Black Gate

In case anybody has surfed over accidentally from io9 or something, I want to make clear that we’re a fantasy website. Fantasy is J.R.R. Tolkien, Conan, Harry Potter, movies with wizards, pretty much any game with oddly-shaped dice, most anime, and those secret daydreams you have about Scarlett Johansson. That’s fantasy.

We don’t cover much mystery, current events, or science fiction. Except maybe for Star Trek, ’cause it’s Howard’s favorite show, and we’re big William Shatner fans (but who isn’t?)

I mention this because I bought a copy of Three today and thought I would turn it into my Saturday New Treasures column. But no sooner do I settle into my big green chair and crack it open, then I discover it’s actually science fiction. Should have paid more attention in Barnes & Noble. That’s what dreaming about Scarlett Johansson will do to you.

Well, what the heck. Still looks more like fantasy than SF to me. Three is the first book in a new trilogy (see? What’s more fantasy than that!) called Legends of the Duskwalker. Here’s the book description.

The world has collapsed, and there are no heroes any more. His name is Three, a travelling gun for hire in a dying world. He has no allegiances, no family, no ties.

Against his better judgment, he accepts the mantle of protector to a sick woman on the run, and her young son. Together they set out across the plains in search of a mythic oasis, attempting to survive the forces that pursue them, and the creatures of the dark. In these dark times, a hero may yet arise.

Angry Robot, in their efforts to be helpful, have the words “Not a sequel” buried in the copyright page. That was helpful, actually. They’ve also printed handy category labels on the back — apparently Three should be filed under Science Fiction, Apocalyptic Wasteland, A Journey Home, Three For All, and Fear the Weir. Fear the Weir? Let’s just say that book categorization sure has changed since I learned the Dewey Decimal system, and leave it at that.

Three was published by Angry Robot on July 30.It is 480 pages, priced at $7.99 for the paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The moody bloke-in-a-cloak cover is by Steven Meyer-Rassow.

There’s no shortage of intriguing new SF and fantasy series out there and more arriving every month. So how is a busy reader supposed to choose?

Easy! Based on cover art, of course. Duh. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to apply what I like to call The O’Neill Rule — always wait until at least the fourth installment in a series arrives before you commit to the first one, so you’re less likely to get caught in a George R.R. Martin-like wait between volumes.

The Havoc Machine, the fourth novel in Steven Harper’s Victorian steampunk-zombie Clockwork Empire series, was published earlier this year. And that means I can finally crack open the first, The Doomsday Vault. Good thing too, because it has a killer cover and the wait was killing me.

The Honorable Alice B. Michaels is in a life or death struggle for survival — socially speaking, that is. At twenty-one, her age, her unladylike interest in automatons, and the unfortunate deaths of most of her family from the clockwork plague have sealed her fate as a less than desirable marriage prospect.

But a series of strange occurrences are about to lead Alice in a direction quite beyond the pale. High above the earth on the American airship USS Juniper, Gavin Ennock lives for the wind and the sky and his fiddle. After privateers attack the Juniper, he is stranded on the dank, dirty, and merciless streets of London. When Alice’s estranged aunt leaves her a peculiar inheritance, she encounters Gavin under most unusual — even shocking — circumstances.

Then Alice’s inheritance attracts the attention of the Third Ward, a clandestine organization that seizes the inventions of mad geniuses the plague leaves behind — all for the good of the Empire. But even the Third Ward has secrets. And when Alice and Gavin discover them, a choice must be made between the world and the Empire, no matter the risk to all they hold dear.

Steven Harper also writes SF and movie novelizations under the name Steven Piziks, and romantic suspense under the name Penny Drake. The Doomsday Vault was published by Roc Books in November 2011. It is 382 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the digital and paperback version. It was followed by The Impossible Cube (May 2012), The Dragon Men (November 2012), and The Havoc Machine (May 2013).

And so we continue our celebration of the latest crop of fabulous new paperbacks from Angry Robot.

Angry Robot is rapidly becoming one of my favorite publishers. Sure, we highlight a lot of great independent publishers here — folks like Haffner Press, Night Shade, Prime Books, Paizo, Pyr, Orbit, Titan, Solaris, and many others — but most of them concentrate on hardcovers and trade paperbacks, where profit margins are much higher. The low-margin mass market paperback is a much riskier proposition these days, especially when you’re taking a risk on new writers without an established audience.

