection for Hamilton — and my frustration at being unable to find some of his most acclaimed early space opera — in my Vintage Treasures piece on The Best of Edmond Hamilton last fall.

At the time I wrote:

While some of Hamilton’s shorter fiction was reprinted over the years, both Cities in the Air and The Universe Wreckers, and much of the longer work which made him famous, was available only in the early pulps in which they first appeared.

Stephen Haffner finally rectified this in 2011 with his The Collected Edmond Hamilton volumes, which gathered at last all of Hamilton’s early pulp work in archival quality hardcovers (thanks Stephen! I owe you one).

When I wrote that, only three volumes of The Collected Edmond Hamilton were available, covering Hamilton’s work from his very first story “The Monster-God of Mamurth” (from Weird Tales, Aug 1926, gathered in The Metal Giants and Others), through “World Atavism” (from Amazing Stories, Aug 1930, collected in The Universe Wreckers.)

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: RuneQuest 6 by Pete Nash and Lawrence Whitaker

New Treasures: RuneQuest 6 by Pete Nash and Lawrence Whitaker

Comments 9 comments

Runequest Sixth Edition-smallIt takes a lot to get me to try a new role playing system. I’m fairly happy with the ones I already play — first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, and Steve Jackson’s Melee and Wizards games — and I barely have time to devote to those at it is.

I’m not sure what it was that originally drew me to try RuneQuest. I think it might have been the promise of a wholly different flavor of fantasy. AD&D was medieval villages, magic users, and Gygax’s Against the Giants. RuneQuest was talking animals, bronze age warriors from strange ancient cultures, and Paul Jacquey’s enigmatic Duck Tower (“What? A tower of ducks? That’s so weird. What’s with all the ducks in armor? Seriously? Mike, come check this out.”)

So I dragged my brother Mike to a RuneQuest game on the campus at Carleton University in Ottawa, where we soon found ourselves in the thick of a fast-action melee. In our first exposure to critical hit tables, Mike’s grizzled dwarf fighter fumbled an epic axe hit at the height of the battle, and managed to slice off his own leg. To this day, I can’t mention the word “RuneQuest” without Mike growling, “Yeah. Best system in the world.”

Needless to say, Mike didn’t play much after that. But I kept up with the various incarnations. A big part of my fascination was the result of Chaosium’s support efforts, especially the amazing Pavis and Big Rubble boxed sets. I still consider them some of the finest gaming products ever created, and have been much impressed with the recent reprint editions from Moon Design Publications.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The Big Book of Adventure Stories, edited by Otto Penzler

New Treasures: The Big Book of Adventure Stories, edited by Otto Penzler

Comments 10 comments

The Big Book of Adventure Stories-smallIt shouldn’t be a surprise that I love these big omnibus collections, and The Big Book of Adventure Stories is much bigger and omnibus-er than most. Weighing in at a generous 896 pages, it’s Penzler’s generous gift to those of us who love fast-paced pulp adventure… or just need a door stop (for a bank vault).

The massive volume is divided in 11 intriguing sections, including Sword & Sorcery, Man Vs. Nature, Island Paradise, Go West, Young Man (pulp westerns), Future Shock (science fiction), Yellow Peril (sinister Asian villains), and by far the largest, In Darkest Africa.

You can pack a lot of great authors into nearly 900 pages, and Penzer doesn’t disappoint, including Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Philip Jose Farmer, Harold Lamb, Rudyard Kipling, Ray Cummings, Rafael Sabatini, Sax Rohmer, Cornell Wollrich, Louis L’Amour, and many others. Among other fascinating tales are the one that introduced The Cisco Kid, O. Henry’s 1907 “The Caballero’s Way,” and Edgar Rice Burrough’s complete novel Tarzan the Terrible.

Everyone loves adventure, and Otto Penzler has collected the best adventure stories of all time into one mammoth volume. With stories by Jack London, O. Henry, H. Rider Haggard, Alastair MacLean, Talbot Mundy, Cornell Woolrich, and many others, this wide-reaching and fascinating volume contains some of the best characters from the most thrilling adventure tales, including The Cisco Kid; Sheena, Queen of the Jungle; Bulldog Drummond; Tarzan; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Conan the Barbarian; Hopalong Cassidy; King Kong; Zorro; and The Spider. Divided into sections that embody the greatest themes of the genre — Sword & Sorcery, Megalomania Rules, Man vs. Nature, Island Paradise, Sand and Sun, Something Feels Funny, Go West Young Man, Future Shock, I Spy, Yellow Peril, In Darkest Africa — it is destined to be the greatest collection of adventure stories ever compiled.

