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Black Gate‘s Vaughn Heppner reaches #1 at Amazon with Star Soldier

Black Gate‘s Vaughn Heppner reaches #1 at Amazon with Star Soldier

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star-soldierStar Soldier by Vaughn Heppner, Book #1 of the Doom Star Series, has reached the Top of Amazon’s bestseller list for Series Science Fiction in its Kindle edition.

Number 2 on the list is the second volume in the series, Bio-Weapon — outselling Dune, Foundation, and Orson Scott Card’s Ender series, among many others. In the general Science Fiction Bestsellers list for Kindle editions, Star Soldier reached #2, second only to the brand new Zero History by William Gibson.

Star Soldier is a full novel, 82,000 words in length, and is available for download for just 99 cents.  Here’s the description:

It’s survival of the fittest in a brutal war of extinction! Created in the gene labs as super soldiers, the Highborn decide to replace the obsolete Homo sapiens. They pirate the Doom Stars and capture the Sun Works Ring around Mercury. Now they rain asteroids, orbital fighters and nine-foot drop troops onto Earth in a relentless tide of conquest. Marten Kluge is on the receiving end. Hounded by Thought Police, he lives like an ant in a kilometer-deep city. The invasion frees him from a re-education camp but lands him in the military, fighting for the wrong side. Star Solider is the story of techno hell in a merciless war, with too many surprises for any grunt’s sanity.

Vaughn has sold three really terrific linked Sword and Sorcery tales to Black Gate, the first of which, “The Oracle of Gog,” will appear in our next issue.  I asked him to tell us a little bit about the novels:

In many ways Star Soldier is based from my years of reading about the Eastern Front during WWII. Social Unity is like the Soviets. The genetic super-soldiers think like Nazis. Marten Kluge, the hero, just wants to be free. But there is precious little freedom in the Inner Planets of the Solar System in 2350… I’m writing hard these days. I’m working on the third book of the Doom Star Series, Battle Pod.

Congratulations Vaughn!

The Death of F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

The Death of F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

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woman-between2On June 24, Science Fiction author and critic F. Gwynplaine “Froggy” MacIntyre posted a short note in the Community News section of Jeffry Dwight’s SFF.Net, an online community of genre readers and pros. The apparently-casual note was titled, “I am just going outside and may be some time,” the famous last words of Titus Oates, the English explorer who committed suicide during an Antarctic expedition by stepping out into a blizzard.

Most readers didn’t catch the inference. One astute reader who did called 911, and Froggy was taken into custody, dragged out of his apartment by six police officers while yelling, “I want to die and I’m going to take everyone in the building down with me,” according to a neighbor.

Froggy was released a few hours later. He returned to his home, posted a bitter rant titled “One idiot ruins everything,” and lit a fire in his cluttered apartment that killed him and took a dozen fire trucks and 60 firefighters over an hour to extinguish, according to “Froggy’s Last Story“, the lengthy New York Times article that appeared Friday. The article quotes Black Gate‘s Darrell Schweitzer, Andrew Porter and Bud Webster.

Although he produced only a handful of books, including the novel The Woman Between the Worlds and the anthology MacIntyre’s Improbable Bestiary, Froggy’s short fiction appeared in many outlets, including Analog, Weird Tales, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Amazing Stories. He was also a respected critic, writing books reviews for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction for many years. More biographical details are in his Wikipedia entry.

Many of us in the SF & Fantasy community knew Froggy, but few of us knew him as well as we thought he did. His online bio (now taken down) stated his parents had given him up at an advanced age, sending him to an orphan labor camp in Australia, contacting him years later only to ask him to donate a kidney to his twin brother.  In the New York Times article, Darrell describes Froggy’s public persona as “basically a character he invented.” Froggy zealously guarded his privacy, and many of the tales he told were seemingly designed to obscure his origins as much as possible.

Whatever the case, Froggy was a talented writer and fan who was with us too briefly. Rest in peace, Froggy.

Locus Reviews Black Gate 14

Locus Reviews Black Gate 14

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locus-595aThe August issue of Locus, the Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, contains a review of our latest issue by Contributing Editor Rich Horton.

Black Gate‘s Winter issue is positively huge… and it delivers excellent value. There are three novellas, all entertaining. My favorite was Robert J. Howe’s “The Natural History of Calamity,” which is basically urban fantasy, but with quite a clever central idea. Debbie Colavito is a private detective with a difference: she detects what’s wrong with someone’s “karmic flow” and restores the balance. In this story she takes a case for a nice young man whose equally nice girlfriend has just dumped him. Was it something he did wrong, some bad karma? Or is it something to do with her new boyfriend, a nasty piece of work who, by coincidence, has some history with Debbie? The central idea is pretty intriguing and could, I think, support a series. Nicely done, with some well-handled twists.