But we still love paperbacks here at Black Gate. We love the way they’re packaged, and even the way they smell. And we especially love publishers willing to take chances on new writers. And those paperback publishers willing to take chances on gonzo, edgy, hugely original ideas from daring new writers… we just want to take them home and snuggle them. And make them a warm batch of chocolate chip cookies.

The Blue Blazes is the third Chuck Wendig novel from Angry Robot. They’ve also published Blackbirds and Mockingbird, as well as the upcoming The Cormorant. But it was The Blue Blazes that really grabbed my attention last time I was at Barnes & Noble. Sure, the marketing text on the back was intriguing:

Meet Mookie Pearl. Criminal underworld? He runs in it. Supernatural underworld? He hunts in it. Nothing stops Mookie when he’s on the job. But when his daughter takes up arms and opposes him, something’s gotta give…

But it was the blurb from Empire State author Adam Christopher that really sealed the deal:

The Blue Blazes is exactly my kind of supernatural mob crime novel: dark and visceral, with an everyman hero to root for and Lovecraftian god-horror to keep you awake at night… this is the good stuff, right here.

…

Read More Read More

I admit I can be a little lazy when putting together these New Treasures articles. For one thing, my scanner gave up the ghost months ago and I can’t be bothered to walk aallll the way down the hall to use Alice’s. It’s usually easier to search for an image online. I’ll spend 20 minutes searching every nook and cranny of the web, trying to save the six minutes it takes to do a scan. Go figure.

Sometimes, though, the search is fruitless — as was the case with The Grim Company, the first novel from Bioware game designer Luke Scull. There were versions of the cover out there — lots of them. But most appeared to be early versions of the final cover I was holding in my hot little hands, courtesy of the publicity department of Roc Books.  Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Goodreads — all of them were showing the same cover. Sure, it’s very similar to the final cover, but there were subtle differences (the actual final cover is here — see if you can spot them all).

Well, I don’t have a whole lot of scruples as an entertainment blogger, but that’s one of them. At Black Gate, we try to show you the real cover. Hurray for us. So I had to troop all the way down to Alice’s office, interrupt her game of solitaire, and take six minutes to scan the cover. It’s shown at right, in all its glory (click for a bigger version). You’re welcome.

The Gods are dead. The Magelord Salazar and his magically enhanced troops, the Augmentors, crush any dissent they find in the minds of the populace. On the other side of the Broken Sea, the White Lady plots the liberation of Dorminia, with her spymistresses, the Pale Women. Demons and abominations plague the Highlands.

The world is desperately in need of heroes. But what they get instead are a ragtag band of old warriors, a crippled Halfmage, two orphans and an oddly capable manservant: the Grim Company.

The Grim Company (the opening volume in a series also titled The Grim Company) was released by Roc Books on September 3. It is 389 pages, priced at $26.95 for the hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital version.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

I caught Alex Bledsoe reading from Wisp of a Thing at a small Chicago convention earlier this year, and was immediately riveted. Seriously, if you get the chance, ask Alex to come to your house and read the first chapter. Or just stop him when you run into him at the mall, and impose on him to read a few pages. You won’t regret it (though you may have to buy him lunch).

The first volume in the series, The Hum and the Shiver — which gets my vote for best book title of 2011 — was named one of the Best Fiction Books of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews. The second, Wisp of a Thing, takes us back to the isolated hollows of the Smoky Mountains for another spooky tale of music and very old magic.

Touched by a very public tragedy, musician Rob Quillen comes to Cloud County, Tennessee, in search of a song that might ease his aching heart. All he knows of the mysterious and reclusive Tufa is what he has read on the internet: they are an enigmatic clan of swarthy, black-haired mountain people whose historical roots are lost in myth and controversy. Some people say that when the first white settlers came to the Appalachians centuries ago, they found the Tufa already there. Others hint that Tufa blood brings special gifts.

Rob finds both music and mystery in the mountains. Close-lipped locals guard their secrets, even as Rob gets caught up in a subtle power struggle he can’t begin to comprehend. A vacationing wife goes missing, raising suspicions of foul play, and a strange feral girl runs wild in the woods, howling in the night like a lost spirit.

Change is coming to Cloud County, and only the night wind knows what part Rob will play when the last leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree… and a timeless curse must be broken at last.

Alex’s article on the Appalachian fantasy of Manly Wade Wellman, “How I Discovered Silver John,” appeared at Tor.com back in March. He is the author of the Eddie LaCrosse novels The Sword-Edged Blonde, Dark Jenny, Wake of the Bloody Angel and Burn Me Deadly.

Wisp of a Thing was published by Tor Books on June 18. It is 349 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version.