Featuring: Lawless open seas, ferocious army ants, deadeyed gunmen, exotic desert islands, feverish jungle adventures.

…

Read More Read More

Griots: Sisters of the Spear edited by Milton J. Davis and Charles R. Saunders

Griots: Sisters of the Spear edited by Milton J. Davis and Charles R. Saunders

Comments 9 comments

oie_1432818nsZyAwhJAs I’ve written before, we are living in a S&S renaissance. A genre that was stuck in a loop of rote characters — fighting the same wizards, stealing the same temple treasures and damsels’ virtues — and virtually extinct from bookstore shelves, has come roaring back to life in the past decade. It may not command the same attention it did forty years ago, but it is rousing and alive.

Something that’s proving to be incredibly reinvigorating to the genre is sword & soul.  Charles Saunders, coiner of the term and creator of Imaro and Dossouye, two of the best heroic fantasy characters, describes it this way:

Fantasy fiction with an African connection in either the characters or the setting…or both.  The setting can be the historical Africa of the world we know, or the Africa of an alternate world, dimension or universe. But that’s not a restriction, because a sword-and-soul story can feature a black character in a non-black setting, or a non-black character in a black setting.  Caveat: Tarzan of the Apes need not apply.

About six years ago Milton Davis started writing and publishing his own sword & soul fiction (though this predates the actual term). When a friend sent one of Davis’ manuscripts to Charles Saunders (which he reviewed in Black Gate), one thing led to another and soon they were collaborators in fostering the creation of more sword & soul stories. Their efforts resulted in the terrific Griots anthology in 2011. As I wrote when I reviewed it at my site last year, it is exciting to see a genre I love evolving in real time.

Two years later Davis and Saunders are back with a sequel anthology, Griots: Sisters of the Spear. One of the driving forces of sword & soul is to present characters not often seen in standard-issue S&S. As Saunders writes in the forward, with this volume he and Davis found authors with characters that:

can hold their own and then some against the barbarians and power-mad monarchs and magic-users of both genders who swings swords and cast spells in the mostly European-derived settings of modern fantasy and sword-and-sorcery.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The Woodcutter by Kate Danley

New Treasures: The Woodcutter by Kate Danley

Comments 0 Comment

The Woodcutter-small47North, Amazon’s new fantasy, SF and horror imprint, launched with considerable fanfare in October 2011, and I’ve been watching it with interest ever since. Several genre publishers have quietly cut back — or folded — over the last few years, so I’m always relieved to see the cycle of life continuing, and new imprints emerge. But just as importantly, new publishers bring new editorial ideas and a willingness to take chances, and that means a healthy crop of new authors.

Kate Danley is one of those new authors, and 47North published her debut novel a little over a year ago. The Woodcutter opens with strong fairy tale elements, and quickly takes a darker tone — with missing girls, hellhounds, and a pixie dust drug ring.

Deep within the Wood, a young woman lies dead. Not a mark on her body. No trace of her murderer. Only her chipped glass slippers hint at her identity.

The Woodcutter, keeper of the peace between the Twelve Kingdoms of Man and the Realm of the Faerie, must find the maiden’s killer before others share her fate. Guided by the wind and aided by three charmed axes won from the River God, the Woodcutter begins his hunt, searching for clues in the whispering dominions of the enchanted unknown.

But quickly he finds that one murdered maiden is not the only nefarious mystery afoot: one of Odin’s hellhounds has escaped, a sinister mansion appears where it shouldn’t, a pixie dust drug trade runs rampant, and more young girls go missing. Looming in the shadows is the malevolent, power-hungry queen, and she will stop at nothing to destroy the Twelve Kingdoms and annihilate the Royal Fae… unless the Woodcutter can outmaneuver her and save the gentle souls of the Wood.

