Black Gate

Lately I seem to be months behind when I finally get around to posting on the best new releases. It’s not my fault — books tend to get buried here at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters (anything that can’t move under its own power gets buried, if you want the truth). Still, there are times when the releases are so old that I debate including them in my Vintage Treasures columns instead of New Treasures. You know that ain’t a good sign.

Well, not this time. In this column I talk about a fabulous new book that officially goes on sale today. Today, peeps! Well, yesterday, since it’s now after midnight here in Illinois. Crap.

Whatever. It’s still a victory, and I savor them when I can. Today’s subject is Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables, a handsome collection of novellas that combine classic fairy tales with steampunk settings.

Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes,” New York Times bestselling author K. W. Jeter’s “La Valse” forges a fable about love, the decadence of technology, and a gala dance that becomes the obsession of a young engineer — and the doom of those who partake in it.…

In “You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens,” national bestselling author and John W. Campbell Award winner Jay Lake tells the story of Sleeping Beauty — and how the princess was conceived in deception, raised in danger, and rescued by a prince who may be less than valiant.

The tale of “The Tinderbox” takes a turn into the surreal when a damaged young soldier comes into possession of an intricate, treacherous treasure and is drawn into a mission of mercy in national bestselling author Kat Richardson’s “The Hollow Hounds.”

In “The Kings of Mount Golden,” Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Paul Di Filippo tells the story of a young man’s search for his heritage and a mechanical marvel that lies at the heart of a sinister pact in this fascinating take on “The King of the Golden Mountain.”

The volume also includes tales from Steven Harper, Nancy A. Collins, G. K. Hayes, Gregory Nicoll, and Pip Ballantine. One of the most intriguing elements of this anthology is story length: all of the contributions except the Jeter are novellas, averaging around 40 pages each. I consider novellas to be the ideal length for most fantasy, and you don’t see many markets for them

Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables was edited by Stephen L. Antczak and James C. Bassett. It was released on Tuesday by Roc Books. It is 325 pages in trade paperback, priced at $15 ($9.99 for the digital version).

I remember when I first saw Dhampir, the opening volume of Barb and & J.C. Hendee’s Noble Dead saga, back in 2003.

A supernatural medieval fantasy packed with vampire hunters, assassins, ancient castles, and mysterious guilds? That went right on my to-be-read pile. It was still there when Thief of Lives arrived twelve months later. And the third volume, Sister of the Dead. There are now a dozen, and I’ve surrendered all hope. Those two write faster than I can read.

So that’s why I was pleased when Barb Hendee’s solo effort, The Mist-Torn Witches, arrived in May. It’s the first in a brand new series, but it has many of the same elements that attracted me to The Noble Dead. In one volume, I can be on top of everything and not have to hang my head in shame when we talk about Hendee at the Black Gate reading club. Big green recliner, here I come.

In a small village in the nation of Droevinka, orphaned sisters Céline and Amelie Fawe scrape out a living selling herbal medicines in their apothecary shop. Céline earns additional money by posing as a seer and pretending to read people’s futures.

But they exist in a land of great noble houses, all vying for power, and when the sisters refuse the orders of a warlord prince, they must flee and are forced to depend on the warlord prince’s brother, Anton, for a temporary haven.

A series of bizarre deaths of pretty young girls is plaguing the village surrounding Prince Anton’s castle. He offers Céline and Amelie permanent protection if they can use their “skills” to find the killer.

With little choice, the sisters enter a world unknown to them — of fine gowns and banquets and advances from powerful men. Their survival depends on catching a murderer who appears to walk through walls and vanish without a trace — and the danger grows with each passing night.

The Mist-Torn Witches was published by Roc Books on May 7. It is 326 pages, priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions.

See all of our recent New Treasures articles here.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the hardest working writers in the business — and one of the most successful.

It’s not unusual for a prolific novelist to release a book a year. What is unusual is to consistently beat that pace while producing highly acclaimed, massive fantasy epics.

Just consider the last few years — starting with the 688-page Warbreaker (2009), which our reviewer Charlene Brusso called “the cure for trilogy fatigue” (not to be outdone, our Reviews Editor Bill Ward also noted that portions “approach the compulsive readability of the best page-turners.”)

A year later, Sanderson released the 861-page Wheel of Time novel Towers of Midnight, written from Robert Jordan’s notes. The same year (!), his massive 1,008-page novel The Way of Kings won the 2011 David Gemmell Legend Award (our review is here.)

