Black Gate

There are books that I ignore until I get a solid personal recommendation, those that win me over only with rave reviews, and those that I warm to, like, immediately. Sarah Gailey’s alternate history of an American west overrun by feral hippos is definitely the latter.

In her review of the first volume, River of Teeth, NPR reviewer and former Black Gate blogger Amal El-Mohtar said:

In 1909, the United States was suffering a shortage of meat. At the same time, Louisiana’s waterways were being choked by invasive water hyacinth. Louisiana Congressman Robert F. Broussard proposed an ingenious solution to both those problems: Import hippos to eat the water hyacinth; then, eat the hippos.

Luckily for the United States in our timeline, the fact that hippos are ill-tempered apex predators not amenable to being ranched was pointed out, the American Hippo Bill failed to pass by a single vote, and consequently, we don’t have hippos casually chomping on passers-by due to a lack of their usual forage. Sarah Gailey’s imagined United States, however, are differently fortuned.

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Embers of Wars, the opening volume in Gareth L. Powell’s new space opera series, was selected as one of the Best of 2018 (So Far) by both the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog and Tor.com. The New York Journal of Books called it “Deep and juicy in the details,” Morning Star labeled it “Top class space fiction,” and The Guardian proclaimed it “Compulsively readable, expansive space opera.” But we all know it’s not a real space opera until the second book arrives, so I was very glad to see Fleet of Knives pub last week. Here’s the description.

The former warship Trouble Dog and her crew of misfits is called upon by the House of Reclamation to investigate a distress call from the human starship the Lucy’s Ghost. Her crew abandon their crippled ship and seek refuge aboard an abandoned, slower-than-light generation ship launched ten thousand years before by an alien race. However, the enormous ship contains deadly secrets of its own.

Recovered war criminal, Ona Sudak, faces a firing squad for her actions in the Archipelago War. But, at the last moment, she is smuggled out of her high security prison. The Marble Armada has called for her to accompany its ships as observer and liaison, as it spreads itself across the human Generality, enforcing the peace at all costs. The alien ships will not tolerate resistance, and all dissenters are met with overwhelming and implacable force. Then her vessel intercepts messages from the House of Reclamation and decides the Trouble Dog has a capacity for violence which cannot be allowed to endure.

As the Trouble Dog and her crew fight to save the crew of the Lucy’s Ghost, the ship finds herself caught between chaotic alien monsters on one side, and on the other, destruction at the hands of the Marble Armada.

We previously covered Embers of War here, and our 2013 discussion of Powell’s call to Escape Science Fiction’s Pulp Roots is here. Fleet of Knives was published by Titan Books on February 19, 2019. It is 405 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $8.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Julia Lloyd. Read a brief except from Embers of War here, and Fleet of Knives here, and see all our recent New Treasures here.

Cover art by Bastien Lecouffe Deharme

I’m in the market for a quick read this President’s Day weekend. Something light, with fun characters, a great setting, and a lot of action. I found a copy of Jon Skovron’s Blood and Tempest in the bookstore last weekend and, even though it’s clearly the third book in a series, it seemed exactly what I was looking for, and I happily brought it home. The first two, Hope and Red (2016) and Bane and Shadow (2017), are still in print, and I added them to my Amazon cart.

For light action fare, these books have collected a lot of praise. The Sun labeled the first one “A great swashbuckling adventure,” and in a starred review Publishers Weekly called it “Exceptional… A compelling coming-of-age yarn.” And Sarah Beth Durst (The Queen of Blood) said

Hope and Red is my favorite book of the year. Full of nonstop, irresistible adventure, it captures that wonderful classic epic fantasy feel, while introducing a fantastic pair of memorable new heroes.

Together the three books compose The Empire of Storms trilogy, about a warrior and a thief who go up against the forces of Empire. Here’s the description for the opening book.

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Every time a fantasy trilogy wraps up, we bake a cake in the Black Gate offices.

Evie Manieri’s The Shattered Kingdoms trilogy ends this month with Strife’s Bane, published in hardcover last week, four years after the last volume appeared. The series opened with Manieri’s debut novel Blood’s Pride (2013), the tale of a secret rebellion against telepathic warriors twenty years after they enslaved a nation, and continued with Fortune’s Blight (2015). Although it’s received praise from multiple quarters — Publishers Weekly says “The suspense, character development, and worldbuilding are all superior,” and Sharon Shinn called the opening novel “A fast-paced tale of honor and betrayal, hope and despair, secrets, revelations, and a whisper of divine magic”– the series has flown under the radar for many readers. Fortune’s Blight has only two reviews on Amazon, and (so far) Strife’s Bane has none at all — and has an Amazon Sales Rank of 932,782 a week after publication, not a promising sign.

I know there’s a popular trend (certainly among Black Gate readers, anyway) to stay clear of epic fantasy series until they’ve successfully completed. I hope that now that The Shattered Kingdoms has wrapped up, it will spur some fresh interest in the trilogy. Unlike many writers afflicted with late-series bloat, Manieri has kept her series lean. The first book in fact was by far the longest (528 pages); the second came in at 377, and Strife’s Bane weighs in at a trim 317. Here’s the description for the final book.

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