Browsed by
Category: Series Fantasy

Talking The Rings of Power: Miriel

Talking The Rings of Power: Miriel

Comments 1 comment

Talking The Rings of Power continues; wherein I look at something good, and something bad, about one element of the show. Then I talk a lot more about Tolkien’s actual writings about it. THIS SERIES IS FULL OF SPOILERS – related to the show, and Tolkien’s writings. You have been warned!

I’m still working on the Numenor entry, as that Middle Earth version of the Atlantis story is a favorite. This week, I’ll look at Miriel, a tragic figure in The Silmarillion. Hurin, Thrain, Beren, Fingolfin, Miriel – lot of tragic characters in that book.

THE GOOD

Miriel is the Queen Regent of the mighty human nation of Numenor. Her father, Tar-Palantir, is a bit brain-addled and she is ruling in his stead. He dies in the final episode, which will formally make her queen. Though, she’s on a boat, coming back to Numenor, blinded from evil doings in the Southlands.

Cynthia Adddai-Robinson does a pretty good job as Miriel. Miriel is merely Tar-Palantir’s daughter and does not rule at all in The Silmarillion. So, the RoP folks are once again playing pretty free with the storytelling; but not quite fast as usual.

Miriel is haughty, intelligent, thoughtful, and we see her nobility of character. Kind of snotty, which befits a Numenorian, but also representative of the ‘good ones.’ They became a rather bad lot, and I’m sure we’ll see the opposite side of the coin, in Pharazon.

…

Read More Read More

Tales of Adventure and Exploration from the Pre-Spaceflight Era: Mike Ashley’s British Library Science Fiction Classics

Tales of Adventure and Exploration from the Pre-Spaceflight Era: Mike Ashley’s British Library Science Fiction Classics

Comments 6 comments


All ten anthologies in the British Library Science Fiction Classics edited by Mike Ashley,
plus his non-fiction survey Yesterday’s Tomorrows, and interior art from Moonrise (bottom right).
Covers by Chesley Bonestell, David A. Hardy, Warwick Goble, Frederick Siebel, et al

Mike Ashley is a fascinating guy. He interviewed me years ago about founding the SF Site (sfsite.com), one of the first science fiction websites, back in 1995, for his book The Rise of the Cyberzines, the fifth volume of his monumental History of Science Fiction Magazines. He’s edited dozens of SF anthologies over the years, including 19 volumes in The Mammoth Book series (The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy, The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction, The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, etc.)

But I’m currently obsessed with his latest project, a sequence of terrific anthologies published under the banner of the British Library Science Fiction Classics. There are nineteen volumes in the British Library Science Fiction Classics so far, including long-forgotten novels by William F. Temple, Charles Eric Maine, and Muriel Jaeger, and even a new collection of previously-abridged novellas from John Brunner, The Society of Time, which looks pretty darn swell.

But the bulk of the series — eleven books — consists of ten anthologies and a non-fiction title from Mike Ashley. And what books they are! They gather early fiction across a wide range of themes, heavily focused on pulp-era and early 20th Century SF and fantasy. Mining classic tropes like the Moon and Mars, sinister machines, creeping monsters, and looming apocalypses, Ashley has produced a veritable library of foundational SF and fantasy. Reasonably priced in handsome trade paperback and affordable digital editions, these volumes are an essential addition to any modern SF collection. And they are positively packed with fun reading.

…

Read More Read More

Talking The Rings of Power – Tolkien Trivia

Talking The Rings of Power – Tolkien Trivia

Comments 6 comments

Okay – you have seen all of season one of The Rings of Power. Well, if you haven’t, might be some spoilers below… After writing about The Istari last week, it was logical to cover the harfoots today. But they are ruining the show, and I’m just not up right now for a couple thousand words on criticizing the overbearing, completely unwarranted, hobbit presence in The Rings of Power.

The Second Age is about elves and men. With some dwarves mixed in. The hobbits have NOTHING to do with the story being told. But the showrunners, afraid to make Tolkien without the lazy, constantly hungry, hairy-footed things, had to make them a cornerstone part of the show.

I’m not ready to tackle Numenor, or why the show is more fan fiction than actual Tolkien pastiche, or real Book Tolkien (condensing over 3,000 years of history into one point of time is a part of it). So, I’m gonna share some Tolkien trivia; related to the show in some fashion. Well, mostly, anyways! You probably know a lot of it. Some might be new. But it’s time to Talk Tolkien!

