Black Gate

As I’ve mentioned a few times, one of the great things about collecting vintage SF and fantasy paperback is the constant new discoveries. A recent discovery of mine is Ian Wallace, who published 14 novels between 1952 and 1989, all but two part of a series that began with Croyd in 1967.

“Ian Wallace” was the pen name of John Wallace Pritchard, a local Chicago science fiction writer. He was a practicing clinical psychologist, and spent much of his career working for the Detroit public schools system. His first novel, Every Crazy Wind, was published in 1952 under his real name; his second, Croyd, was published as “Ian Wallace,” and began a lengthy series following the adventures of an organization of time-traveling superhumans. In the opening volume, Croyd is assigned to protect Earth from an alien invasion, but finds his mind transferred into the “inferior body” of a human woman — and his own body in the employ of an alien agent.

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Michael Swanwick’s third novel, Stations of the Tide (1991), was nominated for both the Hugo and Clarke Awards, and won the Nebula for Best Novel of the year. He followed it three years later with a very different book — a highly original fantasy in a bizarre, almost steampunkish setting, a place where elves use humans, trolls and dwarves as slave labor to construct the giant iron dragons used as war machines. When the children meet to plot the death of their supervisor, and a whispered voice leads young Jane to an old and broken junkyard dragon, she learns that escape is possible. But untold wonders and terrors both lie beyond the factory gates…

A human changeling child coming of age, in a world of violence and monsters, Jane toils unceasingly alongside trolls, dwarves, shifters and feys in the dank, stygian bowels of a steam dragon plant — helping to construct the massive black iron flying machines the elvan rulers use for waging war. Then one day, the cold, tantalizing voice of a rusting, discarded dragon speaks softly to Jane — whispering to her of freedom and vengeance… and the terrible wonders awaiting her far beyond the factory gates… Michael Swanwick ushers us into a remarkable realm of darkest fantasy, erotic dreams and industrial magicks — on a stunningly original and hair-raising ride toward the obliteration of another history and the end of all things.

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter was nominated for both the Clarke and World Fantasy Awards, and placed second in Locus magazine’s annual poll for Best Fantasy Novel of the Year (behind Peter S. Beagle’s The Innkeeper’s Song). It had one sequel, The Dragons of Babel, released over a decade later in 2008. The Iron Dragon’s Daughter was published in hardcover by AvoNova in January 1994, with a cover by Dorian Vallejo (above left), reprinted in trade paperback by Avon in September 1997 with a cover by J. K. Potter (middle), and released as #42 in the Millennium Fantasy Masterworks series in 2004 (above right, cover by Steve Stone). It is currently out of print.

In 1973, author Pamela Sargent began to assemble stories for a groundbreaking anthology: Women of Wonder, collecting science fiction stories by women, about woman. It was the first anthology of its kind, and as you can probably imagine, Sergeant ran into some obstacles when she tried to sell it. Here’s Ms. Sargent:

For over two years, I tried to find a publisher for Women of Wonder, and the reactions of editors were instructive. A few editors thought the idea was wonderful but decided not to do the book anyway. Some editors found the book absurd, a couple doubted whether I could find enough good stories to fill the book, and one editor didn’t think there was a large enough audience for such an anthology.

But the audience was there, and so were the authors.

That’s taken from the introduction to the fourth volume in the series, Women of Wonder: The Classic Years, published by Harcourt Brace in 1995.

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