The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman(Tor Books, May 2021). Cover by Marie Bergeron Christopher Buehlman has accumulated an impressive rep with some powerful horror novels over the past decade. Those Across the River was nominated for the World Fantasy Award, The Lesser Dead won the American Library Association’s award, and The Suicide Motor Club made The Best Horror Books of 2016 list at the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog. His latest is an interesting departure — the kick-off for an…
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The Ace Robert Silverberg: skewed titles and unclutterd art. The Seed of Earth, The Silent Invaders, Recalled to Life, Next Stop the Stars, Collision Course and Stepsons of Terra. All from 1977. Covers by Don Punchatz If you cruised the bookstore and supermarket racks in the 70s and 80s for science fiction paperbacks, Robert Silverberg was everywhere. I mean, everywhere. It wasn’t just that he was enormously productive — that was certainly true. But his books remained in print, or were returned to…
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The World Fantasy Awards are presented during the World Fantasy Convention and are selected by a mix of nominations from members of the convention and a panel of judges. The awards were established in 1975 and presented at the 1st World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island. Traditionally, the awards took the form of a bust of H.P. Lovecraft sculpted by Gahan Wilson, however in recent years the trophy became controversial in light of Lovecraft’s more problematic beliefs. The Best…
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DAW Books was founded in 1971 by uber-editor Donald A. Wollheim after he left Ace Books. In the last five decades it’s published almost two thousand science fiction and fantasy novels (W. Michael Gear’s Pariah, released on May 14, is Daw Book #1823), and it has launched the careers of hundreds of writers, including C. J. Cherryh, Julie E. Czerneda, Patrick Rothfuss, Tad Williams, Kristen Britain, Melanie Rawn, Violette Malan, and Tanith Lee. Right. So there’s lots of reasons to…
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Bantam Spectra cover by Gervase Gallardo Twenty-five years ago oversized trade paperbacks fantasy anthologies were few and far between. Today they’re the default, but in the early 90s, when original anthologies routinely appeared as mass markets paperbacks, you had to be something special to warrant the deluxe trade paper format. (Nowadays, of course, the mass market anthology is long dead, but that’s a subject for a different post.) Strange Dreams was something special. In the early 90s Stephen Donaldson was…
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Over five years: 55 Short Story Roundups, each of at least four stories, making for a minimum of 220 reviewed. It’s probably at least half-again as many. 157 Book Reviews, including 11 books by Glen Cook, 7 by PC Hodgell, 7 by Andre Norton, 6 by TC Rypel 12 Essays That’s how much I’ve written at Black Gate since my inaugural post, The Best New Sword & Sorcery of the Last Twelve Months. I should also add I co-wrote a…
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The Dark Talents novels by Kay Kenyon I was lucky enough to hear Kay Kenyon read from her novel At the Table of Wolves in 2016, and I was immediately captivated. Her tale of a young English woman with superhuman abilities in the late 1930s who is drawn into the world of intelligence services warring in the shadows — and who stumbles on a chilling Nazi plan to invade England, utilizing their own superhuman agents — was one of my favorite novels last…
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By Janet Morris and Chris Morris This is an excerpt from Tempus Unbound, by Janet Morris and Chris Morris, presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of Janet Morris and Chris Morris, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Tempus Unbound is available in hardcover, trade paper; and in Kindle, Nook, and other electronic formats at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, I Tunes and other booksellers. Chapter 17: Hunters From the Future Something scrambled…
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H. Beam Piper is one of my favorite Twentieth Century writers. He died a few months after I was born, on November 4, 1964, but his books are still in print today in handsome omnibus collections from his long-time publisher, Ace Books. And if you’re willing to hunt for a few vintage paperbacks (and why wouldn’t you?), you can also find some terrific collections of his earlier novels and stories. Let’s start with the classic series for which Piper is…
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The Odin’s Day Poul Anderson work scheduled for discussion this week is The High Crusade. But, since I find that I have very little to say about it, I’ll focus instead on Violette Malan’s The Sleeping God. Last week Elizabeth Cady asked Black Gate readers what she should read next. I would never deign to give her an answer. As a reader and a scholar, in general I find that book recommendations more often curse than bless. Here is my…
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