Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen: Piper’s Connecticut Yankee Tale
I’m going to give you six (relatively) spoiler-free reasons to read the book, and one that has a spoiler…
Meeting a Great Australian Fabulist, Angela Slatter: The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales, Tartarus Press and All the Murmuring Bones, Titan Books
The Tallow-Wife and Other Stories (Tartarus Press, February 24, 2021) and All the Murmuring Bones(Titan Books, March 9, 2021). Covers by Kathleen Jennings, and unknown Any new book by Angela Slatter is a reason to rejoice for any lover of good dark fantasy. Slatter is a very talented Australian writer, a born storyteller or, to be precise, a great fabulist, an author of modern, complex fairy tales for grownups. The Tallow-Wife is a collection of stories and novellas the core…
Vintage Treasures: H. Beam Piper’s Paratime Tales
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (Ace, 1977) and Paratime (Ace Books, 1981). Covers by Michael Whelan H. Beam Piper was one of my favorite science fiction writers in my formative years. I adored his Fuzzy novels — Little Fuzzy (1962), Fuzzy Sapiens (1964), and the “long lost” novel Fuzzies and Other People (1984), published twenty years after Piper died by suicide in 1964 — and they were one of the first science fiction novels I passed along to my children when…
Cozy Catastrophes and Sinister Archaeology: Weird Tales #364 edited by Jonathan Maberry
Weird Tales #364. Cover by Lynne Hansen As I write this, Weird Tales falls just two years short of celebrating its centennial — an astonishing feat, given that the fiction magazines in existence at that time, all considered far more prestigious than this lurid showcase of fantasy and horror, have vanished into time and space as if they never existed. (Only Argosy, revived in 2016 by Altus Press, matches it in longevity.) With such august placement in pop culture history,…
Evil Space Plants, Lecherous Dragons, and the Mysteries of the Vampire: Weird Tales 364 Arrives
Weird Tales #364. Cover by Lynne Hansen What’s this? Can it be? Two issues of Weird Tales magazine published in a single year? That hasn’t happened since (hastily checks notes) 2012! There are other changes afoot as well, not just this insanely overambitious publication schedule. Marvin Kaye, who took over as editor in 2012 with issue 360 and managed just four issue in the last nine years, is no longer on the masthead. Replacing him as editor is Jonathan Maberry,…
Witches, Menacing Forests, & the True Meaning of Fairy Tales: A Tale Dark & Grimm by Adam Gidwitz
Covers by Dan Santat The Christmas break is usually a bit of a reading vacation for me, a chance to catch up on the year’s big reads. Of course, I don’t always want to read big, important books while I’m on vacation. Sometimes (usually), I just want something fun. That’s how I ended up reading Adam Gidwitz’s A Tale Dark & Grimm yesterday, the first book in his dark retelling of favorite kid’s stories. The series was published nearly a…
A Tale of Horrific First Contact: The Sentience Trilogy by Terry A. Adams
Covers by James Gurney, Richard Hescox, and Stephan Martiniere Every time an author completes a trilogy, we bake a cake at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters. Given how long some big fantasy trilogies take to wrap up, we’ve learned patience over the years. Even so, we rarely have have to wait 27 years, as dedicated fans did for Terry A. Adams popular Sentience trilogy. It opened with Sentience, Adams’ debut novel, which made quite a splash in 1986. It was…
A Tale That Calls to Mind Classic SF Sagas: The Salvation Sequence by Peter F. Hamilton
The Salvation Sequence by Peter F. Hamilton (Del Rey, 2018-2020). Covers by Anna Kochman You know, I remember when Peter F. Hamilton was known for hardboiled science fiction like the Greg Mandel series (Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, and The Nano Flower, 1993-95). His breakout work was the massive 1.2 million-word The Night’s Dawn Trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, and The Naked God, 1996-99) which turned him into the 21st Century’s poster child for Space Opera. Since then…
Weird Tales Deep Read: July 1936
Margaret Brundage for Red Nails We return to the golden age of Weird Tales to consider the eleven stories in the July 1936 issue. This time around we’re dealing with many familiar authors, led by the triumvirate of C. L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard, one H. P. Lovecraft short of perfection. The big three present classic tales from their popular fantasy series (Northwest Smith, Zothique, Conan). The other familiar names deliver more of a mixed bag,…
Gorgeous Celtic Imagery in a Haunting Fairy Tale: The Warrior Bards Novels by Juliet Marillier
The Harp of Kings and A Dance With Fate. Ace Books, September 2019 and September 2020. Covers by Mélanie Delon and unknown. I discovered Juliet Marillier’s Blackthorn & Grim Celtic fantasy trilogy last year. How I missed the whole series for years I dunno, but was very glad to find them when I did. So I was excited to see a sequel series featuring a new generation arrive in 2020, opening with The Harp of Kings, which Andrew Liptak at Polygon selected…