Black Gate – Page 436 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of April 2018

Monday, April 23, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

April is maybe the best month for new book releases so far in 2018. There’s a plethora of new titles I want to feature — and read — and I barely have time to keep tabs on them all. Jeff Somers at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog isn’t helping the situation by highlighting over two dozen of the best new releases, including a fair number I was completely unaware of. Here’s a few of his more interesting selections.

From Darkest Skies by Sam Peters (Gollancz, 352 pages, $26.99 hardcover/$13.99 trade paperback, April 10)

Detective tropes are given a techno-philosophical twist in this sci-fi mystery. Two hundred years in the future, an alien race known as the Masters have terraformed Earth and spread humanity into the universe, settling us on dozens of colony worlds. Keon Rause is a government agent returning to service on the planet Magenta after a five year leave of absence while he mourned his wife, a fellow agent killed in a terrorist explosion while investigating an unknown lead. Rause isn’t alone; he’s come back with an AI version of his wife, a digital reconstruction crafted from every trace of data she left behind — and crafted with the purpose of helping him figure out how and why she really died. Cashing in every favor he has left from his previous life, he finds himself following in her footsteps even as he struggles with his feelings for the simulacrum he’s created. It all leads to an impossible choice when he and his team stumble onto a disaster in the making: save the planet and lose his wife forever, or let something terrible happen and solve the mystery?

From Darkest Skies is Sam Peters’ debut novel. The sequel, From Distant Stars, is already scheduled to arrive on August 21.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Avram Davidson’s “Author, Author”

Monday, April 23, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 3 comments

Avram Davidson was born on April 23, 1923 and died on May 8, 1993. He served as the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the April 1962 issue until November 1964. During that time, the magazine was nominated for three Hugos, winning one.

Davidson also won a Hugo for his short story “Or All the Seas with Oysters.” He was nominated for ten Nebula Awards, one of which was posthumous. He received nine World Fantasy Nominations, and won for Best Collection for The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy, for Best Short Fiction for “Naples,” and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986. He also received posthumous nominations for the Seiun Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award.

“Author, Author” was published in the July 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy of Science Fiction under the editorship of Robert P. Mills. Davidson reprinted it in his 1962 collection Or All the Seas with Oysters and it was published in the British edition of Venture Science Fiction in October 1964. Robert Silverberg and Grania Davis included it in The Avram Davidson Treasury.

Rodney Stirrup was the mystery author who invented the cliché “The butler did it” according to Davidson’s “Author, Author.” Unfortunately, his writing has become trite and predictable, leading his publisher to decide to cancel Stirrup’s contracts. Dejected, Stirrup heads into the country where his car breaks down and he goes to a nearby large mansion for help. Stirrup’s discovery that the large group of men congregating in the house know him takes a rather different turn when he learns it is essentially a butler convention.

…

Read More Read More

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in March

Sunday, April 22, 2018 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

The most popular topic at Black Gate last month was the Gary Con gaming convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Gary Gygax’s home town. Part 1 of my convention report, in which I detailed the angry fallout among Pathfinder licensees to Paizo’s announcement of an impending Second Edition — including the “Pathfinder by the POUND!!” liquidation at the Frog God booth — was our most popular post for the month, by a pretty wide margin. Part 2 of my report, a 17-photo pictorial walkaround of the gorgeously well-stocked Goodman Games/Black Blade booth, came in at #3.

Gary Con wasn’t the only topic of interest in March, however. The second most-trafficked article for the month was Rich Horton’s commentary on the Hugo nominations, and our look at Unbound Worlds’ suggestions on where to start with Gothic Space Opera came in at #4. Rounding out the Top Five was Bob Byrne’s recap of his epic adventures with Gabe Dybing, Martin Page and his son Xander, and the new Conan RPG from Modiphius Entertainment.

Thomas Parker got into the spirit of our recent Ace Double reviews with “Doubling Down, or Just How Bad Are Ace Doubles, Anyway?” and that was good enough to win him the #6 slot for March. Joe Bonadonna claimed #7 with his review of Tempus With His Right-Side Companion Niko, by Janet Morris. Sean McLachlan picked up on the vintage paperback theme nicely with “STRANGE! WEIRD! EERIE! The Odd, Unusual, and Uncanny Biography of Lionel Fanthorpe,” placing at #8.

