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Category: Series Fantasy

New Treasures: Assail by Ian C. Esslemont

New Treasures: Assail by Ian C. Esslemont

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Assail Ian C Esslemont-smallSteven Erikson made a name for himself with his 10-volume Malazan Book of the Fallen series, acclaimed by many as the finest heroic fantasy series of the last few decades. He co-created the world of Malaz with a member of his gaming group, Manitoba author Ian C. Esslemont, who for the past four years has been writing his own novels in the same setting, starting with Night of Knives (2010).

Esslemont has built his own fan base over the years, and the sixth and final novel in his Malazan series, Assail, arrived in hardcover and trade paperback last week.

Tens of thousands of years of ice is melting, and the land of Assail, long a byword for menace and inaccessibility, is at last yielding its secrets. Tales of gold discovered in the region’s north circulate in every waterfront dive and sailor’s tavern, and now countless adventurers and fortune-seekers have set sail in search of riches. All these adventurers have to guide them are legends and garbled tales of the dangers that lie in wait — hostile coasts, fields of ice, impassable barriers and strange, terrifying creatures. But all accounts concur that the people of the north meet all trespassers with the sword. And beyond are rumoured to lurk Elder monsters out of history’s very beginnings.

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Lou Anders: Why I Write What I Write How I Write it

Lou Anders: Why I Write What I Write How I Write it

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Frostborn with BlurbIf you haven’t heard yet, award-winning editor and art director Lou Anders’s new book has hit the shelves, and it’s causing quite a stir. It’s already chalked up a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and critical acclimation from a whole host of additional outlets. I thought it high time to sit down with Lou so he could tell Black Gate readers what his book was all about! Take it away, Lou.

I’ve always loved fantasy stories. As a child, I read The Hobbit over and over. One of my most prized possessions is a large, coffee table edition of Tolkien’s original version, featuring concept art and production stills from the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated musical television special. It was given to me by my uncle’s family, and I still have it today, dust jacket and everything! I studied the lavish illustrations for hours on end and taught myself to draw the Goblin King. It was the first in a large collection of Middle Earth-related volumes.

When I wasn’t reading, I painted miniature figures. I had a huge, faux-grass covered table in my bedroom where I’d assembled an entire army of Riders of Rohan versus orcs and half orcs. My friends and I played Dungeons & Dragons on weekends (guess who was the game master?) and my best friend and I watched Star Wars over a hundred times easy. I read everything I could get my hands on by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, and Fritz Leiber. I even built a round wooden shield out of a barrel top (it was heavy!) and used a staple gun to attach strips of thin metal to craft an outfit out of canvas.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Those Sweet Silver Blues: Garrett, PI

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Those Sweet Silver Blues: Garrett, PI

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Garrett_BluesLast year, John O’Neill wrote a post about the Garrett PI collections by Glen Cook. The talented Cook is best known for his excellent dark fantasy series about a mercenary group, The Black Company.

The Garrett books are light years away in tone and style from those of The Black Company. However, they are identical in regards to quality of writing. Garrett is the pre-eminent fantasy PI (private investigator).

Cook has written a series of books that appeals to fans of the hardboiled PI, notably practiced by Raymond Chandler, fans of the humorous fantasy world best typified by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and to those who have read Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries. The fact that Cook has masterfully combined all three of these elements is admirable in the extreme.

Garrett is a former Marine who spent five inglorious years serving in the seemingly endless war between his nation of Karenta, and Venagata. They battle over a region called The Cantard, home to most of the world’s silver mines. And silver is the resource that fuels sorcery. And since Karenta is ruled by the magic-using Stormwardens, no cost in human capital is too great to rule The Cantard.

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A Wizard is a Wizard is a Wizard — Except When He’s Harry Dresden

A Wizard is a Wizard is a Wizard — Except When He’s Harry Dresden

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Skin Game Jim Butcher.-smallSkin Game, A Novel of the Dresden Files
By Jim Butcher
Roc Books (464 pages, May 27th 2014, $27.95 in hardcover)
Cover by Chris McGrath

Skin Game is the newest novel in the  Harry Dresden series, #15 in the series. I enjoyed it so much, I re-read it.

I’m a real Harry Dresden fan. He reminds me a little of Erle Stanley Gardner’s [aka A. A. Fair] detective, Donald Lam, a “brainy little bastard” who is always getting beat up, according to his boss Bertha Cool. Sounds like Dresden, but Harry has one up on Donald. Not only is Harry a detective, he is Chicago’s only professional wizard.

As if that’s not enough, he is also the Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Mab, who, in this book, loans him out to pay off one of her debts. Trouble is the group of supernatural villains he must help is led by one of his “most dreaded and despised enemies.”

