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An Introduction to B.C. Bell’s The Bagman

An Introduction to B.C. Bell’s The Bagman

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Tales of the Bagman-small Tales of the Bagman-back-small

Author B. Chris Bell is one of the bright lights of the New Pulp world. For Airship 27 Productions he’s written stories appearing in Secret Agent X, The Green Ghost, Jim Anthony Super-Detective, Gene Fowler: G-Man and many others. His wonderful story, “How Pappy Got Five Acres Back and Calvin Stayed on the Farm” was a winner in SFReader.com’s 2007 Annual Short Story Contest. He made the Horror Writer’s Association Reading List for 2012. His Kindle novel, Bi-Polar Express, is a wild ride of genres, almost impossible to label with its mix of the true-to-life horrors of addiction, rehab wards, hospitals, and post-apocalyptic science fiction.

Chris Bell was born and raised in Texas, and now lives in Chicago. I was born and raised in Chicago, and still live here. But Bell writes about Chicago as if he were born and bred to the mean streets of the Windy City. Heck, he knows so much about 1930s Chicago that you swear he’d grown up during the Depression. And that’s the period in which he’s set his wonderful Tales of the Bagman (Vol. 1): 1933 Chicago, during the last days of Prohibition.

The Bagman is one Frank “Mac” McCullough, a one-time courier and thug for a crime family during the Great Depression. At an early age Mac’s life took a major turn when he became an orphan, spent time in a reformatory, and then later got involved in the rackets. But he’s always had a core of decency and honesty buried in his heart. So when he chooses to help and old family friend who got in hock to the Mob, Mac turns his back on crime and his Boss, Slots Lurie, and suddenly finds himself taking another turn on the road of life. In a last-minute decision to conceal his identity from the wise guys he’s hunting, Mac dons a paper bag over his head, and soon he’s known as the mysterious Bagman. (Later he acquires a mask more appropriate to being a man of mystery and a crime-fighting avenger.) And then, in the first part of this origin story, he becomes a fugitive wanted by both the Mob and the police.

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Future Treasures: Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone

Future Treasures: Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone

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Four Roads Cross-smallFour Roads Cross is the fifth novel in Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence, which Ken Liu calls “Brilliant, elegant, epic, astonishing, smart, gritty,” and Django Wexler says is “garnished with skeleton kings, serpent gods, and lawyer-magicians. It’s glorious.” Here’s the description.

The great city of Alt Coulumb is in crisis. The moon goddess Seril, long thought dead, is back – and the people of Alt Coulumb aren’t happy. Protests rock the city, and Kos Everburning’s creditors attempt a hostile takeover of the fire god’s church. Tara Abernathy, the god’s in-house Craftswoman, must defend the church against the world’s fiercest necromantic firm–and against her old classmate, a rising star in the Craftwork world.

As if that weren’t enough, Cat and Raz, supporting characters from Three Parts Dead, are back too, fighting monster pirates; skeleton kings drink frozen cocktails, defying several principles of anatomy; jails, hospitals, and temples are broken into and out of; choirs of flame sing over Alt Coulumb; demons pose significant problems; a farmers’ market proves more important to world affairs than seems likely; doctors of theology strike back; Monk-Technician Abelard performs several miracles; The Rats! play Walsh’s Place; and dragons give almost-helpful counsel.

We covered all four previous novels — which, as Max explains on his blog, are ordered not by publication date, but by title:

Last First Snow
Two Serpents Rise
Three Parts Dead
Four Roads Cross
Full Fathom Five

Here they are in correct sequence.

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John DeNardo: In Defense of Media Tie-Ins (Part 1)

John DeNardo: In Defense of Media Tie-Ins (Part 1)

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Dan Abnett Eisenhorn-smallJohn DeNardo has closed up shop at his Hugo Award-winning blog SF Signal, but he continues to write about SF and fantasy in his regular column at Kirkus Reviews. One of his best recent articles — indeed, one of the most enjoyable blog posts I’ve read in a long time — was his passionate and articulate defense of Media Tie-ins, published on June 15.

As much as I bemoan the poor public of image of science fiction by mainstream readers, there’s an even worse injustice going on. Some people in those very same slighted genre circles are often quick to dismiss a certain type of book: media tie-ins. These are the books that are based on a story most often found in another media (like film, television, and games) but could be sourced from other literary properties as well. These are the Star Wars, Star Trek, and Dungeons and Dragons prose novels that the bookstores like to relegate to the end of the science fiction and fantasy bookshelf section. They are positioned like an appendix in a non-fiction book “in case you’re interested in more reading.” You know, if you’ve run out of other things to read…

So, yes, media tie-ins are worth your time. I’ll even back that up: one of the best set of books I’ve ever read — in any genre — was the Eisenhorn trilogy by Dan Abnett. The books are set in the richly-imagined Warhammer 40K universe, which is based on the popular role playing game. (Even WH40K itself is an offshoot of the fantasy RPG Warhammer, for which there are even more prose novels.)  Abnett is a one of the most skilled master storytellers you’ve never heard of.  This is the series that I point to when anyone is quick to dismiss tie-in fiction. The fact that it is set in the Warhammer 40K universe is incidental, though if you are familiar with the games, that would be an added bonus when you read them. I don’t play the game, but that didn’t stop me from losing sleep because I couldn’t stop turning page after action-packed page, or cheering when a bad guy finally got his comeuppance.