BALROGS

I was playing D&D for several years before I read The Lord of the Rings (LotR). And I loved seeing the influences that Tolkien had on Gary Gygax. Type 6 Demons (Balors) clearly were based on balrogs. A balrog features prominently in my favorite part of LotR – the Mines of Khazad-dum section of book one, The Fellowship of the Ring.
…

Read More Read More

The Golden Age of the Novella: The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo

The Golden Age of the Novella: The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo

Comments 2 comments


All three volumes in The Singing Hills Cycle: The Empress of Salt and Fortune,
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, and Into the Riverlands (Tor.com, 2020-2022). Covers by Alyssa Winans

Happy book birthday to Into the Riverlands, the third volume in Nghi Vo’s acclaimed The Singing Hills Cycle!

In its review of the second volume, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, The Chicago Review of Books said “We are in a golden age of the novella,” and boy, that’s the truth. Tor.com alone has published many hundreds of novellas since they launched their novella line in September 2015, and for the past half-decade or so they’ve thoroughly dominated the long-form Hugo and Nebula ballot, with series like Martha Wells Murderbot, Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children, Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti, and many, many others.

Last year the Hugo Award for Best Novella was awarded to Nghi Vo for her debut Tor.com release The Empress of Salt and Fortune. It was followed less than ten months later by When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, which Publishers Weekly called “Dazzling.” It’s delightful to see the third volume in this groundbreaking fantasy series arrive so quickly after the first two.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: Eyes of the Void, Book 2 of The Final Architecture by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Future Treasures: Eyes of the Void, Book 2 of The Final Architecture by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Comments 0 Comment


Shards of Earth and Eyes of the Void (Orbit, August 3, 2021, and November 22, 2022). Cover design by Steve Stone

Adrian Tchaikovsky is equally at home with ambitious epic fantasy (including his Echoes of the Fall trilogy, and the sprawling, 13-volume Apt series) and big-canvas science fiction (including Warhammer 40K and his Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Children of Time novels).

HIs latest is an ambitious space opera trilogy. It began with Shard of Earth, which BookPage labeled “one of the most stunning space operas I’ve read this year… glorious,” and Publishers Weekly called “dazzlingly suspenseful… a mix of lively fight scenes, friendly banter, and high-stakes intrigue.”

Next month the second installment Eyes of the Void drops, and the advance buzz for this one is just as rapturous. I usually avoid a series until at least three novels are in print, but I may have to make an exception for this one.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Lord Darcy Adventures by Randall Garrett

Vintage Treasures: The Lord Darcy Adventures by Randall Garrett

Comments 9 comments


Too Many Magicians, Murder and Magic and Lord Darcy Investigates
(Ace, 1979 – 1981). Cover art by Robert Adragna

In 1977 Jim Baen accepted an offer from publisher Tom Doherty to return to Ace Books to head their science fiction line. Doherty left Ace to found Tor Books in 1980 and Baen soon followed him, but his years at Ace were extraordinarily productive. He resurrected an enormous amount of classic SF and fantasy from the magazines and brought it to a brand new audience, including Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Poul Anderson’s Flandry, Keith Laumer’s Retief, Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker, H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzy novels, and collections by Robert Sheckley, James Tiptree, Jr, Robert E. Howard, James H. Schmitz, Barry N. Malzberg, and countless others.

One of the most distinctive works Baen championed was Randall Garrett’s tales of occult detective Lord Darcy, set in an alternate England in which the laws of Magic are rigorously codified, but the laws of physics remain unknown. He gathered them into three volumes: the novel Too Many Magicians and the collections Murder and Magic and Lord Darcy Investigates. They captured a brand new readership, and the books have been reprinted half a dozen times in subsequent decades.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Servants of War by Larry Correia and Steve Diamond

New Treasures: Servants of War by Larry Correia and Steve Diamond

Comments 14 comments
Servants of War by Larry Correia and Steve Diamond (Baen Books, 2022. 424pages). Cover art by Alan Pollack

Veteran fantasy readers may yawn if they hear about an epic fantasy about a farm boy in a remote village rising to power, and the first few pages of Servants of War dangles that trope before readers. And then horror rushes in like a tidal wave, and before Chapter 1 can end, the worn trope is burning with hellfire billowing alchemical smoke, a Grimdark spirit rises out of the book to slap the reader in the face, crank the head back, and pour gasoline-action down a thirsty throat.

Welcome to Servants of War. The combination of military-fantasy veteran Larry Correria with horror-guru Steve Diamond promises “military fantasy with horror” and you’ll get trenches full of that. Baen released this masterpiece that opens The Age of Ravens series in hardcover and audiobook in March 2022; the paperback is due February 2023.  Without spoiling, this post covers a summary, excerpts, and a small hint as to the forthcoming sequel.
…

Read More Read More

A Masterclass in Grand-Scale Storytelling: The Legacy of the Mercenary King by Nick Martell

A Masterclass in Grand-Scale Storytelling: The Legacy of the Mercenary King by Nick Martell

Comments 0 Comment


The Legacy of the Mercenary King trilogy: The Kingdom of Liars, The Two-Faced Queen and The Voyage
of the Forgotten (Saga Press, February 8, 2022). Covers by Bastien Lecouffe Deharme and Benjamin Carré

I love it when a fantasy trilogy sneaks up on me.

