Ace edition covers by Gray Morrow Steven Silver has been doing a series covering the award winners from his age 12 year, and Steven has credited me for (indirectly) suggesting this, when I quoted Peter Graham’s statement “The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12″, in the “comment section” to the entry on 1973 in Jo Walton’s wonderful book An Informal History of the Hugos. You see, I was 12 in 1972, so the awards for 1973 were the awards…
As we close out 2018, I’m proud to look back at the last twelve months and all the new authors we’ve championed and celebrated. Dozens of debut novels, and hundreds of new short stories, from a lively graduating class of SF and fantasy writers. Of course, Black Gate isn’t just about the new — we try to spend just as many pixels illuminating the neglected writers of the Twentieth Century, who become more forgotten with each passing year. We published hundreds…
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…
January index February index March index April index May index June index July index August index September index October index November 1, Zenna Henderson: “Troubling of the Water” November 2, Lois McMaster Bujold: “The Hole Truth” November 3, Neal Barrett, Jr.: “A Day at the Fair” November 4, Kara Dalkey: “Bouncing Babies” November 5, Janet Pack: “A Coin for Charon” November 6, Catherine Asaro: “Echoes of Pride”
Cover by Frank R. Paul Frederik Pohl was born on November 26, 1919 and died on September 2, 2013. Pohl won the Hugo Award seven times. He won for Best Professional Magazine from 1966-1968 for If, each time beating himself for his work on Galaxy. In 1973, he won his first fiction Hugo for the short story “The Meeting,” in collaboration with the late C.M. Kornbluth. The story tied with R.A. Lafferty’s “Eurema’s Dam.” He won the Hugo for Best…
An earlier version of this article was published in Black Gate 10. These columns are focused on the history of SF – and so far that has turned out to mean mostly discussion of 50s oriented subjects, with some leakage into nearer years. But now I’d like to take a look at a rather more recent, and rather less celebrated, period. The 1970s. The time of wide ties, leisure suits, and disco. And also the time I discovered SF, and…
In his Foreword to his Fourth Annual Collection of Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year, which gathered stories published in 1974, Lester del Rey makes the case for Sense of Wonder as the core literary virtue of science fiction. There is another element that must be present in every good science fiction story. It should excite a feeling of wonder, of something beyond the ordinary. It is the expectation of finding such wonders that makes the reader turn to…
I’ve heard it said many a time that online shopping will never replace a good bookstore, because you can’t make those delicious unexpected discoveries online. Well, that certainly hasn’t been my experience. My most recent example? Damon Knight’s 1974 fantasy reprint anthology The Golden Road: Great Tales of Fantasy and the Supernatural, which I found on eBay while bidding on a small collection of British fantasy paperbacks from the same seller. Now, I’ve never even heard of The Golden Road,…
Holy neutron stars, it’s the end of March, and you know what that means…. it’s time to announce the finalists for the 2018 Hugo Awards! Doubtless most of you paid close attention to Rich Horton’s suggestions for the best science fiction and fantasy of last year, did a lot of heavy reading over the last four weeks, and thoughtfully cast your nominating ballots. Or maybe not. But either way, it’s time to see who all your fellow voters nominated. Ready? Here we…
Last week I received an e-mail from someone named Mark Bradley. He said he’d gotten my address from Gordon Van Gelder, publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and that he’d recently self-published a collection of stories written by his grandmother, Mildred Clingerman, in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. It contained all of the stories from her 1961 collection A Cupful of Space as well as many unpublished works. I remember Mildred Clingerman! I’d tracked down A Cupful of Space decades ago,…