New Treasures – Page 199

New Treasures: Phil & Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius Omnibus Volume One

Friday, June 15, 2012 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Girl Genius is one of my favorite comics. Or at least it would be, if my dang kids didn’t stop stealing the issues and I could read them.

Now Tor has solved that problem nicely, with the publication of Girl Genius Omnibus Volume One: Agatha Awakens, a handsome 320-page full-color compilation of issues 1-10.

Which my kids immediately stole.

Until I find it again, I have to talk about it in the abstract. Like this: Girl Genius rocks. It’s a “Gaslamp Fantasy” (don’t call it steampunk) which follows the adventures of Agatha Heterodyne, a struggling student at Transylvania Polygnostic University who ends up on the run from the sinister Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. As she makes her way across the wasteland of a devastated Europe, she learns she comes from a family of Sparks — mad scientists with superhuman scientific gifts, and that her own gifts are just beginning to blossom.

I’m making liberal use of Wikipedia to fill in gaps here, owning to the missing issues stashed somewhere under my children’s beds upstairs.

Suffice it to say that Girl Genius is a terrific all-ages comic (one hopes, anyway). It’s fun, fast paced, and filled with lots of laugh-out-loud moments. Phil & Kaja Foglio make especially innovative use of color — the opening pages are black and white, and when color slowly seeps into the pages the effect is quite dramatic. Girl Genius began life in 2001 as a print comic, but became a full-fledged webcomic on April 18, 2005. In 2008 Phil Foglio was nominated for a Hugo award for Best Professional Artist for his work on Girl Genius, and in 2011 the strip won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story.

Girl Genius Omnibus Volume One: Agatha Awakens was published in hardcover by Tor Books on February 28, 2012. The cover price is $34.99 for 320 pages in full color.

New Treasures: The Fantasy Fan

Wednesday, June 13, 2012 John ONeill Comments 10 comments

Last month, I got a great e-mail from Black Gate blogger Barbara Barrett. In between her entertaining comments on The Avengers, Arthur Machen, and re-discovering comic books, was this fascinating tidbit:

I’ve started reading The Fantasy Fan — a fan’s tribute to Hornig. It’s a book containing a compilation of all the Fantasy Fan magazines… I’m only on the first zine but I’m amazed how closely the format matches that of Black Gate. Is this a *coincidence*? The first zine was published in September 1933 and it’s chilling because I keep in mind Robert E.Howard was still alive at that point… the breadth and depth of authors, articles and stories are wonderful. It’s definitely a page out of Living History.

Among fantasy collectors The Fantasy Fan is legendary. The world’s first fanzine dedicated to weird fiction, it lasted for 18 issues, from September 1933 to February 1935. Its contributors included some of the most famous names in the genre — H.P Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Bob Tucker, Julius Schwartz, Forry Ackerman, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Eando Binder, and many others — and its young editor Charles Horning so impressed Hugo Gernsback that he hired him to edit Wonder Stories in 1933, at the age of 17. While at Wonder Stories he published Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” and many other famous pulp stories.

Barbara’s reference to a compilation of The Fantasy Fan was so intriguing I had to track down a copy for myself, and it finally arrived last week. Copies of the original fanzine are so rare that I’ve never even seen one, so to hold a facsimile reprint of all 18 issues in my hands was rather breathtaking. The man behind the book is Lance Thingmaker, and here’s what he says in his introduction:

These fragile gems were so unique. They were simple little fanzines, but were filled with stories, articles and comments by history’s most important weird fiction writers and fans. I felt like I was looking back in time… Since they are extremely hard to find, it seemed many others probably never had the chance to check out the world’s first weird fiction zine. I wanted to make it happen.

The end product is a top-notch piece of work. The magazines are presented in facsimile format, with painstaking restoration of the original barely legible pages, hand printed and hand-bound in hardcover by Thingmaker. The book is over 300 pages, including the complete text of H.P. Lovecraft’s famous essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” which was being serialized when the magazine folded. It is limited to 100 copies and sold for $50. Thingmaker’s next project, due to ship later this month, is a facsimile reprint of all four issues of the ultra-rare pulp Marvel Tales.

You can find a detailed breakdown of the contents of The Fantasy Fan here. My thanks again to Barbara for alerting me to this before it sold out!

New Treasures: Zombiegeddon

Saturday, June 9, 2012 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I’m still unpacking from the horrible bout of auction fever I suffered back in March. I uncovered a box of games buried by loot from the April Windy City Pulp and Paper Show in my library on Friday … man, I go to too many auctions.

It’s fun to dig through unexpected boxes of games, though. It’s sort of like archaeology, especially since each item still has the auction tag and price on it. Man, what kind of primitive barbarian would pay 28 bucks for a copy of StarSoldier?? Since it’s in the box … me, apparently.