Read John’s complete article here.

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Goth Chick News Reviews: End of Watch — Stephen King Wraps Up a Trilogy

Goth Chick News Reviews: End of Watch — Stephen King Wraps Up a Trilogy

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Stephen King Mr Mercedes-small Stephen King Finders Keepers-small Stephen King End of Watch 2-small

As you may know from past articles, my literary relationship with Stephen King has seen more horror-themed infidelities and follow-on love fests than Ozzy Osbourne’s marriage. Frankly, I had pretty much thrown King over permanently for his more intellectually acrobatic son Joseph King (aka Joe Hill) until nearly three years when in a fit of nostalgia over The Shining, I picked up Doctor Sleep.

And just like that, Stephen King moved back into my library.

So when the first book in King’s new Detective Bill Hodges trilogy called Mr. Mercedes was released the following year, the warm glow from meeting the adult Danny Torrance was still evident and I decided to give the new series a try, even though mystery / serial killer stories are not really my thing.

And what do you know? Like the younger, more energetic version of himself in those heady days of Salem’s Lot and Carrie, King delivered a second white-knuckled nail-biter of a tale, equal to his previous work.

Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers (book two of the trilogy), now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney. Holly is the sister of Hodges’ great love who died at the hands of serial killer Brady Hartsfield and also happens to be the woman who delivered the blow to Brady’s head that put him in a vegetative state.

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Series Fantasy: Apparatus Infernum by A. A. Aguirre

Series Fantasy: Apparatus Infernum by A. A. Aguirre

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A A Aguirre Bronze Gods-small A A Aguirre Silver Mirrors-small

I get a lot of review copies in the mail, and I buy a great many books online (Amazon tells me I’ve placed 15 orders in the past 30 days, which seems like kind of a lot. And it’s probably best if we don’t discuss eBay.) But I still enjoy my Saturday trips to the bookstore, where I can leisurely browse Barnes & Noble’s SF & Fantasy section. Even for someone who puts effort into staying on top of SF publishing every single day, there are always surprises.

It was a pleasant surprise a few weeks ago when I stumbled on A. A. Aguirre’s intriguing two-volume steampunk/noir/crime series Apparatus Infernum, which consists of Bronze Gods and Silver Mirrors. A.A. Aguirre is the pseudonym for Ann & Andres Aguirre, a husband-wife writing team. Ann Aguire, as we’ve noted previously is an extraordinarily prolific fantasy and SF writer, producing some 22 novels in five years, including the Sirantha Jax science fiction adventures, the Corine Solomon urban fantasies, the YA post-apocalyptic dystopian Razorland trilogy, the dark SF series The Dred Chronicles, and many more.

The Apparatus Infernum series looks like a pleasing combination of fantasy and noir drama… and it has the added attraction of not being ten books long. Here’s the description for the first book.

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The Conclusion to a Grand Adventure: Hobgoblin Night by Teresa Edgerton

The Conclusion to a Grand Adventure: Hobgoblin Night by Teresa Edgerton

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oie_433623CB5VCFSUHobgoblin Night (2015) is an e-book rerelease (and revision, and repackaging, along with three previously published short stories) of The Gnome’s Engine (1991), Teresa Edgerton’s charming follow-up to Goblin Moon (1991). In it, the adventures of brave Sera Vorder and dashing Francis Skelbrooke, and the evil machinations of the faerie-human hybrid, the Duchess of Zar-Wildungen, continue.

In my Black Gate review of Goblin Moon, I wrote,

Goblin Moon is a model of what light entertainment can be. It’s not going to change your world, but it will definitely bring a smile to the face of anyone with a taste for some swashbuckling and Gothic mystery. This tale, smelling just a little of lavender and gunpowder, is a fun respite from all the bloody, cynical “realism” permeating much of modern fantasy — come to think of it, much of modern life.

Those words hold true for Hobgoblin Night, as well. There’s a little less swashbuckling and a little more Gothic mystery in this volume, but it’s just as much outright fun as its predecessor. If you have any desire to visit a world suspiciously like Europe during the Enlightenment, but with Gnomes, Fairies, Trolls, magic, and alchemy, these two books are for you.

At the end of Goblin Moon Sera, her cousin Elsie, and Jed Braun were headed off over the Alantick Ocean to the hoped-for safety of the New World. Though they had thwarted the Duchess’ evil plan to wreak dire harm on Elsie as revenge for a slight perpetrated by Elsie’s mother, they hadn’t stifled her desire for satisfaction. By stealing an ancient, mysterious parchment from the Duchess before fleeing, they had, in fact, only enraged her more.

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Series Fantasy: The Greatcoats by Sebastien de Castell

Series Fantasy: The Greatcoats by Sebastien de Castell

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Traitors-Blade-small Knights-Shadow-smaller Saint's Blood Sebastien de Castell

In her review of the second volume in Sebastien de Castell’s Greatcoats trilogy, Sarah Avery said:

De Castell is carving himself an enduring place in the fantasy canon….  I forgot I was wondering or worrying or writing a review, because the stalwart, somewhat cracked hero Falcio Val Mond was tugging me back into his story. I’d follow Falcio anywhere… he makes us laugh, raucously, especially in the bleak moments when he and we need it most…

One of the great pleasures of Knight’s Shadow is that the worldbuilding deepens, opens outward, flowers. In Traitor’s Blade, the Dashini made only a brief onstage appearance, and otherwise were basically ciphers, bogeymen the Greatcoats feared because so little was known about them. In the new volume, we learn about their tragedies and traumas, and why they were founded in the first place. The Greatcoats themselves had a centuries-long history with a violent end before King Paelis refounded them… Like Traitor’s Blade, Knight’s Shadow ends on a note that could still be satisfying if the series ended right now. One hazard of series fantasy is an endless episodic structure in which boundaries between volumes can feel arbitrary… It’s one problem you won’t find in de Castell’s work. Each of the two books now before us has a clear beginning, middle, and end…

Knight’s Shadow is so strong, the only way I can see the Greatcoats series failing to achieve eventual wide recognition as a classic is if the author meets an untimely demise before he finishes writing it. Live a long life, Sebastien de Castell.

Saint’s Blood, the third installment in the series, was released in hardcover by Jo Fletcher Books last month. Here’s the description.

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Goth Chick News: A Series of Unfortunate Events, or This Is Where I Came In

Goth Chick News: A Series of Unfortunate Events, or This Is Where I Came In

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A Series of Unfortuante Events-smallWay back in 2000, I submitted a book review to Black Gate magazine on a dare.

I had recently fallen in love with the first three installments of the newly published Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (aka Dan Handler) and was going on about them at work to anyone who would listen. Finally, a coworker dared me to tell someone who might actually care and send my annoyingly enthusiastic review to his favorite publication, Black Gate – assuming, I am sure, that head honcho John O’ would effectively tell me to shut it, in writing.

But sixteen years later, thanks to that annoyed coworker and the high tolerant nature of our editor-in-chief, I continue to occupy a subterranean office at Black Gate where I perpetually maintain a small shrine to Handler beside the blender: not only because his work is where Goth Chick News began, but because he remains to this day, just that entertaining.

In 2004, five years after the first book in the Series of Unfortunate Events was published, Hollywood made what I deem a truly disastrous attempt to bring them to life on the big screen; “disastrous” because rather than focusing on the three, young protagonists, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, Paramount Pictures offered it up as a vehicle for Jim Carey. And pulling out every facial expression and delivery shtick from every one of his past characterizations all the way back to In Living Color, Carey dealt the potential franchise an agonizingly slow, 108-minute death.

At least that is what I say happened.

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The Series Series: The Ever-Expanding Universe by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal

The Series Series: The Ever-Expanding Universe by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal

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Mothership-small A Stranger Thing-small The World Forgot-small

Two publishers asked if we’d try something unusual. It was the same unusual thing — reviewing an entire trilogy in one go — for two different series and two different reasons.

One series, Brian Stavely’s The Emperor’s Blades, was about to conclude. The other, Martin Leicht and Isla Neal’s The Ever-Expanding Universe, had been published by one imprint as YA, and was being given a second chance as a series for adults by another imprint of the same house. Though I knew reviewing two trilogies in this way would reduce the number of posts I made to BG this year considerably, I was curious. So here we are.

The Ever-Expanding Universe follows the adventures of a daring young engineer whose dreams of interplanetary exploration and college, not necessarily in that order, seem at first to be dashed by a bout of teen pregnancy. Thanks to the cover copy, it’s no spoiler to tell you that the young engineer’s baby daddy and not-quite-boyfriend turns out to be of extraterrestrial ancestry, and the most contested commodities in a resource war between two alien species are the bodies of the girls at the near-earth-orbit boarding school for unwed mothers where Elvie Nara has gone to hide from her high school nemesis.

Is it worse when Cole Archer, the sort-of-boyfriend, turns out to be an alien commando, or when Cole’s definitely-girlfriend and Elvie’s aforementioned cheerleader nemesis Britta McVicker turns out to be one of Elvie’s classmates for prenatal yoga? The three of them, and an impressively varied passel of other gravid girls seriously irked at having been tricked by alien boyfriends, spend the first volume of the series, Mothership, dodging ruthless alien attackers and fleeing through a booby-trapped and sabotaged space cruise ship refitted as a high school.

It’s a delightful mix of suspense, fight scenes, engineering puzzles involving transitions from one gravity or atmospheric environment to another, slapstick comedy, social satire, secret history, and stuff blowing up real good, all delivered by a hilariously smart first-person-smartass narrator you want to see triumph. How could any SFF reader resist? How did we miss this series when it first came out? Why is it not already a classic of humorous science fiction?

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