Rich also enjoyed “Devil on the Wind” and “The Word of Azrael”:

“Devil on the Wind,” by Michael Jasper & Jay Lake concerns a group of magicians whose power arises from their own suicides (and revivals). One such witch is sent to a nearby Prince to enforce the rule of these magicians. But she learns that her allies have plans that don’t include her… Even better is Matthew [David] Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael.” It concerns Isrohim Vey, who sees the Angel of Death on a battlefield and as a result is spared — more a curse than a blessing — to search again for the Angel. His search almost takes the form of a catalog of sword & sorcery tropes, his many adventures told briefly but with style and an ironic edge. Surridge both celebrates and winks at the genre. It’s very entertaining, clever, and even thought-provoking.

The online counterpart to Locus magazine is the excellent Locus Online, edited by Mark R. Kelly.

Bull Spec #2: A Magazine of Speculative Fiction

Bull Spec #2: A Magazine of Speculative Fiction

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bullspec2aThe second issue of Bull Spec, Samuel Montgomery-Blinn’s quarterly print magazine of Speculative Fiction, arrived last week, with a spectacular cover by Vladimir Krizan.

I asked Samuel to give a quick rundown of the contents for us, and he delivered with style:

Greetings, fantasy adventurers of Black Gate! Bull Spec #2 was published on July 13, with original short speculative fiction ranging from far future science fiction on distant worlds, to a near future science fiction NYC, to a fantasy take on naga mythology. And there’s Kaolin Fire’s “By the Dragon’s Tail” which follows a broken man from a soothsayer’s table to his journey into a volcano’s mouth in search of… well, you might be able to guess by the title, eh? There’s an essay from John Kessel on posthuman ethics, in-depth interviews touching on subjects including non-narrative game design and even Wagner’s operas, and, of course, the serialized graphic story “Closed System” which features a scientist who travels through time. On a motorcycle chassis. Grafted onto a giant ape head. Black Gate folks might also be interested in a darkly fantastic bit of poetry, “The Torturer’s Boy” by J.P. Wickwire. And the cover. Thank you, Vladimir Krizan! It’s available in print (yes, print! in this day and age!) and DRM-free, pay-what-you-want PDF.

You had me at “giant ape head.” And I’m still jealous of that cover. Copies of Bull Spec #2 can be ordered from their website.

The Collecting Game: Urban Legends and What Entropy Means to Me

The Collecting Game: Urban Legends and What Entropy Means to Me

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entropy2There are indeed urban legends at work in the Collector’s market. For example, the entire print order of George Alec Effinger’s first novel, What Entropy Means to Me (Doubleday, 1972) was supposedly pulped before publication (almost certainly untrue).

We associate Doubleday with very short print-runs, quickie pulpings, and fabulously high collector’s prices. Many of the most expensive books in our field are Doubledays. (Specifically, early Heinlein, early Zelazny, early King.)

What Entropy Means to Me is not a rare book, even in non-ex-library copies. I have one. It may be that the price is still low because the demand is low, but this is not a hard book to obtain.

What I have always heard is that it was Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness which was mistakenly pulped prematurely. Apparently they planned to pulp something else, most likely Nine Princes in Amber, and pulped the wrong one, which resulted in Creatures only being in print a few months.

Meanwhile, most copies of Nine Princes were sold to libraries and were either defaced or destroyed. In retrospect this became a very sought-after title, and thus one of the great collector’s items of SF. There is one on Abebooks right now for $8,500.

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Short Fiction Roundup: World Fantasy Nominees

Short Fiction Roundup: World Fantasy Nominees

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readerLocus reports the ballot of nominees for the World Fantasy Awards.  It’s a little confusing.  I can’t seem to find the ballot on the World Fantasy site, which does references the “2009” nominees and winners for last year (meaning these were for works published in 2008 that won at the 2009 convention). Locus refers the “2009 Nominees,” by which it means works published in 2009 that will be awarded at the 2010 WF convention in October. Why this isn’t on the WF site I couldn’t say.  Now that I’ve cleared that up, here are the nominees in the novella and short story categories:

(Haven’t read any of these.  In fact, for the entire ballot, the only thing I’ve read is The City & The City by China Miéville.  Maybe I get extra credit for reading some of James Enge’s Morlock stories; his Blood of Ambrose is also a novel nominee.)

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Dark Worlds Magazine #5 Arrives

Dark Worlds Magazine #5 Arrives

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darkworld5aDark Worlds #5 (Summer 2010) is online at last.

Fans of the magazine will notice a few changes. First, it’s now in quarto size (7 1/2″ x 10″) instead of 6″ x 9″ trade paper size (to make it more like an old pulp) and the cover is a wraparound.

The cover illustrates “Of Kings and Servants,” and is painted by M. D. Jackson. The interior pages have a new graphic look as well.

This issue features the work of C. J. Burch (author of The Star of Kaleel – a novel  reviewed in this issue). C. J. offers the Tiana Dumond and Krystyn Hamerskjold novella “Of Kings and Servants,” a Sword & Sorcery tale of undead pirates and evil magicians. Cover artist M. D. Jackson also did the illustrations.

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Black Gate Zeppelin Pointed Towards Dragon*Con

Black Gate Zeppelin Pointed Towards Dragon*Con

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zepplin2I arrived at our building this morning to find people milling around in the street, pointing into the air. A fat, smoke-shrouded zeppelin was moored to the Black Gate rooftop headquarters.