Still, there’s some intriguing surprises. Like this copy of Reiner Knizia’s Zombiegeddon I found. [Click on the image at right to embiggen.]

I don’t remember buying this game. In truth, twenty minutes ago, I didn’t even know it existed.

But I can imagine what happened. They rattle through items pretty fast at the Games Plus Spring Auction. The auctioneer held it up, I got a quick glimpse of a rare and mysterious gaming artifact with an old lady with spider legs and an undead dog on the cover, I heard the words “mumble mumble ZOMBIE mumble,” and everything went black. Three months later, I’m holding a copy of Zombiegeddon and someone has fifteen bucks of my money.

Zombiegeddon looks pretty neat, though. I mean, how could it not? Here’s the text on the back:

Well, it was nice while it lasted! You have gotten word that the end is near, and Armageddon is right around the corner. (Actually, it begins tonight!) Since it may be a while before you can get to the store, today would be a good time to gather as many supplies as possible. After all, tomorrow might be the beginning of a long, cold, (nuclear) winter!

Reiner Knizia’s Zombiegeddon is a fast-paced, perfect-information, strategy game. Each player spends the first half of the game rushing around the board collecting supplies and trying to stop your pesky neighbors from taking stuff that is rightfully yours … The second half of the game is spent trying to survive. Sure their is some good stuff around, but it certainly isn’t plentiful and let’s face it, everyone is still trying to take it before you do! (Whoever has the most stuff at the end of the game wins!)

The board looks pretty pedestrian — essentially just a blank grid — but the components are sturdy, and the rule book is only two pages. Maybe Drew will play this with me, once we finally find that frickin’ holy grail.

Reiner Knizia’s Zombiegeddon is available from Twilight Creations. It was published in March 2009, and retails for $24.99. The complete rulebook in PDF is here.

New Treasures: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen

Thursday, June 7, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Ah, the lure of the fat fantasy novel. There’s really nothing quite like it.

Yes, I love short fiction and, by extension, I love short novels. But when you really fall in love with a book or series, nothing satisfies like a volume that weighs as much as a phone book.

Which is why I was delighted when two fat fantasy compendiums landed on my doorstep this week: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen, Volume I and Volume II.

These aren’t written by R.A. Salvatore. You can tell because his name is in the title. R.A. Salvatore created the popular character Drizzt Do’Urden and has written nearly two dozen novels featuring the drow ranger, several of them best-sellers. War of the Spider Queen returns to Drizzt Do’Urden’s homeland, the Underdark, to spin a tale of a ragged band of four dark elves on a desperate quest to find Lloth, drow goddess and the demon Queen of Spiders, and save their subterranean city of Menzoberranzan and the entire dark elf race.

The two-volume War of the Spider Queen collects all six novels: Dissolution by Richard Lee Byers, Insurrection by Thomas M. Reid, Condemnation by Richard Baker, Extinction by Lisa Smedman, Annihilation by Philip Athans, and Resurrection by Paul S. Kemp. All were published between 2002 and 2005, with R.A. Salvatore overseeing the development of the entire series.

These are handsome and satisfactorily hefty volumes. I took them out and photographed them on the bricks of my front patio, so you can get a sense of their size. (Click on the image above to get a bigger version).

Volume I contains the first three novels; it is 1,074 pages for $15.95 in trade paperback. Volume II gathers the last three; it is 1,076 pages for $15.95. Both have cover art by Brom. They are published by Wizards of the Coast and are now available.

New Treasures: The Sword & Sorcery Anthology

Sunday, June 3, 2012 John ONeill Comments 27 comments

We announced The Sword & Sorcery Anthology was shipping last week, but I’m glad to report that I now have it in my hot little hands.

And it looks gorgeous. It’s 480 pages in thick, oversize paperback, and sits nicely in my lap as I recline in my big green chair. Where it will remain for much of the rest of the weekend, I think.

In fact, I have two copies, courtesy of co-editor and publisher Jacob Weisman. I was going to add it to the list of titles that go out regularly to our dedicated team of freelance reviewers, but maybe I’ll just give it to the first one that asks for it. Or maybe I’ll encase it in plastic and carefully bury it in a time capsule in my back yard. Future generations with thank me (assuming they can figure out what a book is).

David Drake’s introduction notes that while two stories in this book originated in Weird Tales — the magazine that gave birth to Sword & Sorcery — three come from the legendary small press magazine Whispers, edited by Stuart David Schiff from 1973 to 1987. Drake was the assistant editor for Whispers starting with the second issue; his musings on the authors and fiction included in this volume are fascinating.

Other sources include Swords Against Darkness, Science Fantasy, Fantastic and Asimov’s SF magazines, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress anthologies, Orbit 2, and such recent books as Eclipse Three (2009), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and Strahan and Lou Anders 2010 anthology Swords & Dark Magic.

Two pieces — Michael Shea’s new Nift the Lean story “Epistle from Lebanoi,” and Michael Swanwick’s “The Year of the the Three Monarchs” — are original to this volume.

The Sword & Sorcery Anthology was edited by David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman. The cover is is by Jean Sebastien Rossbach. It is published by Tachyon Publications, and priced at $15.95 for the print version and $10.95 in digital format. More complete details are here, and the complete Tables of Contents is here.

New Treasures: Deadfall Hotel by Steve Rasnic Tem

Thursday, May 31, 2012 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I don’t get to cover horror fiction as often as I like to — mostly because I don’t get to read much these days. So it’s always a delight when a surprise like Deadfall Hotel arrives at my door. The seed of the novel was the acclaimed short story “Bloodwolf,” published by Charles L. Grant in his anthology Shadows 9 back in 1986. For over 25 years author Steve Rasnic Tem has nurtured that seed, and it has finally grown into a complex and original horror novel.

This is the hotel where our nightmares go… It’s where horrors come to be themselves, and the dead pause to rest between worlds. Recently widowed and unemployed, Richard Carter finds a new job, and a new life for him and his daughter Serena, as manager of the mysterious Deadfall Hotel. Jacob Ascher, the caretaker, is there to show Richard the ropes, and to tell him the many rules and traditions, but from the beginning, their new world haunts and transforms them.

It’s a terrible place. As the seasons pass, the supernatural and the sublime become a part of life, as routine as a morning cup of coffee, but it’s not safe, by any means. Deadfall Hotel is where Richard and Serena will rebuild the life that was taken from them… if it doesn’t kill them first.

Weird Fiction Review had this to say about Deadfall Hotel:

The novel provides a smorgasbord of sweet spots for the weird fiction connoisseur. Nightmares, supernatural creatures, cults, eccentric characters, and the atmosphere of the titular hotel all combine for a fascinating read. With the popularity of TV shows like American Horror Story, the timing seems right, as well (although we think Deadfall is much more interesting.)

And Fear.com raves:

Horror legend Steve Rasnic Tem returns with Deadfall Hotel, a modern fairytale, haunted house story, vampire novel, cult novel, werewolf novel, zombie story, and just plain old “weird tale”… It’s a masterful hodgepodge of genre tropes and devices that — much like Peter Straub’s magnificent Floating Dragon — in the hands of a lesser writer would have collapsed… Deadfall Hotel is everything a horror novel should be. Steve Rasnic Tem is at the height of his powers with this effort.

Deadfall Hotel is 301 pages in paperback for $9.99. It was published by Solaris on April 17. It is illustrated by Danish artist John Kenn Mortensen, whose creepy, Edward Gory-like style is both classic and richly modern — click on the cover above to get a closer look at his work. WFR.com offers a long self-contained excerpt, “The King of the Cats,” presented in four parts that you can sample here.

One Week Left to Win a copy of Thunder in the Void from Haffner Press!

Friday, May 25, 2012 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

We’ve received some great entries in our Thunder in the Void giveaway, which we announced last week. Here are some that came in today:

Midnight in the Robot Graveyard
The Cult of the Broken Sun
Message from the Haunted Asteroid

Doesn’t that sound like fun? You could be part of it — all you have to do is submit the title of an imaginary Space Opera story.

What’s at stake is the latest archival quality hardcover from Haffner Press, Thunder in the Void, a massive collection of 16 Space Opera tales by Henry Kuttner. The most compelling title — as selected by a crack team of Black Gate judges, renowned experts in quality pulp fiction all — will receive a free copy, complements of Haffner Press and Black Gate magazine.

Thunder in the Void gathers classic pulp fiction from Planet Stories, Weird Tales, Super Science Stories, and even rarer sources, including “War-Gods of the Void,” “Raider of the Spaceways,” “We Guard the Black Planet,” “Crypt-City of the Deathless Ones,” and the previously unpublished “The Interplanetary Limited.” Most appear here in book form for the first time.

One submission per person, please. Submissions must be received by May 31st, 2012. Winner will be contacted by e-mail, so use a real e-mail address maybe. All submissions must be sent to john@blackgate.com, with the subject line Thunder in the Void, or something obvious like that so I don’t randomly delete it.

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. Employees of New Epoch Press are ineligible to enter. Not valid where prohibited by law. Or anywhere postage for a hefty hardcover is more than, like, 10 bucks. Seriously, this book is heavy and we’re on a budget.

Thunder in the Void is 612 pages in high-quality hardcover format, with an introduction by Mike Resnick and a cover price of $40. Cover art is by Norman Saunders. It is available directly from Haffner Press.