Since The Woodcutter appeared Kate Danley has been very busy, releasing three volumes in the Maggie MacKay Magical Tracker series, two O’Hare House Mysteries, a collaboration with William Shakespeare (Queen Mab: A Tale Entwined with William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet), the Christmas tale The Spirit of Krampus, and more.

The Woodcutter was published by 47North on November 6, 2012. It is 273 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $3.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

New Treasures: Bloodstone by Gillian Philip

New Treasures: Bloodstone by Gillian Philip

Comments 0 Comment

Bloodstone Gillian Philip-smallBack in May I reported on Firebrand, a new novel by Gillian Philip, first volume in her Rebel Angels series. Here’s what I said, in part:

Firebrand seems like exactly the kind of fast-paced adventure Black Gate readers are interested in… The second and third volumes, Bloodstone and Wolfsbane, are already in print in the UK. Interestingly, while all three books are marketed as YA there, Tor has mainstreamed them here in the US. It’s an interesting switch, and I’m curious to see how the market reacts.

The reviews were strong, as it turns out. Publishers Weekly called it “A stirring tale of loyalty and love,” and over at SF Site Dave Truesdale drew parallels with none other than Lord Dunsany:

Packed with Machiavellian court intrigue of the most cold-blooded sort, horrible monster-beings from the realm of faery in league with Queen Kate, and the looming threat of the world of faery possibly destroyed forever, Firebrand is a fresh and welcome reimagining of oft-worked ground first laid out by Lord Dunsany and, as Dunsany wrote, far “beyond the fields we know.”

He had me a “horrible monster-beings from the realm of faery.” Bring on Book Two!

The second volume, Bloodstone, has now arrived. In this installment Sithe warriors Seth and Conal MacGregor continue their hunt for the Bloodstone demanded by their Queen, making secret expeditions across the Veil… with violent consequences that may devastate their family and their entire clan.

Bloodstone was published by Tor on November 19, 2013. It is 399 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover, and $11.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

New Treasures: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

New Treasures: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Comments 2 comments

The Golem and the Jinni-smallI always find it interesting when mainstream publishers like Putnam, Harper, and Grove Press decide to publish a fantasy novel. Usually they do it badly, producing something that both fantasy fans and the general public scorn. Every once in a while they hit a home run, though — as Pocket did with Mark Helprin’s Winter Tale, for example, one of the most cherished fantasy novels of the 80s, or Grove Press accomplished just last year with G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen, which won the World Fantasy Award in October.

So I was intrigued enough to plunk down 15 bucks for Helene Wecker’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, a literary fantasy that blends Jewish and Arabian folklore in a tale of a chance meeting between two mythical beings in turn-of-the-century New York. The reviews have been kind, and it seems to be achieving a measure of early success.

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free.

Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker’s debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.

The Golem and the Jinni was published by Harper Perennial on December 31, 2013. It is 512 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $10.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures articles here.

Win a Copy of M. Harold Page’s The Sword is Mightier and Blood in the Streets

Win a Copy of M. Harold Page’s The Sword is Mightier and Blood in the Streets

Comments 6 comments

The Sword is Mightier-smallIt’s January 7th already and we haven’t given away any books this year. Time to fix that.

Here at Black Gate, we like to reward faithful readers with the finest in free fantasy and that tradition continues this month with the exciting Scholar Knight novels of M. Harold Page: The Sword is Mightier and Blood in the Streets. Here’s the description for the first, The Sword is Mightier:

The blade sheared through padding, collar bone, ribs, and came out the other side. Head, arm and shoulder thudded to the ground. The remainder of the corpse still stood, sheared torso like a bucket of steaming offal.

England AD 1454, the chaotic eve of the Wars of the Roses.

Jack Rose would rather be a scholar than a knight. However, when a brutal landowner steals his family estates and plans to evict the tenants, Jack must take up the sword and win back his inheritance by force of arms. As he wades through increasingly lethal encounters, it becomes clear that War is in his blood. Now he must decide who he really is…

How do you enter to win? Simple — just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com, using as the subject the name of the first Master Strike in the German School of Fencing (we’ll even give you a clue: it’s “Zornhau”), and we’ll enter you in the drawing.

Entries must be received by Friday, January 31, 2014. One lucky winner will win both books. The winner will be contacted by e-mail and books will be delivered in digital format.

