Black Gate

Now here’s an interesting artifact. Steal the Stars is a new novel by Nat Cassidy, based on Mac Rogers’s podcast from Tor Labs. The entire project sounds interesting, but let’s start with the podcast.

Steal the Stars is the story of Dakota Prentiss and Matt Salem, two government employees guarding the biggest secret in the world: a crashed UFO. Despite being forbidden to fraternize, Dak and Matt fall in love and decide to escape to a better life on the wings of an incredibly dangerous plan: they’re going to steal the alien body they’ve been guarding and sell the secret of its existence.

Start listening to the new dramatic podcast from Mac Rogers, award-winning writer of The Message and LifeAfter. You don’t want to miss this 14-episode noir science fiction thriller, voiced by a full cast of experienced film, theater, and voice actors.

You can listen to the whole thing at Tor Labs, Tor’s new division devoted to “Bold experiments. Podcast theatre. New ways to experience fantastic fiction.” Or if you’re old-school like me and print is more your thing, you can buy Nat Cassidy’s book. Steal the Stars was published by Tor Books on November 7, 2017. It is 416 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Peter Lutjen.

When a book loudly proclaims “International Bestseller” on the cover, that’s usually code for “Translated from French,” or some equally strange language. A little digging on the copyright page of The Witches of New York reveals that it was, indeed, originally published in a foreign land in 2016… in this case, Canada. Well, that means I can be reasonably sure the author has at least been to New York. You can see why this kind of literary detective work is so important.

Ami McKay lives in Nova Scotia (the greatest land on Earth), and her debut novel The Birth House was a # 1 bestseller in Canada. Her second, The Virgin Cure, was inspired by her great- great grandmother, Dr. Sarah Fonda Mackintosh, a female doctor in nineteenth century New York. McKay was born and raised in Indiana, which is actually farther from New York than Nova Scotia. But we won’t hold that against her.

Publishers Weekly calls The Witches of New York “Wonderful… a sidelong glance at misogyny through a veil of witches, ghosts, and other mystical entities in 1880 New York.” And The Globe and Mail says “Society types straight out of Edith Wharton pursue spiritualism for fun… but McKay widens her scope with grimier episodes… She has a nose for the Dickensian.” It is a Buzzfeed Best Gift Book of the Year.

The Witches of New York was published by Harper Perennial on July 11, 2017. It is 560 pages, priced at $15.99 in paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Stephen MacKey. Read an excerpt here.

We’re hurtling towards the end of the year, that time when Best of the Year lists are upon us. I try to cram in as many recommended reads as I can before the calendar turns over, at which time I inevitably give up in defeat, clear off my To Be Read pile, and start the year off with a fresh slate. Needless to say, I’m forced to be a lot more selective in my reading choices in the hectic weeks of December than I am the rest of the year. New releases usually suffer the most as I try to get caught up on the books everyone has been talking about.

But Kari Maaren’s Weave a Circle Round, published last week by Tor, has bucked that trend, and currently rests atop my To Be Read pile. Publishers Weekly calls it “Dazzling… an ambitious, intricate, joyful coming-of-age tale,” and Elizabeth Haydon says ” It rings many of the same chimes as The Phantom Tollbooth and A Wrinkle in Time, with a few notes charmingly reminiscent of Monty Python.” That’s exactly what I need right now.

Kari Maaren is a webcomic artist and writer; her previous publication was West of Bathurst, a complete 710-page collection of the webcomic which ran between 2006 and 2014. Weave a Circle Round is her debut novel. It was published by Tor Books on November 28, 2017. It is 367 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The striking cover was designed by Jamie Stafford-Hill. Read the complete first chapter here., and see all of our recent New Treasures here.

Jason Pargin is the Executive Editor of the comedy site Cracked.com. Under the name David Wong he’s published three novels, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (2016) and the bestselling series John Dies at the End (2009) and This Book Is Full of Spiders (2012). Connor Gormley called the first John Dies novel “Ghostbusters With More Swearing and Fewer Crappy Sequels” in his 2014 Black Gate review; the book became a feature film starring Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown in 2012. What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror is the third installment, it was released in hardcover last month. If you’re looking for a novel of cosmic horror and black humor, this is your ticket.

It’s the story “They” don’t want you to read. Though, to be fair, “They” are probably right about this one. To quote the Bible, “Learning the truth can be like loosening a necktie, only to realize it was the only thing keeping your head attached.” No, don’t put the book back on the shelf — it is now your duty to purchase it to prevent others from reading it. Yes, it works with e-books, too, I don’t have time to explain how.

While investigating a fairly straightforward case of a shape-shifting interdimensional child predator, Dave, John and Amy realized there might actually be something weird going on. Together, they navigate a diabolically convoluted maze of illusions, lies, and their own incompetence in an attempt to uncover a terrible truth they — like you — would be better off not knowing.

Your first impulse will be to think that a story this gruesome — and, to be frank, stupid — cannot possibly be true. That is precisely the reaction “They” are hoping for.

What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror was published by St. Martin’s Press on October 3, 2017. It is 373 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition.