When comes my numbered day, I will meet it smiling. For I’ll have kept this oath. I shall use my arms to shield the weak. I shall use my lips to speak the truth, and my eyes to seek it. I shall use my hand to mete justice to high and to low, and I will weigh all things with heart and mind. Where I walk the laws will follow, for I am the sword of my people and the…
When the Goddess Wakes (St. Martin’s Press, August 2021). Cover by Lauren Saint-Onge Whenever a trilogy wraps up, we bake a cake in the Black Gate offices. When that trilogy belongs to our own Howard Andrew Jones, our first Managing Editor, we bake a cake in the shape of the world of Amber. (No, we don’t know how it turned out. The damn cake keeps vanishing.) When the Goddess Wakes, the final novel in Howard’s Ring-Sworn Trilogy, follows For the…
The third and final book in Howard Andrew Jones’ epic Ring-Sworn fantasy trilogy, When the Goddess Wakes, drops a week from today. And not only is the Kindle version of the first book on sale for $2.99 all through August, but St. Martin’s Press is also giving away a complete set of the trilogy to three lucky winners. How do you enter? Just hand over your deets at the St. Martin’s website here, and then wait in breathless anticipation for…
Tales From the Magician’s Skull #5 (Goodman Games, December 2020). Cover by Sanjulian I don’t think there’s a magazine out there I look forward to as much as Tales From the Magician’s Skull, edited by Howard Andrew Jones and published twice a year by Goodman Games. Yes, partly it’s because it regularly features so many people I consider friends, including James Enge, John C. Hocking, Ryan Harvey, Violette Malan, Adrian Simmons, and of course Howard, who was Managing Editor here at…
Cover by Doug Kovacs My copy of Tales From the Magician’s Skull #4 arrived today, and it is a beautiful thing. Jam-packed with brand new tales of heroic fantasy from its finest modern practitioners, it is a joy to hold. Edited by Black Gate‘s very own Howard Andrew Jones, Tales #4 is filled with names that will be very familiar to BG readers, including James Enge, John C. Hocking, Ryan Harvey, James Stoddard, C. L. Werner, and Milton Davis ….
Classic Traveller box set (Games Designers Workshop, 1977) Over at Tor.com, Howard Andrew Jones and I (under my pseudonym Todd McAulty, the name I use for fiction writing) have posted an article on Classic Traveller, a science fiction role playing game we both dearly love. Here’s a taste. Todd: It’s fair to say that Classic Traveller was basically a ‘50s/’60s science fiction simulator. It was deeply inspired and influenced by the mid-century SF of E.C. Tubb, H. Beam Piper, Keith…
Howard Andrew Jones’ new novel Upon the Flight of the Queen arrived in hardcover on Tuesday, and the day before Howard and I (under my Todd McAulty pseudonym, the name I use to write and promote fiction) appeared at Tor.com to talk about authors who teach you how to write fantasy. Here’s a snippet. Todd: How have you followed Zelazny’s dictum on keeping the readers in the dark in the second book? Howard: Throughout [The Chronicles of] Amber, Zelazny had…
When comes my numbered day, I will meet it smiling. For I’ll have kept this oath. I shall use my arms to shield the weak. I shall use my lips to speak the truth, and my eyes to seek it. I shall use my hands to mete justice to high and low, and I will weigh all things with heart and mind. Where I walk the laws will follow, for I am the sword of my people and the shepherd…
November, 19th is a date worth marking on your calendar. It’s the day Upon the Flight of the Queen (St. Martin’s Press), the second installment of Howard Andrew Jones’ Ring-Sworn Trilogy debuts. I loved For the Killing of Kings, the first book. You can read my review of it here. It’s a terrific swords & sorcery tale with a heavy dose of swashbuckling. If you haven’t read it yet, it should be clear I heartily recommend it. It’s felt like an age…
In his Black Gate review of For the Killing of Kings, the opening novel in Howard Andrew Jones’ new epic fantasy Ring-Sworn Trilogy, Fletcher Vredenburgh wrote: For the Killing of Kings is proof that great, modern heroic fantasy is being written. Like Doc Smith’s Lensmen or DC Comics’ Green Lantern Corps, the Altenerai are an elite band of warriors endued with magical talents and dedicated to protecting the land and ensuring justice… Heroes are a too often forgotten commodity in fantasy these…