…

Read More Read More

The April Fantasy Magazine Rack

Sunday, April 22, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Lots of great reading for fiction fans in April, including new stories by Black Gate writers John R. Fultz, Mike Resnick, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, plus Sarah Pinsker, Cassandra Khaw, Nalo Hopkinson, Rob Vagle, Ray Vukcevich, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Marissa Lingen, Sarah Monette, Will McIntosh, Timothy Mudie, Adam-Troy Castro, Rich Larson, Jiang Bo, O’Neil De Noux, Jerry Oltion, Steve Perry, and lots more.

The big news this month is the return of Pulphouse in a brand new quarterly, Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, edited by Dean Wesley Smith, and the continuing success of its sister publication Fiction River, an Original Fiction Anthology edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which just released in 27th bimonthly issue, a 296-page Justice-themed volume. I’m also very pleased to see issue #5 of Dark Fantasy magazine The Audient Void, and the special 50th Anniversary issue of Locus.

Here’s the complete list of magazines that won my attention in April (links will bring you to magazine websites).

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Damien Broderick’s “Under the Moons of Venus”

Sunday, April 22, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

Damien Broderick was born on April 22, 1944.

Broderick has won the Aurealis Award four times, for his short story “Infinite Monkey” and his novels The White Abacus, Transcension, and K-Machines. He has also won four Ditmar Awards, for his novels The Dreaming Dragon, White Abacus, Striped Holes, and the collection Earth Is But a Star. The Dreaming Dragon was also a John W. Campbell Memorial nominee and his story “This Wind Blowing, and This Tide” was one of two Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award nominations. In 2005, he received a Distinguished Scholarship from the IAFA and in 2010, he was awarded the A. Bertram Chandler Memorial Award.

“Under the Moons of Venus” was originally published in Subterranean Online in the Spring 2010 issue, edited by Jonathan Strahan. Strahan included the story in his The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 and it also appeared in David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer’s Year’s Best SF 16, Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction 7 Fantasy 2011, Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection, and Allan Kaster’s audio anthology The Year’s Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 3. Broderick included it in his 2012 collection Adrift in the Noösphere: Science Fiction Stories. The story was nominated for a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.

The title of Broderick’s “Under the Moons of Venus” evokes Edgar Rice Burroughs’s “Under the Moons of Mars,” the first Barsoom story, later reprinted as A Princess of Mars. The story itself, while it has elements that are reminiscent of John Carter’s exploits, is actually quite different, focusing its attention on Robert Blackett, who is wealthy in a seemingly depopulated world, working with a therapist, Clare Laing, who he is convinced is trying to seduce him, and consulting with his friend, Kafele Massri.

…

Read More Read More

Congratulations to Ryan Harvey on his 300th Blog Post!

Saturday, April 21, 2018 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

If you stopped by the blog earlier today, you may have noticed a brief notice from our Saturday morning blogger Ryan on the occasion of his 300th post at Black Gate.

If you’re not a regular, you can be forgiven for not appreciating just what a big deal this is. But here’s a few facts to put it into perspective: over the last decade we’ve welcomed well over 250 different bloggers and guest writers, many of whom have become regular contributors. Only three others have produced the volume of content Ryan has: Matthew David Surridge (332 articles), Sue Granquist (408), and myself.

Here’s another one: Ryan has been writing for us for ten years, and in the past 12 months alone has produced 100,000 words at Black Gate. That’s the rough equivalent of 10 volumes of lively journalism on John Carpenter, monster movies, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Clark Ashton Smith, sword-and-sandal epics, and other topics of vital national interest.

But Ryan’s accomplishment isn’t just a matter of statistics, as impressive as they are. Unlike Matthew, Sue, and me, Ryan was one of our founding contributors on the blog, recruited by Howard Andrew Jones to create the leading online magazine of modern fantasy a decade ago. In a very real way he led the way, defining our identity and showing just what we could accomplish. With his boundless enthusiasm for the best in both modern and classic fantasy, and his relentless pursuit of excellence in the art of fantasy journalism, he blazed a path for the rest of us to follow.

So today I hope you’ll raise a glass in honor of the spiritual leader at Black Gate, the man whom I’m proud to call my friend. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. Ryan Harvey.

My 300th Black Gate Post: Why I Write About What I Write About

Saturday, April 21, 2018 Ryan Harvey Comments 8 comments

steve-reeves-and-sylva-koscina-in-hercules-pietro-francisci-1958

This is my three hundredth post at Black Gate. This year also marks the tenth anniversary of my first post as a regular blogger. I remember when John O’Neill first invited me to be a part of this project, back when none of us had any idea where it would go — I certainly didn’t think it would last for a decade and that I’d still be around. Or that John would win a World Fantasy Award for it. Yet here the site is, ten years later and a World Fantasy Award richer, and I still can’t believe people show up to read what I have to say about Hercules movies, Godzilla, and Tarzan. It’s humbling to be part of a site with such a wealth of amazing material, great contributors, and so many dedicated and intelligent readers.