All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Terms and conditions subject to change. Not valid where prohibited by law. Eat your vegetables. And good luck!

Terror in the Heroic Age: Lovecraft and Culbard’s At the Mountains of Madness: A Graphic Novel

Terror in the Heroic Age: Lovecraft and Culbard’s At the Mountains of Madness: A Graphic Novel

Comments 4 comments

At the Mountains of Madness Culbard-small“At the Mountains of Madness” is one of my favorite Lovecraft tales. It was originally serialized in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories; I was first exposed to it through the brilliant audio adaption from Dark Adventure Radio Theatre, which I listened to during a snowy commute through lonely back highways in Illinois in the winter of 2010. Marvelous stuff.

So in November, I was very intrigued to read James Maliszewski’s review of a recent comic adaptation by I.N.J. Culbard. Here’s James:

In 124 pages, Culbard succeeds in re-telling one of Lovecraft’s best tales in a fashion that’s both engaging and true to its source. That’s harder than it sounds…

Culbard deftly pares the story down to its essentials, in terms of action, dialog, and exposition. The story thus moves along at a fairly brisk pace, something that cannot be said of the novella, love it though I do. Second, the artwork, which, to my mind, recalls Hergé’s Tintin series, contributes greatly to a sense of narrative motion, which is vitally important in an adaptation of a long and complex story like this one. Furthermore, the artwork suits the subject matter perfectly, recalling as it does (at least to me) stories of late 19th and early 20th century exploration in the still-dark corners of the globe… Even though I already knew the plot intimately, I found Culbard’s strong, clear, almost innocent, illustration style gave it new life, something I didn’t think possible.

Sold! I especially enjoyed James’s description of artwork that recalled “stories of late 19th and early 20th century exploration in the still-dark corners of the globe.” I asked for the Culbard’s graphic novel version for Christmas and my lovely bride was kind enough to deliver.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Old Mars, Edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

New Treasures: Old Mars, Edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Comments 9 comments

Old Mars-smallI heard George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois were doing a new science fiction anthology about Mars and I thought, “Eh, Mars. It’s just no fun anymore. Too bad they don’t write stories about Mars the way they used to — like Clark Ashton Smith’s brilliant “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis,” or Leigh Brackett and C.L. Moore’s fabulous tales of decadent civilizations and inscrutable alien mysteries. No one has that much imagination any more. Bah! I think I’ll go yell at the kids to get off the lawn.”

Then Old Mars finally arrived and it thawed my mean old heart. Martin and Dozois have rallied some of the finest writers in the industry — like Michael Moorcock, Joe R. Lansdale, Ian Mcdonald, Howard Waldrop, Matthew Hughes, Phyllis Eisenstein, and many others — to write brand new tales of Mars in the classic pulp tradition. Here’s the marvelous book description:

Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars. Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Heinlein’s Red Planet. These and so many more inspired generations of readers with a sense that science fiction’s greatest wonders did not necessarily lie far in the future or light-years across the galaxy but were to be found right now on a nearby world tantalizingly similar to our own — a red planet that burned like an ember in our night sky… and in our imaginations.

This new anthology of fifteen all-original science fiction stories, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, celebrates the Golden Age of Science Fiction, an era filled with tales of interplanetary colonization and derring-do. Before the advent of powerful telescopes and space probes, our solar system could be imagined as teeming with strange life-forms and ancient civilizations — by no means always friendly to the dominant species of Earth. And of all the planets orbiting that G-class star we call the Sun, none was so steeped in an aura of romantic decadence, thrilling mystery, and gung-ho adventure as Mars.

Join such seminal contributors as Michael Moorcock, Mike Resnick, Joe R. Lansdale, S. M. Stirling, Mary Rosenblum, Ian McDonald, Liz Williams, James S. A. Corey, and others in this brilliant retro anthology that turns its back on the cold, all-but-airless Mars of the Mariner probes and instead embraces an older, more welcoming, more exotic Mars: a planet of ancient canals cutting through red deserts studded with the ruined cities of dying races.

Martin and Dozois may well have produced my dream anthology. You don’t know how thrilled I am to see this kind of open-hearted embrace of the genre’s pulp roots from a major publisher.

…

Read More Read More