Black Gate – Page 568 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Evil Specters, Ghost Clans, and a Zombie in the Basement: The Haunted Mystery Novels by Chris Grabenstein

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The books that pretty much introduced me to reading — and to creepy tales of Screaming Clocks, Whispering Mummies, Haunted Mirrors, and all the delicious trappings of horror — were the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators novels by Robert Arthur. Man, they were great. Three resourceful teens with a chauffeur who drove them around, and a secret hideout in an old junkyard… who could resist? I was sold after my very first one, The Mystery of the Green Ghost.

I’ve had a spot spot for middle grade horror-thrillers ever since. So I was very pleased to stumble upon bestselling author Chis Grabenstein’s Haunted Mystery series showcasing the intrepid Zack, a sixth grader with the uncanny ability to talk to ghosts, and his stepmother Judy, who writes children’s books. The series features a malevolent spirit inhabiting a tree, a horde of evil specters, a ruthless hit man hunting lost treasure, a voodoo savvy ghost seeking a new body, a soul-sucking zombie in the basement, and a ghost clan out to ruin Halloween. I wish these had been around when I was in the sixth grade…. but I’m still happy to have them now.

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New Treasures: Phantom Pains, Book II of The Arcadia Project by Mishell Baker

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Mishell Baker’s Borderline — the tale of a cynical, disabled film director recruited into a secret organization that oversees relations between Hollywood and Fairyland — was nominated for a Nebula Award last year, a major achievement for a debut novel. Library Journal says it “Takes gritty urban fantasy in a new direction,” and Publishers Weekly called it “masterly urban fantasy storytelling…[a] beautifully written story that is one part mystery, one part fantasy, and wholly engrossing.” The sequel, Phantom Pains, the second volume of The Arcadia Project and one of the most anticipated novels of the year, arrived last month from Saga Press.

Four months ago, Millie left the Arcadia Project after losing her partner Teo to the lethal magic of an Unseelie fey countess. Now, in a final visit to the scene of the crime, Millie and her former boss Caryl encounter Teo’s tormented ghost. But there’s one problem: according to Caryl, ghosts don’t exist.

Millie has a new life, a stressful job, and no time to get pulled back into the Project, but she agrees to tell her side of the ghost story to the agents from the Project’s National Headquarters. During her visit though, tragedy strikes when one of the agents is gruesomely murdered in a way only Caryl could have achieved. Millie knows Caryl is innocent, but the only way to save her from the Project’s severe, off-the-books justice is to find the mysterious culprits that can only be seen when they want to be seen. Millie must solve the mystery not only to save Caryl, but also to foil an insidious, arcane terrorist plot that would leave two worlds in ruins.

Phantom Pains was published by Saga Press on March 21, 2017. It is 416 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover photo is by Jill Watcher.

Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin by Erika M. Szabo and Joe Bonadonna

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 3 comments

And now for something completely different: Only two weeks into my sci-fi excursion, I’m sidetracked by Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin, a new young adult fantasy from Black Gate’s own Joe Bonadonna and Erika M. Szabo. Although written for readers a couple of decades my junior, I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Somewhere in space and time, across from Halloween, is the world of Creepy Hollow. It used to be protected from evil by the Trinity of Wishmothers. Now, though, they are dead, and their ghosts have been trapped by Hobart T. Hobgoblin in a pitch-black pumpkin. The wicked Hobart (and his sidekick, Ebenezer Rex, the Tasmanian Devil) is now free to work evil on the land.

On Halloween, twelve-year-old Nikki Sweet and her eleven-year-old cousin, Jack Brady, find a black pumpkin. Their immediate reaction is to bring it home and turn it into a jack-o’-lantern. Just as they prepare to fetch a knife, their grandmother’s silver skeleton wind chime, Mr. Bonejingles, warns them not to do it.

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Weirdbook 34 Now Available

Monday, April 3, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Weirdbook editor Douglas Draa shares some good news in his editorial in the latest issue.

It’s hard to believe that we started this endeavor over a year ago. If you look closely, you might just spot a trend:

2015: One Issue
2016: Two Issues
2017: Four issues and one themed annual!!