I’ve changed enormously as a nonfiction writer over these ten years, and most of the changes happened because of Black Gate. When I started my regular posts, I had only a blurry vision of the sort of blogger I wanted to be. The reality has turned out different because I made interesting discoveries about my own tastes along the way: specifically, what it is that I most enjoy writing about. I once imagined I’d write primarily about fantasy literature, Conan pastiches, and writing techniques. Now I write about monster movies, John Carpenter, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

To mark my personal anniversary, I’m going to offer an apologia of sorts — an explanation of why I write about the topics I write about most frequently on Black Gate. None of these were in the plan on Day 1, and I’m probably the person who’s most curious about how these subjects turned into my main nonfiction focus.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Fiona Kelleghan’s “Secret in the Chest”

Saturday, April 21, 2018 Steven H Silver Comments 2 comments

Fiona Kelleghan was born on April 21, 1965. Most of her writing is non-fiction. She produced Mike Resnick: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to His Work in 2000 and two volumes in the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature series. She has also published a variety of essays and reviews over the years.

Kelleghan’s only fiction is the fantasy story “Secret in the Chest,” purchased by Shawna McCarthy for Realms of Fantasy, which published it in the October 1998 issue. The story has never been reprinted.

Although “The Secret Chest” seems to start out as a standard damsel in distress/knight on a quest story, it quickly demonstrates that Kelleghan is doing something very different. Sir Palavere comes across a castle while he is seeking to save his village and finds himself having to respond to three challenges from Darcia, a woman who is tied to the castle. The reasons for her link to the castle and the rules surrounding the three challenges are unimportant and Kelleghan doesn’t delve into them. They are part of the fantasy narrative and by ignoring them, Kelleghan is challenging them.

Throughout the story, Kelleghan also frequently breaks the structure of fiction, addressing the reader directly in phrasing which is designed to make the reader consider the clichés which the story includes and deconstructs. These asides are unnecessary to the story Kelleghan is telling, which works perfectly well without them, but they adds depth and additional humor. And “Secret in the Chest” makes the reader want to see additional fiction from the author.

Reviewed in its only publication in the magazine Realms of Fantasy, edited by Shawna McCarthy, October 1998.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

Friday, April 20, 2018 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Sam J. Miller’s short stories have been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, and Locus Awards. His debut novel The Art of Starving (2017), a YA tale about a boy who discovers that starving gives him superpowers, was nominated for the Andre Norton Award, and was an honorable mention for the 2017 Tiptree Award. John DeNardo selected it as one of the Best Bets for SF, Fantasy and Horror in July. His new novel Blackfish City is one of the most anticipated SF books of the year. It arrived in hardcover this week.

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges — crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.

When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side — the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people — each living on the periphery — to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.

Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent — and ultimately very hopeful — novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.

Blackfish City was published by Ecco on April 17, 2018. It is 336 pages, priced at $22.99 in hardcover, and $11.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Will Staehle. Read a sample chapter at the Orbit Books website.

Backstory Cards: for Roleplayers, Writers, and Game-Runners

Friday, April 20, 2018 C.S.E. Cooney Comments 0 Comment

Tim

So, our friend Tim Rodriguez came by our home a few weeks back when we were hosting a game-night. We’d thrown the doors open to a bunch of game-lovers of our acquaintance for a night of food and play, and they flocked in with their favorite games (Wari, or Oware, being the game that got the most giggles) and some very fine (I was told) single malt whiskey. (Or maybe it was double-barreled? Something. I don’t know; I was too busy making lasagna.)

Anyway, Tim brought some new Backstory Cards to playtest. Most of us (including me) who volunteered to playtest with him hadn’t role-played in, well, ever. Or at least for years, the fog of memory obscuring most of the details.

. . . But since we were just testing the cards for story-potential and not playing an actual game, it seemed to work out well enough, and pretty soon we were all, like, a gaggle of giant fungal glow-in-the-dark monster crabs running around ravaged urban landscapes bringing down mobsters. You know. Like you do.

And sometime in all the chaos, Tim may have mentioned something about a new Kickstarter project.

…

Read More Read More