“Oh God, no,” I thought. “I was sure Howard was joking. That thing is a death trap.”

Howard wasn’t joking. I took the elevator to the roof, punched in the secret code, and stepped out into chaos. Minions were scurrying everywhere, loading cargo into the airship. John Woolley, our graphic designer, was stuffing our brand new 12-foot banners into a well-worn travel case from the 1920s. I caught him just as a strong gust of wind damn near took him over the edge, and we got it stowed into the cargo hold.

I found Howard commanding operations. “Are you crazy?” I shouted at him. “That thing will never make it to Atlanta. It can barely do five knots!”

Howard did look slightly crazy, dressed in jungle fatigues and standing on a desk. He was clutching a worn parchment. “Isn’t she beautiful? Jason Waltz completely re-built the engines. She hit Mach 2 just after midnight last night during our test run!”

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Howard Andrew Jones’ The Desert of Souls available for pre-order on Amazon

Howard Andrew Jones’ The Desert of Souls available for pre-order on Amazon

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whispers-from-the-stone-small3Howard Andrew Jones’ Dabir and Asim stories are some of the most popular we’ve published in Black Gate. His first novel featuring his 9th Century adventurers, The Desert of Souls, is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

Howard’s tales of Dabir and Asim have appeared in many fine venues, including the anthology Sages and Swords, and Paradox, the magazine of historical and speculative fiction. In “Sight of Vengeance” (Black Gate 10), our intrepid heroes investigate a fiendish foe who claims the eyes of his victims.  In “Whispers From the Stone” (Black Gate 12), Dabir and Asim find themselves trapped in an ancient tomb, up against an sinister conspiracy led by a long-dead — and very formidable — opponent.

Howard has discussed the fascinating details of selling his novel here on the Black Gate blog (“How to Get a Book Deal“). We’ll publish an excerpt from the novel in our next issue, Black Gate 15. But for now you’ll have to content yourself with the enticing plot summary from the Amazon listing:

In 9th century Baghdad, a stranger pleads with the vizier to safeguard the bejeweled tablet he carries, but he is murdered before he can explain. Charged with solving the puzzle, the scholar Dabir soon realizes that the tablet may unlock secrets hidden within the lost city of Ubar, the Atlantis of the sands. When the tablet is stolen from his care, Dabir and Captain Asim are sent after it, and into a life and death chase through the ancient Middle East. Stopping the thieves — a cunning Greek spy and a fire wizard of the Magi — requires a desperate journey into the desert, but first Dabir and Asim must find the lost ruins of Ubar and contend with a mythic, sorcerous being that has traded wisdom for the souls of men since the dawn of time. Debut author Howard Jones breathes new life into the glittering tradition of sword-and-sorcery, combining the masterful fantasy of Robert E. Howard with the high-speed action of Bernard Cornwell.

Already being described as “A thrilling, inventive cross between One Thousand and One Nights and Sherlock Holmes,” The Desert of Souls will appear in hardcover in February, 2011, from St. Martin’s imprint Thomas Dunne Books.

Art by Storn Cook for “Whispers From the Stone.”

Hyperborean Mice: Grim Swords & Sorcery Action… With Talking Mice

Hyperborean Mice: Grim Swords & Sorcery Action… With Talking Mice

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hyper-miceAm I a bad gamer if I really, really want to play this game?

I mean… a role playing game of heroic rodents, tiny critters struggling valiantly against barbarian rat tribes, gargantuan predators such as foxes and owls, legendary horrors that prowl the land, and foul sorcery.  All in Conan’s backyard.

Just listen to this product description:

The ancient White Lords, albino mice with magical powers, rule over the valley of Hyperborea, but their empire is crumbling. Barbarian rat tribes, deadly predators and political intrigue threaten to bring their mousy civilization to an end. Terrible predators like foxes and owls take the place of giants and dragons. Voracious shrew clans raid the Fallows, seeking mice and rats to fill their larders. Centipedes scuttle beneath the underbrush, seeking prey. Hawks force the inhabitants to stay under cover during the day, while owls stalk the sky at night… Legendary horrors stalk the land, unique predators with potent magical abilities of their own. The terrifying Mocker, a centipede whose only voice is the imitated cries of his victims. The serpent Ssaaa gathers a cult of worshipers to do her bidding in the valley. And no mouse dares stand against dread Hoorooru, the ancient ruler of Rookswood and the enemy of the gods.

It’s like Robert E. Howard was hired to write the screenplay for The Secret of Nimh. Scott Oden reports that it’s “Filled with REH and Lovecraft homages! Like an owl that’s worshipped as a god by clans of savage mice.” I got chills, I swear.

Hyperborean Mice was written by Frank Sronce and published by Kiz and Jenn Press. It’s 102 pages, and is available as a softcover book from Lulu.com or as a digital download PDF from RPGNow and DriveThru RPG. Show it some love and check it out, and let me know I’m not crazy.