New Treasures – Page 200

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.

Goodman Games releases Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

One of the most highly anticipated games of the year — by me, anyway — is finally here: Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Goodman Games made a name for itself with an impressive line of role playing adventures, Dungeon Crawl Classics. 66 have been released so far — including the latest, The Vampire’s Vengeance. All have championed the virtues of early role-playing: fun, colorful, easily accessible and combat-heavy adventures with uncomplicated storylines and lots of action.

The industry has changed a lot since the first, Idylls of the Rat King, was released back in 2003 however. The most important change has been the rise of “retro clone” games inspired by the original versions of D&D and AD&D that use the Open Gaming license, such as Daniel Proctor’s Labyrinth Lord.

These games, with their focus on simpler, more streamlined rules, perfectly complement the Dungeon Crawl Classics line, and it was an obvious next step for Joseph Goodman and his merry band to turn their creative talents to publishing one of their own.

BG Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones recently received a review copy, and he tells me he’s very impressed. “It’s retro in feel, but it’s not a retro-clone,” he says. Among the many appealing innovations are spell backfire charts and simple mechanics for spell duels.

“You could never do spell duels in D&D,” Howard notes. “But you finally can here.”

I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. In the meantime, Howard has promised a more detailed report in a few days.

Goodman Games released a 16-page teaser adventure as part of Free RPG Day 2011. DCC RPG is also supported by an attractive line of third party products from Purple Sorcerer Games, Chapter 13 Press, and many others. You can order the 480-page hardcover of the finished game on their website for $39.99.

New Treasures: The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

Saturday, May 12, 2012 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

The Weird arrived on my doorstep today, with a resounding thump. And for once, I’m not speaking metaphorically.

It’s about time. I’ve been waiting for this baby since it was first released in the UK back in October. From everything I’d read The Weird looked like the single most important fantasy anthology of the last few years. And now that I hold it in my hot little hands, I’m convinced that impression was correct.

The Weird is a massive 1,126-page survey of the last century of dark fantasy and weird fiction, starting with an excerpt from Alfred Kubin’s 1908 novel The Other Side and ending with K.J. Bishop’s “Saving the Gleeful Horse,” from the March 2010 issue of Fantasy magazine. And I do mean massive — it’s oversize in every way, including an inch wider than normal hardcovers, accommodating a two-column layout that packs a lot on each page.

In between those two pieces editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have collected 108 others, from authors including George R.R. Martin (his classic “Sandkings”), Michael Chabon (“The God of Dark Laughter”), H.P. Lovecraft (“The Dunwich Horror”), Stephen King (“The Man in the Black Suit”), Clark Ashton Smith (“Genius Loci”), Fritz Leiber (“Smoke Ghost”), Thomas Ligotti (“The Town Manager”), Kelly Link (“The Specialist’s Hat”), and many others.

The oddest omission appears to be Robert E. Howard, one of the major 20th Century practitioners of the weird tale. Since virtually all of his weird fiction has been recently collected in other venues, his absence here doesn’t bother me. I also miss Clifford D. Simak, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, Karl Edward Wagner, Manly Wade Wellman, William Hope Hodgson, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, Darrell Schweitzer, Gene Wolfe, Geoff Ryman, Jack Vance, Peter Beagle, and Frank Belknap Long, but I’m not going to pout about it. Editing an anthology like this is all about making tough choices, and I’m glad the editors opted for a lot of overlooked fantasy rather than work that’s been continuously reprinted. Besides, this leaves lots of room for a second volume.

In fact, one of the strongest elements of The Weird is the attention paid to newer authors, including Laird Baron (“The Forest”), Margo Lanagan (“Singing My Sister Down”), Daniel Abraham (“Flat Diane”), Liz Williams (“The Hide”), and Michael Cisco (“The Genius of Assassins”).

The Weird is $39.99 for an oversize hardcover — an incredible bargain, if you ask me — and just $29.99 in paperback. It is published by Tor .

Burial Day Books releases Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition

Saturday, May 12, 2012 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Okay. Technically this was released back in October. But I just found out about it, so I’m going to pretend it came out this week so I don’t look out of touch.

Ahem. Burial Day Books, a boutique publisher of supernatural horror, has just released its first short story collection. You heard it here first.

The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition is a collection of short stories and poems that resurrect the spirit of the Gothic Blue Book. Gothic Blue Books were short fictions popular in the 18th and 19th century. They were descendants of the chap book trade. The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition is a collection of twelve short stories and two poems written by established and emerging horror authors that honor the Gothic story. Misery, fear, despair, regret and dread are highlighted in this collection, stirring old ghosts, witches, and awakening death. The authors in this collection weave together brilliant tales of terror celebrating the history of the Gothic story with a new twist.

I’ve never heard of Gothic Blue Books. Man, I’m more out of touch than I thought. Anyway. 18th Century chap books honoring the Gothic tradition of misery, fear, despair, regret and dread? Sounds pretty good to me. It’s not too late to make up for lost time.

The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition includes fiction from John Everson, M. N. Hanson, Ben McElroy, Greg Mollin, and many others. It is 114 pages and is available in print ($7) and Kindle editions ($0.99) through Amazon.com.

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