Their target? They plan to rob the personal vault of the Greek god, Hades, and they need Harry’s help.

It’s action filled and lots of fun.

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Future Treasures: The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

Future Treasures: The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

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The Midnight Queen-smallIn these post Harry Potter days, it takes a certain authorial courage to set a fantasy novel in a wizarding school. Sylvia Izzo Hunter has done exactly that with her first novel The Midnight Queen, the opening book in the Noctis Magicae series, released next month. I’m intrigued by the book blurb, which hints at an older target audience than Rowling’s series, as well as a hint of romance.

In the hallowed halls of Oxford’s Merlin College, the most talented — and highest born — sons of the Kingdom of Britain are taught the intricacies of magickal theory. But what dazzles can also destroy, as Gray Marshall is about to discover…

Gray’s deep talent for magick has won him a place at Merlin College. But when he accompanies four fellow students on a mysterious midnight errand that ends in disaster and death, he is sent away in disgrace — and without a trace of his power. He must spend the summer under the watchful eye of his domineering professor, Appius Callender, working in the gardens of Callender’s country estate and hoping to recover his abilities. And it is there, toiling away on a summer afternoon, that he meets the professor’s daughter.

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz

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Deryni RisingDeryni Rising
Katherine Kurtz
August 1970
271 p., $0.95
Cover art by Bob Pepper

When Lin Carter started the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line, he began by reprinting works that were obscure and/or considered classic in the field at that time, but as he wrote in the introduction to Deryni Rising, he had hoped from the very beginning to be able to publish high quality new works as well. The first original fiction he published was Deryni Rising, the first novel by Katherine Kurtz.

I think he hit the ball out of the park when he selected this one.

The story takes place in a pseudo-Welsh land called Gwynedd,. The book opens with the murder of King Brion Haldane by the sorceress Charissa. Brion and his closest friend Alaric Morgan defeated and killed her father some years ago. Brion’s murder is part of her plan for revenge.

Brion has, or rather had, the ability to practice Deryni magic. The Deryni are a long-lived race with inherent magical abilities. A few generations ago, humans and Deryni lived together in peace until a group of Deryni rose to power and severely oppressed the humans in Gwynedd. They were overthrown by a Deryni priest named Camber, who discovered a way to impart the Deryni’s magical powers to ordinary humans. At first, Camber was considered a saint, but later the Church declared him a heretic. Now some humans tolerate the Deryni, while others seek to exterminate them. Most Deryni keep a low profile. Morgan is part Deryni and doesn’t hide that fact.

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Writing a Fantasy Series

Writing a Fantasy Series

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Shadows Son Jon Sprunk-smallThe fantasy genre loves series (especially trilogies.) As a fantasy reader, I love them, too.

However, my first published novel, Shadow’s Son, was originally written as a stand-alone. I suppose I had an idea that publishers would be more inclined to take a chance on a single book from an unknown writer, so I was shocked when my agent came back with a deal for a three-book series that would become the Shadow Saga. I’m not ashamed to admit I was also a wee bit terrified.

How in the seven hells was I going to write a trilogy? I had never written anything longer than a single book before.

And each of the sequels has a contractually-agreed deadline? AND they want outlines for books two and three right away? Gulp.

Despite my trepidations, the adventure of reaching out into unknown territory was also thrilling, so I dove in head-first. What was the big deal, right? Writing a series is probably just like writing three separate books, isn’t it?

Well, yes and no.

My personal philosophy is that every novel must contain a complete story. That means my books each have their own plot that begins and ends within those pages. However, with a series there is also a series arc in play, another plot (super plot?) that starts in the first book and continues to develop through each subsequent novel to the very end.

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The Series Series: Sword of the Bright Lady by M.C. Planck

The Series Series: Sword of the Bright Lady by M.C. Planck

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sword-of-the-bright-lady-mc-planck-smallIf you liked Eric Flint’s 1634 books, if you liked The Chronicles of Narnia, if you liked… Well let’s just start with those two, because Sword of the Bright Lady deals in surprising juxtapositions of familiar tropes.

At times I wondered whether it dealt in anything deeper. I’ve concluded that it does. This is a fun book and it feels like it was fun to write. The author’s acknowledgments note that it took three months to write and ten years to revise. Am I churlish to wish the revision had gone one step further?

What works here works beautifully. Less than a day after I finished reading, I had to go back and prove to myself that the narration was in the third person, because I remembered Christopher’s adventures with first-person clarity, as if they had happened to me.

Christopher went out to walk his dogs one Arizona night and woke up in the snowy hinterlands of another world. His rescuers, an earthy old churchman and his orphaned servant girl, nurse him back to health, though they have no common language with him. When he’s well enough to pick up some of the household work, he tries practicing kata from his martial arts practice back home. Before he knows it, he’s challenged to a duel by a local nobleman, blessed by a language spell that allows him to understand exactly how much danger he’s in, and claimed by the local war god.

