Black Gate

Jesse Bullington received a lot of attention for his first novel, the exceptionally dark fantasy The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, about which Booklist said, “Modeled after the grimmest of the Grimm tales, Bullington’s debut… [is] aiming instead at gross-out horror fans.”

That one seemed a bit too grim and gruesome for me. But Bullington’s second novel, The Enterprise of Death, looks more my speed.

As the witch-pyres of the Spanish Inquisition blanket Renaissance Europe in a moral haze, a young African slave finds herself the unwilling apprentice of an ancient necromancer. Unfortunately, quitting his company proves even more hazardous than remaining his pupil when she is afflicted with a terrible curse. Yet salvation may lie in a mysterious tome her tutor has hidden somewhere on the war-torn continent.

She sets out on a seemingly impossible journey to find the book, never suspecting her fate is tied to three strangers: the artist Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, the alchemist Dr. Paracelsus, and a gun-slinging Dutch mercenary. As Manuel paints her macabre story on canvas, plank, and church wall, the young apprentice becomes increasingly aware that death might be the least of her concerns.

I’ve been watching the reviews, and they are very impressive indeed. The Wall Street Journal called it “Macabre, gruesome, foul-mouthed and much more complex than the usual vampire-and-zombie routine,” and SF Revu said it was

Darkly comic… Bullington is one of those rare writers who come along once every so often with a truly original vision… this is an author capable of great and profound insight, often conveyed via his equally finely tuned sense of the ridiculous… Highly recommended.

The Enterprise of Death was published by Orbit in March, 2011. It is 464 pages in trade paperback, priced at $14.99 ($9.99 for the digital version). I bought my copy from Amazon as a bargain title for just six bucks.

You’d think the rooftop headquarters of Black Gate would be a great place to stay up-to-date on the best new talent in fantasy. It probably would be, too, if I didn’t waste half my time watching H.R. Pufnstuf DVDs and trying to fix the coffee machine.

Still, I occasionally manage to overhear good tips around the water cooler. When I hear a new name enough times, I go back to my office, move around piles of pulp magazines until I can find a piece of paper, and make a note of it.

Australian writer Trent Jamieson generated a lot of chatter with his Death Works Trilogy. But it was last year’s Roil, the first novel in The Nightbound Land duology, that caused me to jot his name down on the back of a Jimmy John’s receipt.

Now Night’s Engines, the concluding volume of The Nightbound Land, has arrived, and suddenly it seems I can’t change the toner in the office copier without hearing the name Trent Jamieson.

Shale is dying. The vast, boiling maelstrom known only as the Roil has pushed humanity to the edge of extinction. The last cities teeter on the verge of collapse.

There is one hope, but it is enshrined in a decadent wastrel who does not want his destiny, and a young woman who seeks only an end to everything. And yet they go on, in search of the ancient weapons that worked against the Roil once, and must work again.

Even in fantasy, duologies aren’t that common (my spellchecker keeps wanting to change the word to Audiology, in fact). But for someone with precious little leisure time who still wants to join in on water cooler conversations, especially the ones involving that cute new intern, duologies seem like the way to go. Wish me luck.

Night’s Engines was published in May 2012 by Angry Robot. It is 400 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition.