Black Gate – Page 533 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

A Tale of Two Covers: Chasers of the Wind by Alexey Pehov

Sunday, June 4, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Back in 2013 I bought a hardcover copy of Shadow Prowler, the opening volume in Alexey Pehov’s epic fantasy trilogy Chronicles of Siala. An international bestseller in his home country of Russia and across Europe, Pehov has been called “the Russian George R.R. Martin.” Two more volumes in translation followed, Shadow Chaser and Shadow Bllizard, both from Tor.

In June 2014 Tor released Chasers of the Wind in hardcover, with an action-filled cover by Kekai Kotaki (above left). Set in the same world as Pehov’s previous trilogy, the cover proudly proclaimed this was the first book of The Cycle of Wind and Sparks, a four-volume series that had already appeared in Russia and Germany.

Eleven months later, in May 2015, Tor reprinted the book in mass market paperback (above right). There were the usual small tweaks in design and font for the paperback edition. But the biggest change was a little more subtle — all mention of The Cycle of Wind and Sparks had been scrubbed. For fans of the series, this was like running into a close friend and noticing her engagement ring was missing. I’m not sure if Tor was unable to secure English language reprint rights, the sales on the first series didn’t meet expectations, or there was some other reason, but Tor never released the next three volumes. They remain unavailable in English.

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May/June 2017 Analog Now on Sale

Saturday, June 3, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Howard V. Hendrix is experiencing a bit of a comeback in the pages of Analog magazine. He launched his career with a well-respected SF trilogy in the late 90s [Locus Award nominee for Best First Novel Lightpaths (1997), Standing Wave (1998), and Better Angels (1999)], but he hasn’t published a novel since Spears of God in 2006.

But since September 2007 he’s published no less than eight stories in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, including two novellas:

“Palimpsest ” – September 2007
“Knot Your Grandfather’s Knot” -March 2008
“Monuments of Unageing Intellect” – June 2009
“Red Rover, Red Rover” – July-August 2012
“Other People’s Avatars” – July-August 2013 – novella
“The Perfect Bracket” – March 2016 (with Art Holcomb)
“The Infinite Manqué” – May 2016
“The Girls with Kaleidoscope Eyes” – May-June 2017 – novella

The May/June Analog contains that last one, the novella “The Girls with Kaleidoscope Eyes.” Victoria Silverwolf, in her Tangent Online review, summarizes it as follows.

A government agent investigates an apparent attempt by a teacher to kill a classroom full of girls with a bomb, although at the last second he protected them from the explosion, seriously injuring himself in the process. She interviews the teacher while he is in custody in a hospital. He reveals his strange motive for his aborted crime, stating that “before there can exist a world of machines that can pass for people, there first must be a world of people that can pass for machines…”

Silverwolf praised several other stories this issue, including work by Julie Novakova, Eric Choi, Manny Frishberg and Edd Vick, Lavie Tidhar, and Bud Sparhawk. Here’s a few of her story descriptions I found most intriguing.

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Back to the Stone Age

Saturday, June 3, 2017 Ryan Harvey Comments 0 Comment

I’ve now arrived at that period in the Pellucidar series. The period any Edgar Rice Burroughs series eventually reaches: the late 1930s. I took a break from my Pellucidar retrospective to look at Burroughs’s 1913 horror-adventure novel The Monster Men just to delay taking the next step and driving my snowmobile headfirst into the hard ice of the poorest period of Burroughs’s career. But now I’m here and must accept the facts of the late ‘30s and an author trudging through his weakest creative years. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Perhaps I’ll discover a few pleasures in the last three Pellucidar books.

Anyway, enough procrastination. I’m getting on the snowmobile.

Our Saga: Beneath our feet lies a realm beyond the most vivid daydreams of the fantastic … Pellucidar. A subterranean world formed along the concave curve inside the earth’s crust, surrounding an eternally stationary sun that eliminates the concept of time. A land of savage humanoids, fierce beasts, and reptilian overlords, Pellucidar is the weird stage for adventurers from the topside layer — including a certain Lord Greystoke. The series consists of six novels, one which crosses over with the Tarzan series, plus a volume of linked novellas, published between 1914 and 1963.

Today’s Installment: Back to the Stone Age (1937)

Previous Installments: At the Earth’s Core (1914), Pellucidar (1915), Tanar of Pellucidar (1929), Tarzan at the Earth’s Core (1929–30)

The Backstory

The ending of Tarzan at the Earth’s Core set the scene for a direct follow-up. Wilhelm von Horst, one of the German members of the O-220 expedition to Pellucidar to rescue David Innes, was still stranded somewhere in the inner world, and Jason Gridley chose to remain in Pellucidar to locate him. But other projects and business concerns prevented Burroughs from moving fast into writing this proposed sequel. He wouldn’t start work on the new Pellucidar novel until January 1935, writing it under the working title Back to the Stone Age: A Romance of the Inner World. It took him eight months to finish the 80,000-word novel, an unusually protracted length for him. And that was only the beginning of the difficulties.