That’s correct, Weirdbook has gone quarterly this year! As a thank-you to all the readers who made this possible, we will be putting out a themed “2017 Annual” special issue this October. Just in time for Halloween! I hope themed Weirdbook Annuals will become a yearly tradition that everyone looks forward to. This year’s theme will be “Witches.”

Good news indeed! Weirdbook — alongside Skelos, Cirsova, and Grimdark — is leading the recent Weird Fantasy wave, developing talented new writers in its pages and providing a center for this thriving new genre. It’s great to see it thriving, and I’m looking forward to that themed Halloween issue.

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The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett

Monday, April 3, 2017 MichaelPenkas Comments 2 comments

A lot of the reviews of this collection compare Jon Padgett to Thomas Ligotti, which is fair, since Jon Padgett has been the long-time moderator of the Thomas Ligotti fansite, ligotti.net, and one of the stories takes its title directly from a Ligotti story. But the big question that potential new readers will likely have when reading those reviews is “Who the hell is Thomas Ligotti?”

So. Thomas Ligotti himself has been called a successor to H.P. Lovecraft (yeah, the Cthulhu guy), but that’s not really accurate. Where Lovecraft dealt with the horrors of the unknowable, Ligotti deals more with the horrors of pointlessness. Where Lovecraft’s stories would end with the protagonists killed or driven mad by eldritch horrors, Ligotti’s stories were more likely to end with those protagonists actually joining forces with the darkness. Pick up Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, Noctuary, and Teatro Grotesco for some truly next generation horror.

Basically, Thomas Ligotti’s horror fiction differs from anything else you’ve read because he places his philosophy front and center in these stories. And while that philosophy (which is sort of nihilistic, but not exactly) won’t resonate with a lot of readers, he has developed a dedicated fan base over the last thirty-five years. One of those fans is Jon Padgett.* And Ligotti’s horror philosophy lives on in the debut collection of stories from this author.

It begins with “The Mindfulness of Horror Practice,” which is more of a thought experiment than a story. Basically, the author walks you through an exercise to place you in the right frame of mind to read the remainder of his collection. It’s quite telling that the collection DOES NOT end with a second primer detailing how to get yourself OUT of this state of mind.

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Future Treasures: Aliens: Bug Hunt edited by Jonathan Maberry

Monday, April 3, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

With a brand new Alien film on the horizon (Alien: Covenant, arriving May 19; see the trailer here), what better time for a Alien anthology, featuring Colonial Marines in bloody conflict with the deadly Aliens in deep space, on alien worlds, and in derelict space settlements and lethal nests?

Aliens: Bug Hunt featuring original short stories set in the Aliens universe by Dan Abnett, Tim Lebbon, David Farland, James A. Moore, Brian Keene, Christopher Golden, Matt Forbeck, Yvonne Navarro, and many others. I read Navarro’s 1996 Aliens novel Music of the Spears; Dan Abnett, Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon, James A. Moore have previously written in the Aliens universe as well. Aliens: Bug Hunt arrives in hardcover and trade paperback from Titan in two weeks.

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it’s what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt — kill or be killed. Here are fifteen all-new stories of such “close encounters,” written by many of today’s most extraordinary authors.

Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe’s most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing—

One way or another.

Aliens: Bug Hunt will be published by Titan Books on April 18, 2017. It is 368 pages, priced at $22.95 in hardcover, $16.95 in trade paperback, and $7.99 for the digital edition.

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The 9 Aspects of Story Promise

Monday, April 3, 2017 Tina Jens Comments 0 Comment

At a novel writing boot camp I attended many years ago, at our first gathering, opening scenes written by each participant were read anonymously. One has stayed in my mind. It was a humorous gross-out scene that was literally bathroom humor. It was crass, and nearly everyone found it hilarious. I was one of the few who didn’t love it. At the time, I couldn’t explain what bothered me about it, beyond the fact that I don’t care for gross-out stuff or bathroom/body-fluids humor. Though I couldn’t find the words at the time, it wasn’t the indelicate content that was ultimately bothering me.

Only years later did I have the vocabulary and technical understanding I needed to put it into words: I doubted that it was an accurate Story Promise. Was the rest of the book going to be that scatological? Could the author maintain that high-energy gross-out humor for an entire novel? (Certainly, there are authors who can, but it’s a rare gift.)

