Search Results for: Matthew Surridge

Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek: “The Word of Azrael” by Matthew David Surridge

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Next up in our Black Gate 14 Preview is an old-school Sword & Sorcery epic from  talented newcomer Matthew David Surridge. Eventually Isrohim Vey went to the land of Marás, where, in the nave of the Obsidian Cathedral, he slew the Black Bishop called Nimsza; and, taking up Nimsza’s ring, spoke with the demon Gorias that Nimsza had commanded in life. “It may be true,” Gorias purred, “that demons know something of the ways of angels.” Gorias held Nimsza’s soul…

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New Treasures: The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

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Cover design by Chelsea McGuckin Ursula Vernon is one of the more talented young fantasy writers in the business. She won a Hugo and Mythopoeic Award for her webcomic Digger, which was hugely popular in the Black Gate offices (reviewed here by both Alana Joli Abbott and Matthew Surridge), another Hugo for her novelette “The Tomato Thief,” and a Nebula for her short story “Jackalope Wives.” She’s also the author of the bestselling Dragonbreath series. As T. Kingfisher, she writes much…

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Vintage Treasures: Machines & Men by Keith Roberts

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Cover by Anthony Roberts I love discovering British vintage SF paperbacks. There’s a lot to discover, they’re relatively inexpensive, and they’re virtually unknown here in the US. Recently I’ve been accumulating British short story collections by John Wyndham and Keith Roberts, and they’ve been well worth tracking down. I admit I enjoy the covers as well — especially the ones featuring exotic spaceships. My latest discovery is Machines and Men, the second collection by Keith Roberts, published by Panther in 1973 and…

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Future Treasures: Vengeful, Book 2 of Villains by V. E. Schwab

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V. E. Schwab (who also writes YA fantasy under the name Victoria Schwab) is one of the few — indeed, perhaps the only — author with a bestselling superhero fiction saga that doesn’t belong to Disney or Warner Bros. Her Shades of Magic trilogy, the epic tale of an ambassador and smuggler who travels between parallel Londons, was a New York Times bestseller, and This Savage Song, the opening volume of her Monsters of Verity series, set in a divided…

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Fantasia 2018 Special Report: My First Fantasia

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By Eva and Matthew Surridge Every year the Fantasia International Film Festival has several free screenings of short films for children at Montreal’s McCord Museum of Canadian History. These showings are titled My First Fantasia. On Thursday, July 26, Black Gate‘s regular Fantasia correspondent, Matthew David Surridge, was joined by his niece Eva May Surridge, age 8, to watch a block of shorts titled Daydreams. This special article presents Eva’s thoughts on the movies. I’ll begin by asking you about…

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Guides to Worlds Fantastic and Strange

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I’ve always loved maps — following rivers to the seas, tracing the shores of those seas, and then crossing them by fingertip to a distant land. My dad had a giant Rand-McNally atlas that I took possession of when I was ten or eleven and never returned. I would pore over its pages, puzzling out how to say the names of cities like Dnepropetrovsk or Tegucigalpa and wondering what exactly was the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Today, my…

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The 2015 Hugo Nominations

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I am I suppose coming a little bit late to the party, but I wanted to join in and express my views on the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies slates, and their effect on the Hugos. I will mention up front that of all the points of view I have seen expressed, I am most in sympathy with George R. R. Martin’s … you can read his views at his Not a Blog. I should add as well that I do have…

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The Steel Seraglio: a Review

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The Steel Seraglio Mike, Linda, and Louise Carey ChiZine Publications (424 pp, $15.95 US/$17.95 CAD, trade paperback) Reviewed by Matthew Surridge The Steel Seraglio is a fantasy novel by husband/wife/daughter trio Mike, Linda, and Louise Carey, put out by ChiZine Publications. There’s also a chapbook set in the same world (which you might be able to get if you order the book directly from ChiZine). It’s a story set in a pseudo-historical Arabia, in a desert of city-states ruled by…

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Elf Opera in Tang China

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Matthew Surridge’s fascinating post on specificity in setting got the various gears, levers, in pistons in my head working.  I’m currently writing this in a cloud of steam gushing out both ears, and hopefully I’ll be able to finish before the gnomes who power the mechanisms of my consciousness go on strike. The short version: Matthew, I agree completely.  There is a certain charm to what I think of as the typical D&D setting, in which castles are built out…

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Fantasy Literature Reviews Black Gate 14

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Terry Weyna at the Fantasy Literature blog has posted a detailed and embarrassingly complimentary review of our latest issue: I’ve only just discovered [Black Gate]. And what a time to do so! The Winter 2010 edition, Number 14, is 385 pages long, the size of a hefty book. The price reflects that; few magazines will run you $15.95 in the print edition… But then, few magazines will give you as much great fantasy as this one, including first stories by…

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