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Goth Chick News: A Unique Musical Take on a Weird Tales Classic

Friday, June 2, 2017 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

When musician Matthew Knight contacted me about his new release, The Beast of Averoigne I admittedly had to do a bit of research. I knew I had heard of the story somewhere, but could not immediately place it.

The story’s author, Clark Ashton Smith (1893 –1961) was one of “the big three” of Weird Tales, alongside Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft. Smith was a member of the Lovecraft circle and his literary friendship with Lovecraft lasted from 1922 until Lovecraft’s death in 1937.

First appearing in the May, 1933 issue of Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith’s story “The Beast of Averoigne” concerns itself with a man of science whose superior knowledge enables him to deal with a dark threat that the ignorant, religion-besotted inhabitants of 14th century France simply cannot. What sets “The Beast of Averoigne” apart is that it might be called a science fiction tale rather than a fantasy one, for the titular “beast” is not some demon from Hell but an alien invader.

And it is around this story that Matthew Knight weaves his debut release under the label Haunted Abbey Mythos. The theatrical, musical audiobook presentation consists of a dramatic narration of “The Beast” read by Knight and set to a backdrop of eerie soundscapes scored by avant garde electronic musician, Jon Zaremba. The CD also contains five unique interlude pieces by Knight, which range from ambient synth-driven, to darkly romantic.

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Support the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show!

Friday, June 2, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Dream Tower Media, fine folks behind the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show, have launched a Patreon site to help fund it and offset some of the extensive costs of creating a top-notch audio program. And you know what that means. That’s right — you can now help support the creation of new episodes in this fine podcast series!

And Robert Zoltan (and his pal Edgar the Raven) have some terrific new episodes in the pipeline. They will be following up their popular interviews with BG blogger Ryan Harvey, fantasy author Scott Oden, and neglected genius Howard Andrew Jones, with THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION. With Special Guest, Hugo, Locus and Robert A. Heinlein award-winning author, Allen Steele in Part 1, and Hugo-nominee Becky Chambers (A Closed and Common Orbit) in Part 2.

Check out some of their earlier episodes, and learn more about how to support this worthy project at the Patreon site.

In 500 Words or Less … Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich

Friday, June 2, 2017 Brandon Crilly Comments 0 Comment

Never Now Always
By Desirina Boskovich
Broken Eye Books (88 pages, $9.99 paperback, June 2017)

A while back I had an idea for a short story about people caught up in a massive alien invasion, where humanity is rounded up and imprisoned in gray, windowless compounds while their captors run nefarious experiments, all of which is part of some mysterious, overarching plot a la Lost and the like. Then I told myself something like that has been done so many times that it wasn’t worth bothering, and I tucked the idea away on a mental shelf and haven’t looked at it since.

I bring this up because the novella Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich takes that core premise of people imprisoned and experimented on by mysterious overlords and spins it so effectively, adding layers of dark surrealism and uncertainty to create a deeply compelling story. Never Now Always has a War of the Worlds/The Fifth Wave vibe with a literary style, propelled by the fact that the story’s three protagonists (and practically the only characters focused on) are constantly having their memories stolen and/or modified, stripping away most of their identity by removing the thing that makes each of us distinct. Main character Lolo knows that she has to find her sister, Tess, but everything else is an uncertain blur, to the point that she doesn’t even know the words for things. Boskovich weaves those language gaps into the narrative with a subtlety that is also easy to read and follow – something that a lot of surrealist and literary fiction doesn’t pull off.

There are cycles repeated here, as Lolo and the others try to find and support each other and ultimately escape, but the ongoing layers of mystery means that there is never a moment without intrigue. Is their bizarre prison on Earth, or somewhere else? Are Lolo and the others children, or adults who have lost their semantic and episodic memories – or something else? Are the Caretakers around them seeking to experiment, indoctrinate, or possibly protect these humans from self-inflicted harm?

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Vintage Treasures: The Pulp Fantasies of E. Hoffmann Price

Thursday, June 1, 2017 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

E. Hoffmann Price is one of the grand old men of the pulps. He published no less than 28 stories in Weird Tales between 1925 and 1950, including a collaboration with H.P. Lovecraft, “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.” He continued writing right up until his death in 1988, at the age of 89. He published four SF novels in his Operation series (Operation Misfit, Operation Longlife, etc) with Del Rey in his 80s, producing the last one in 1987.