Aqueduct Press releases The Moment of Change, an Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry

Monday, May 21, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

I’ve received word this morning that contributor copies of Aqueduct Press’s The Moment of Change have started to arrive, and the book is now available for order on their website.

The Moment of Change is an anthology of feminist speculative poetry with an absolutely stellar line-up of contributors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Jo Walton, Delia Sherman, Catherynne M. Valente, Theodora Goss, Phyllis Gotlieb, Yoon Ha Lee, Nisi Shawl, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, JoSelle Vanderhooft, and Nicole Kornher-Stace.

It also includes two members of Team Black Gate: two poems by Amal El-Mohtar, “Pieces” and “On the Division of Labour,” and a long poem by our website editor, C.S.E. Cooney, “The Last Crone on the Moon.” The anthology is edited by Rose Lemberg, and she’s posted the complete Table of Contents here. In her introduction she writes:

In these pages you will find works in a variety of genres — works that can be labeled mythic, fantastic, science fictional, historical, surreal, magic realist, and unclassifiable; poems by people of color and white folks; by poets based in the US, Canada, Britain, India, Spain, and the Philippines; by first- and second-generation immigrants; by the able-bodied and the disabled; by straight and queer poets who may identify as women, men, trans, and genderqueer.

I had the pleasure of listening to C.S.E. read “The Last Crone on the Moon” last year at the monthly Top Shelf Books Open Mic here in Chicago, and it is worth the price of the book alone.

Rose Lemberg and many of the contributors will be reading from The Moment of Change at Wiscon in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend. I’ll be there, and I’m looking forward to it.

The Moment of Change is 174 pages in paperback. The cover art is by Terri Windling. It sells for $20.

New Treasures: Shadow Blizzard by Alexey Pehov

Sunday, May 20, 2012 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

I tend to avoid fantasy trilogies until the third book is published, for the same reason that I don’t date musicians under 30. Because I’m married. Duh.

Man, that didn’t make any sense. I blame these stupid cold medications. My head feels four feet in diameter, and my thoughts seem to take… longer… to travel from one side to the other. I wish Alice were here to make me soup and send me to bed, but on Friday she left to take our son Tim to music camp in… um… I forget. Some state that has music camps.

You know what I need? A really good fantasy I can curl up with until I feel better. And now that Shadow Prowler, the third book in Alexey Pehov’s epic The Chronicles of Siala, has arrived I can do just that. Shadow Prowler is the sequel to Shadow Prowler and Shadow Chaser. Here’s what Matthew David Surridge said about the first volume in Black Gate 15:

Pehov has written a fantasy trilogy, with elves and orcs and dwarves and wizards and a quest… this first book, at least, feels fundamentally like a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The story is even structured around the exploration of an ancient burial ground, Hrad Spein, the Palaces of Bone, filled with traps, magic, and the undead… there is an enjoyable buzz of plot going on in the book. In fact, once you get over the echoes of Tolkien, in the form of the ancient artifact, the quest story, the elves and dwarves and the setting, you notice that the actual structure of the book is closer to Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat: a thief tells the story of how he is captured by the good guys, and made to work for them.

Ancient burial grounds, traps, magic, the undead, and a reluctant thief. Yup, that could get me through this cold. Here’s the plot summary for the third volume, just for comparison:

Shadow Harold’s quest is almost at an end: he and his companions have fought long and hard to make their way to the tomb Hrad Spein, in search of the magic horn that is their only hope to defeating The Nameless One. The journey was perilous, and many in their company did not survive. Together, however, they have come further than anyone else ever has — but their struggle isn’t over just yet…

Wow. Three books, and they’re still in the same dungeon? Holy cats, that does sound like an epic game of D&D. If that’s not enough to sell you, here’s the cool book trailer.

Shadow Blizzard is 462 pages in hardcover. It was published on April 24th by Tor, and has a $26.99 cover price. It was translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield.

Win a copy of Thunder in the Void from Haffner Press!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Contests! I love contests. It’s because we love to give away stuff, like Santa Claus.

In this case, it’s stuff you really, really want: the latest archival quality hardcover from Haffner Press, Thunder in the Void, a massive collection of 16 Space Opera tales by Henry Kuttner. It’s scarcely been on sale two weeks, and it’s already almost sold out, so act fast.

How do you win? Now pay attention, this is the fun part. You must submit the title of an imaginary Space Opera story. The most compelling pulp title — as selected by a crack team of judges including Howard Andrew Jones, C.S.E. Cooney, and John O’Neill — will receive a free copy of Thunder in the Void in the mail, complements of Haffner Press and Black Gate magazine.

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. Employees of New Epoch Press are ineligible to enter (including the judges — sorry, Howard and C.S.E.) Not valid where prohibited by law. Or anywhere postage for a hefty hardcover is more than, like, 10 bucks. Seriously, this book is heavy and we’re on a budget.

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