In 2011, it was the new Mistborn novel The Alloy of Law; in her review Charlene said it was “full of neat ideas, crackling dialogue, and a very big helping of dry wit.”

In 2012, Sanderson published the unusual science fantasy The Emperor’s Soul, from Tachyon Publications.

That’s not even including the various short fiction and novellas he published during the same period — or the two complete novels in his juvenile fantasy series, Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia (2009) and Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens (2010).

Seriously, I’m getting tired just typing all the titles. How does he do it?

Moving into 2013, Sanderson’s first release was the 912-page A Memory of Light in January (our coverage here); he also has the upcoming science fiction novel Steelheart in September.

That’s not all, of course. His third 2013 book is the just-released The Rithmatist, a comparatively short (for Sanderson) 372 pages. For those not doing the math at home, that brings his published page count for the year to 1,696 — down from 2,173 in 2010, but we try not to judge.

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I’m a big fan of these Angry Robot omnibus volumes. Talk about reading feasts… I can settle into my big green chair with a bag of chips and one of these babies, and I’m set until August.

They’re surprisingly diverse, too. There’s Tim Waggoner’s zombie detective saga The Nekropolis Archives, Aliette de Bodard’s Aztec mystery series Obsidian & Blood, Andy Remic’s blood-drenched sword-and-steampunk epic The Clockwork Vampire… and now we have Lavie Tidhar’s steampunk serial-killer trilogy The Bookman Histories to add to the list.

The trilogy opened with 2010’s The Bookman (cover here), described as “a steam-powered take on V for Vendetta.” Set in an alternate Victorian London on the verge of the first (cannon-powered, naturally) expedition to Mars, the book follows the exploits of the young poet Orphan, who witnesses a stunning attack by a masked terrorist that paralyzes the city. Filled with mysterious automatons, airships, exploding books, pirates, giant lizards, pirates, and more airships, The Bookman was the first novel from the short fiction author whom Locus called “an emerging master.”

Camera Obscura (2011) introduced us to the mysterious and glamorous Lady De Winter, agent of the Quiet Council. Tasked with solving a locked-room murder on Rue Morgue in Paris, De Winter soon finds herself drawn into a far more sinister mystery.

The series wraps up with The Great Game (2012), which begins with Mycroft Holmes’ murder in London. It falls to Holmes’ protégé Lucy Westerna to solve the case — but before she does she crosses paths with a young Harry Houdini and a retired shadow executive named Smith (team up!). Together they find the trail leads inexorably to a foreboding castle in Transylvania… and to get there they’re need to cope with with airship battles, Frankenstein monsters, alien tripods, and more.

The Bookman Histories contains all three novels in one fat 1,022-page package. It was published by Angry Robot in December, 2012; the paperback is $15.99, and the digital version is $9.99. Lavie Tidhar won the 2013 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Osama; this is a guy who is clearly going places. Ignore him at your peril.

You can see all of our recent New Treasures articles here.

I encountered The Watchers for the first time during my last trip to Barnes & Noble. There I was with an arm full of paperbacks, making my way to the register, when I spotted it on a display in the middle of an aisle.

The cover looked intriguing, in a spooky, gas-lit London sort of way. But was it fantasy? I don’t want to get stuck with another Da Vinci Code clone.

The Booklist quote on the cover called it “A seductive cosmic thriller.” What the heck did that mean? Cosmic, like Elder Gods cosmic? Thanos versus The Avengers cosmic? Or 700-pages-that-feel-like-they’ll-never-end cosmic?

The back cover text wasn’t much help:

Every hour, childlike Marc Rochat circles the Lausanne cathedral as the watchmen have done for centuries. Then one day a beautiful woman draws him out of the shadows — the angel his mother once promised him would come.

But Katherine Taylor is no angel. She’s one of the toughest and most resourceful call girls in Lausanne. Until something unnatural seething beneath a new client’s request sends her fleeing to the sanctuary of an unlikely protector.

Into their refuge comes Jay Harper. The private detective has awakened in Lausanne with no memory of how he got there — and only one thing driving him forward: a series of unsettling murders he feels compelled to solve.

That doesn’t even tell me what era it is. Present day? 1880s? Were there private eyes in 1880s London? Look, is this a fantasy or not? All these books I’m holding are getting heavy.

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