But he’s perhaps best remembered by modern readers for his pair of Chinese fantasies, The Devil Lives of Li Fong (1979) and The Jade Enchantress (1982), also published by Del Rey, with gorgeous covers by Rowena Morrill and Laurence Schwinger. These books were ubiquitous among adventure fantasy fans in the early 80s, passed around and shared like the tales of Elric and Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser.

The Devil Wives of Li Fong (217 pages, $1.95 in paperback, December 1979) — cover by Rowena Morrill
The Jade Enchantress (297 pages, $2.75 in paperback, June 1982) — cover by Laurence Schwinger

Originally from California, Price began his professional career as a soldier, graduating from West Point and serving in World War I. In his autobiography, Jack Williamson called him a “real live soldier of fortune.” Here’s his colorful bio from the back of these Del Rey paperbacks.

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Rebellion Worlds, Rocklike Aliens, and Cubes from Space: Rich Horton on The Rebellious Stars by Isaac Asimov & An Earth Gone Mad by Roger Dee

Thursday, June 1, 2017 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

Rich Horton continues his tireless exploration of the Ace Doubles, this time looking at a 1954 pairing of Isaac Asimov’s second novel The Stars, Like Stars (re-titled here The Rebellious Stars), and the only SF novel by Roger Dee, An Earth Gone Mad. Here’s Rich.

The Rebellious Stars is better known as Tyrann, under which title it appeared as a Galaxy serial in 1951. (OK, it’s even BETTER known as The Stars, Like Dust…) In this edition it is about 67,000 words long, and the book is labeled “Complete and Unabridged,” so as far as I know it’s the same as the standard edition….

I was perhaps only 12 when I read The Stars, Like Dust. I’ve always remembered it, if only dimly, with pleasure… The story opens as Biron Farrill, the heir of the Rancher of Widemos on the planet Nephelos, is about to graduate from his university studies on Earth. He is wakened one night by a ticking which he soon determines is a bomb — an assassination attempt. Soon Sander Jonti, a friend of his from the university reveals that his father has been arrested by the Tyranni, the harsh ruling class that controls some 50 planets near the Horsehead Nebula, including Nephelos. It seems Biron’s father was involved in a resistance movement, and Jonti is as well. Jonti convinces Biron that his life is in immediate danger… The plot takes several twists from that point — it is all rather intricately designed — before reaching a somewhat surprising (though dare I say rather guessable) conclusion… while the plot is perhaps overcomplicated, and depends quite a lot on people acting in extremely convoluted ways, it is worked out somewhat satisfactorily in the puzzle-unraveling sense.

Matthew Wuertz reviewed the novel for us in its original Galaxy incarnation from 1951, and noted the similarities to a certain multi-billion dollar SF property.

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Future Treasures: Our Dark Duet, Book 2 of Monsters of Verity by Victoria Schwab

Thursday, June 1, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Under her secret identity of V.E. Schwab, Victoria Schwab is the bestselling author of the Shades of Magic trilogy and the superhero/dark fantasy tale Vicious (which Matthew David Surridge called “A fine story… it’s fascinating to see the gothic emerging from under the skin of the super-hero genre,” in his 2014 review). Under the name Victoria Schwab she’s published a number of YA fantasies, including The Near Witch and the two volumes in the Archived series.

Her Monsters of Verity series began with This Savage Song, set in a divided city overrun with monsters. It became a #1 New York Times bestseller and an Amazon Best Book of the Year. The concluding volume, Our Dark Duet, arrives this month from Greenwillow Books.

This Savage Song (464 pages, $17.99 hardcover/$9.99 paperback/$1.99 digital, July 5, 2016)
Our Dark Duet (528 pages, $17.99 hardcover/$9.99 digital, June 13, 2017)

Here’s the description for both books.

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In Defense of an Abominable Personage: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Wednesday, May 31, 2017 Damien Moore Comments 3 comments

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Constantin Film, 2006)

When someone tells you to pick a favorite book, and you’re the type of person who reads with a gnawing ache for a good story, selecting just one can prove daunting. Not so for yours truly.

One day my mom, out of the profound goodness of her heart, surprised me with a spontaneous visit to Half Price Books. There she gave me the gift of Perfume: the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. I fell in love with it the way you fall for the love of your life; a part of me that had hitherto hidden from my reach sewed itself into the fabric of my heart.

I wasn’t accustomed to reading books in which the implied Devil’s spawn lures you through the pages. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the anchor of the novel, has the misfortune of assuming this role due to his absence of a human scent. He thus embarks on a treacherously erotic quest for the perfect odor that can disguise him as an ordinary person.

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