At first, Christopher insists that he’s an everyman, not famous back home nor expected to be famous by anyone who knew him there. But as he begins to see how he can help the people who have saved him, he accepts the identity the villagers thrust on him: “Crazy Pater Christopher, who never means what everyone else means.” He sets about industrializing his feudal neighbors — who all have lively personalities and complex lives — preparing them for the spring’s military campaign, because the war god Marcius has promised to return Christopher home to his beloved wife… um… what was her name again?

And that brings us to a sticking point I have to talk about. It’s not that M.C. Planck has done anything uncommonly wrong here, but rather that he’s fallen into a classic blunder that I see committed all over the place, but that nobody seems to talk about.

Let’s call it the Precious Ming Vase Problem.

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New Treasures: One Night in Sixes by Arianne ‘Tex’ Thompson

New Treasures: One Night in Sixes by Arianne ‘Tex’ Thompson

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One Night in Sixes-smallWe get a lot of review copies every month here at the Chicago rooftop headquarters of the Black Gate global publishing empire. You know what else we get? Press releases, pre-release galleys, PDFs, free Kindle books, stuff like that. We could never leave the office, and still keep you decently posted on the newest fantasy every month.

But we don’t aim for decent. We aim to keep you completely informed on the very best in the genre. And that means putting feet on the street, talking to folks in the industry, and visiting to bookstores. Lots and lots of bookstores. Like yesterday, where I found a copy of a fascinating “rural fantasy” from new writer Arianne ‘Tex’ Thompson. I would never have discovered her first novel if I hadn’t been wandering the aisles at B&N, and believe me, it deserves your attention.

The border town called Sixes is quiet in the heat of the day. Still, Appaloosa Elim has heard the stories about what wakes at sunset: gunslingers and shapeshifters and ancient animal gods whose human faces never outlast the daylight.

And the daylight is running out. Elim’s so-called ‘partner’ — that lily-white lordling Sil Halfwick –- has disappeared inside the old adobe walls, hell-bent on making a name for himself among Sixes’ notorious black-market traders. Elim, whose worldly station is written in the bastard browns and whites of his cow-spotted face, doesn’t dare show up home without him.

If he ever wants to go home again, he’d better find his missing partner fast. But if he’s caught out after dark, Elim risks succumbing to the old and sinister truth in his own flesh – and discovering just how far he’ll go to survive the night.

One word of warning: One Night in Sixes is the kind of novel that has a 10-page glossary and 11-page “People and Place” reference in the back. If that scares you, go back to reading E. Nesbit and the Ranger’s Apprentice books. Lightweight.

One Night in Sixes was published on July 29, 2014 by Solaris Books. It is 439 pages (plus all those glossaries and stuff), priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The moody and effective cover is by Tomasz Jedruszek.

New Treasures: Broken Souls by Stephen Blackmoore

New Treasures: Broken Souls by Stephen Blackmoore

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Broken Souls Stephen Blackmoore-smallI covered Stephen Blackmoore’s first hard-boiled detective zombie novel, Dead Things, last February. It was an obvious candidate for a series, and 17 months later a sequel has finally appeared.

This isn’t the first time Blackmore’s written about LA undead. His first novel, City of the Lost (January 2012), featured Joe Sunday, killed by the rival of his crime boss and returned as a zombie to carry on as LA lowlife. If you’re a fan of necromancers, crime novels, or the darker side of LA, Stephen Blackmoore is definitely your guy.

Sister murdered, best friend dead, married to the patron saint of death, Santa Muerte. Necromancer Eric Carter’s return to Los Angeles hasn’t gone well, and it’s about to get even worse.

His link to the Aztec death goddess is changing his powers, changing him, and he’s not sure how far it will go. He’s starting to question his own sanity, wonder if he’s losing his mind. No mean feat for a guy who talks to the dead on a regular basis. While searching for a way to break Santa Muerte’s hold over him, Carter finds himself the target of a psychopath who can steal anyone’s form, powers, and memories. Identity theft is one thing, but this guy does it by killing his victims and wearing their skins like a suit. He can be anyone. He can be anywhere.

Now Carter has to change the game — go from hunted to hunter. All he has for help is a Skid Row bruja and a ghost who’s either his dead friend Alex or the manifestation of Carter’s own guilt-fueled psychotic break. Everything is trying to kill him. Nothing is as it seems. If all his plans go perfectly, he might survive the week.

He’s hoping that’s a good thing.

Broken Souls will be published on Tuesday by DAW Books. It is 264 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital version.