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Galaxy, October 1968: A Retro-Review

Sunday, April 2, 2017 Rich Horton Comments 5 comments

An issue of Galaxy from fairly late in Fred Pohl’s tenure. There’s one fairly notable story here, and a couple more good ones, but to me the most interesting feature was Algis Budrys’ book review column.

But let’s begin at the beginning. The cover is by Douglas Chaffee. Interiors are by Jack Gaughan, Joe Wehrle, Jr., Dan Adkins, Virgil Finlay, Larry S. Todd illustrating his own piece (not surprising, as Todd, then just 20, became fairly well-known later for his comics work), and two artists whose full names I didn’t know: Brand and Safrani. Buddy Lortie identified them for me: Brand was Roger Brand, a fan artist who became a pro, and did comics work as well; and Safrani was Shehbaz Safrani, who seems to still do fine art. I should note that the magazine was very thick in this era — 196 pages (including covers). My copy has staples: I don’t know offhand if that was normal.

The features include Willy Ley’s long-running science column, “For Your Information,” discussing Explorer-1. Fred Pohl contributes an editorial, discussing the upcoming Presidential election (the one in which Nixon beat Humphrey and Wallace), and speculating about computerized voting from one’s home (even on laws, declaration of war, etc. — i.e. direct democracy). There is a Bio feature, Galaxy’s Stars, giving tidbits about a few of the authors. One piece, “The Warbots,” by Larry S. Todd, is designated a “Non-Fact Article,” and it discusses the history of tanks, basically, far into the future.

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A Duo Who Explore the Darker Side of Victorian London: The Gower Street Detective by M.R.C. Kasasian

Sunday, April 2, 2017 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

A few weeks ago I picked up a remaindered copy of The Curse of the House of Foskett purely as an impulse buy, mostly because of the delightful cover (and because Bob Byrne’s love of all things Sherlock has been rubbing off on me). And thus I discovered The Gower Street Detective by M.R.C. Kasasian, a Victorian crime series starring a detective duo that’s been getting a lot of attention. The Daily Mail called the first book “One of the most delightful and original new novels of the year ― the first in a series that could well become a cult.” There are five volumes published or announced, including one that arrives in hardcover this week, and a fifth book due in December:

The Mangle Street Murders (320 pages, February 2014)
The Curse of the House of Foskett (408 pages, January 2015)
Death Descends on Saturn Villa (400 pages, March 2016)
The Secrets of Gaslight Lane (512 pages, April 4, 2017)
Dark Dawn Over Steep House (432 pages, December 5, 2017)

All five are published by Pegasus Books. They are priced at $25.95 in hardcover, $14.95 – $15.95 in trade paperback, and $9.99-$12.95 for the digital versions. The cover artist, sadly, is not credited.

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An Interview With Author and Artist Tom Barczak

Sunday, April 2, 2017 Joe Bonadonna Comments 2 comments

I first met Tom some years ago, through mutual friends on Facebook, as so often happens. We soon became friends and then colleagues, writing for author and publisher Janet Morris’ anthology of Heroic Fantasy, Heroika: Dragon Eaters, as well as her wonderful and legendary series, Heroes in Hell, which this spring (2017) will launch its 18th or 19th volume, (I lose track, LOL), Pirates in Hell. Tom is not only a very fine artist and excellent writer, he is also a great father, a wonderful husband, and a true and kind gentleman I’m proud to know. Here are a few things about Tom you may or may not know… things you definitely should know about this talented man.

Thomas Barczak is an artist, turned architect, turned writer, who finally got around to actually writing the stories he started dreaming about as a kid. His work includes the dark epic fantasy, Mouth of the Dragon, the illustrated epic, Veil of the Dragon, the Kindle serials, Awakening Evarun (Parts I-VI) and Wolfbane (Parts 1-2 of 3), along with numerous short stories and flash fiction, including those published in Heroika 1 – Dragon Eaters, Nine Heroes, Terror by Gaslight, and What Scares the Boogeyman, as well as two volumes of the award winning Heroes in Hell series, Dreamers in Hell, and Poets in Hell. He writes simply because he can’t not write. He writes because he needs to tell the stories he already started on way before, in his paintings, in his poetry, and even before that, sitting around a table with friends, slaying dragons.

Here, then, is Tom Barzcak, in his own words, in a wonderful interview that will surely touch your heart.

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