It seemed like just yesterday we were reporting on the imminent release of The Kingdom of Liars, the debut fantasy from 23-year old wunderkind Nick Martell, getting rave reviews from all quarters. Now I find the third volume in the trilogy will be released in a matter of weeks…. how did that happen?

The acclaim for this series has only grown with each volume. At Tor.com, Paul Weimer described it as “Something like PKD and [Gene] Wolfe teaming up to write City State Fantasy.” Kirkus called the first one “An impressive fantasy debut,” but pulled out all the stops for The Two-Faced Queen, saying “Simply put, this series is a masterclass in grand-scale storytelling. The future of epic fantasy is here — and this saga is it.”

…

Read More Read More

BAEN BOOKS SIGNS HOWARD ANDREW JONES TO FIVE-BOOK DEAL: THE CHRONICLES OF HANUVAR

BAEN BOOKS SIGNS HOWARD ANDREW JONES TO FIVE-BOOK DEAL: THE CHRONICLES OF HANUVAR

Comments 6 comments
Hanuvar short stories by Howard Andrew Jones appeared in these fine magazines, and they lead to Aug 2023's release of the novels!
Hanuvar short stories by Howard Andrew Jones appeared in these fine magazines, and they lead to Aug 2023’s release of the novels!

We have exciting news to share about Howard Andrew Jones and Sword & Sorcery.

Howard Andrew Jones in Magazines

Howard Andrew Jones is a titan amongst the Black Gate staff, having served as Manager Editor of the paperback magazine from 2004 onward. He has also been a champion of adventure fiction, being the driving force behind the rebirth of interest in Harold Lamb’s historical fiction (assembled and edited 8 collections of Lamb’s work for the University of Nebraska Press). On the Sword & Sorcery front, he has been blogging about the genre for decades (and his posts on the now-obsolete Flashing Swords e-zine… and subsequently on Black Gate… regarding REVISITING THE NEW EDGE would eventually coin the term “New Edge S&S”).  Howard Andrew Jones is currently the Editor for the sword-and-sorcery magazine Tales From the Magician’s Skull, published by Goodman Games.

HAJ in Books

Howard Jones’s debut historical fantasy novel, The Desert of Souls (Thomas Dunne Books 2011), was widely acclaimed by influential publications like Library Journal, Kirkus, and Publisher’s Weekly, made Kirkus’ New and Notable list for 2011, and was on both Locus’s Recommended Reading List and the Barnes and Noble Best Fantasy Releases list of 2011. Its sequel, The Bones of the Old Ones, made the Barnes and Noble Best Fantasy Release of 2013 and received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. He is the author of four Pathfinder novels, an e-collection of short stories featuring the heroes from his historical fantasy novels, The Waters of Eternity, and the Ring-Sworn trilogy from St. Martin’s, starting with For the Killing of Kings, which received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, and concluding with When the Goddess Wakes, which received the same recognition.

Now There is Even More!

Baen Books signed Howard Andrew Jones to pen five books: The Chronicles of Hanuvar (the first book to arrive August 2023). Press release below.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Starhammer/Vang Trilogy by Christopher Rowley

Vintage Treasures: The Starhammer/Vang Trilogy by Christopher Rowley

Comments 6 comments


Starhammer, The Vang: The Military Form and The Vang: The Battlemaster
(Del Rey, 1986 – 1990). Covers by David Schleinkofer and Stephen Hickman

I’m a huge fan of modern science fiction, and I find no shortage of new novels and and series to coo over here. But there are times when I miss the old-school SF of last century, rooted in the Cold War paranoia of the 50s and 60s. The Golden Age of invaders from space, all-consuming blobs, and gooey alien parasites that have their sights set on your lower G.I. tract.

In the late 80s Christopher Rowley, author of the popular Battle Dragons series from Roc, had a hit with his Vang novels, a space opera/alien parasite hybrid. Clearly inspired by the author’s love of Alien and pulp-era SF by A.E. Van Vogt, Jack Vance, Eric Frank Russell, and others, the trilogy — Starhammer, The Vang: The Military Form and The Vang: The Battlemaster — had the sweep of epic space opera crossed with the gritty realism of James Cameron’s Colonial Marines.

The story of The Vang begins when the asteroid miner Seed of Hope, illegally prospecting in a Forbidden Sector of the Saskatch system, finds a billion year-old vessel containing an alien horror, the last vestige of a race nearly annihilated in an ancient conflict that convulsed the galaxy. It’s an encounter that will plunge humanity into a desperate war of survival.

…

Read More Read More