I never really thought Stan Lee would die. I’ve been saying for years that as long as there was a single nickel to be squeezed, Stan the Man would be making his cameo and taking his executive producer credit and raking in the long green. I guess we now live in a nickleless universe, and there will be a blank spot somewhere around the margins of the next Marvel cinematic blockbuster. Stan Lee took a last intrepid leap into the…
Happy Halloween everyone! Later tonight, as you’re curled up in your favorite chair munching Halloween candy, you’ll remember that today is also the last day of the month, and you’ll wonder what exciting new releases you overlooked. (Trust me. It’ll happen.) I mean, I get it. There are so many great new books being published these days that it’s impossible to keep track. Impossible without very special resources, that is. Resources like Matt Staggs at Unbound Worlds, who’s curated an…
In 1970, when I was ten, my city (Bell Gardens, California) built a new state-of-the-art library — right across the street from my house. (It was then that I knew that I was the favorite of the gods. The vicissitudes of life have since led me to revise that reckless assumption, but then I no longer live across the street from a library.) Every time I walked through the building’s doors (five or six times a day, probably), I sent…
Four years ago, I posted an explanation of what I’m trying to do with my reviews for Black Gate. My stated goal was, and remains, to be someone who says to readers, “Here’s a book I think you’ll get a kick out of.” There were several people who did that for me, turning me on to books and authors I still hold dear, and I want to do that for others. Like most fans of something, I want to convince people the things…
Here in the Midwest we got a 2-inch dusting of snow on Christmas Eve, just enough to put everyone in the mood for the holidays. When it comes to a White Christmas, there’s nothing like a little just-in-time inventory. We have our share of holiday traditions here in the O’Neill-Dechene household. And one of them is reading a mystery tale or two from Otto Penzler’s Big Book of Christmas Mysteries over the holidays, curled up in the living room by…
Two weeks ago I wrote a quick piece on Otto Penzler’s latest anthology, The Big Book of Rogues and Villains. I dashed off a list of the previous Penzler books we’d covered over the years… and I realized to my dismay that we’d somehow overlooked one of my favorites, The Big Book of Ghost Stories, an 836-page treasure trove released in 2012. I figured the time was right to rectify that oversight. Michael Dirda gives a great summary in his…
Genevieve Valentine’s first novel Mechanique received a Nebula nomination and placed #2 on the Locus Award list for Best First Novel. Her second was the highly acclaimed The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. Her third, Persona, was the first installment in The Persona Sequence; it was released last year as part of the freshman class of Saga Press releases, and very warmly received. The sequel, Icon, arrives at the end of the month. Here’s the description. Suyana Sapaki survived an assassination attempt…
Back in the mid-1930’s, one of the most active science fiction fan clubs was the Chicago Science Fiction Club, which had among its members such fans as Jack Darrow (among fandom’s most prolific writers of letters of comment to the SF pulps), Earl and Otto Binder (the Eando Binder writing team), Jack Binder (their brother, an artist), Walter Dennis and Paul McDermott (both of who had started the Science Correspondence Club in 1929 and later published The Comet, edited by…
We lost David Hartwell on January 20th. This is our sixth article in a series that looks back at one of the most gifted editors in our industry. With the publication of The Dark Descent and The Ascent of Wonder, David quickly established himself as the go-to guy for big genre survey volumes, and he produced many of them. These massive books were popular with libraries and book clubs, and many stayed in print for years. David had found a fine niche for himself…
We lost David Hartwell on January 20th. This is our second article in a series that looks back at one of the most productive careers in our industry. Last time we looked at two of David’s earliest anthologies, Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment and Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder, released in 1988 and 1989. Here I want examine two more monumental anthologies he produced in the late 80s, both seminal to the field: The Dark Descent (October 1987) and The World Treasury of…