Black Gate – Page 579 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Future Treasures: The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Wednesday, January 18, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Kameron Hurley made a splash with her very first science fiction novel, God’s War (Night Shade, 2010), a “bugpunk” novel set on a desert world where technology is based on insects. It was nominated for a Nebula Award, and was followed by two more books in the Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy. The Mirror Empire (Angry Robot, 2014), the first novel in her grimdark epic fantasy trilogy The Worldbreaker Saga, was a 2015 Locus Award Finalist and Gemmell Award Nominee.

Her standalone space opera novel The Stars are Legion is one of the most highly anticipated novels of 2017. It arrives in hardcover from Saga Press on February 7, 2017.

Somewhere on the outer rim of the universe, a mass of decaying world-ships known as the Legion is traveling in the seams between the stars.Here in the darkness, a war for control of the Legion has been waged for generations, with no clear resolution.

As worlds continue to die, a desperate plan is put into motion.

Zan wakes with no memory, prisoner of a people who say they are her family. She is told she is their salvation – the only person capable of boarding the Mokshi, a world-ship with the power to leave the Legion. But Zan’s new family is not the only one desperate to gain control of the prized ship. Zan finds that she must choose sides in a genocidal campaign that will take her from the edges of the Legion’s gravity well to the very belly of the world.

Zan will soon learn that she carries the seeds of the Legion’s destruction – and its possible salvation. But can she and the band of cast-off followers she has gathered survive the horrors of the Legion and its people long enough to deliver it?

The Stars Are Legion will be published by Saga Press on February 7, 2017. It is 380 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. The eye-catching cover is by Stephen Youll.

Tor.com on the Most Intriguing SF and Fantasy Books of 2017

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

No sooner do we wrap up all the 2016 Best of the Year lists than we’re deluged with 2017 Best Upcoming Books lists. Well, if it’s our lot in life to read all these lists and dutifully report the best to you here, we shall carry our burden stoically.

As usual, Tor.com is first out of the gate, with a generous survey of a dozen SF and fantasy titles coming in 2017 that they want to read right now. It includes new novels by Nnedi Okorafor, Mur Lafferty, George Saunders, Kameron Hurley, Catherynne M. Valente, N. K. Jemisin, and many others. There’s lots on their list that appeals to me — like Revenger by Alastair Reynolds, coming in paperback from Orbit on February 28, 2017.

Captain Rackamore and his crew’s business is to find the tiny, enigmatic worlds which have been hidden away, booby-trapped, surrounded by layers of protection – and to crack them open for the ancient relics and barely-remembered technologies inside. But while they ply their risky trade with integrity, not everyone is so scrupulous.

As Molly Templeton writes, “Space! Pirate! Sisters! Is this a movie yet? I want to read it and watch it.”

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January/February 2017 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The January/February 2017 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction marks the beginning of the magazine’s 40th year. I remember buying the second issue off the racks in the summer of 1977, when I was 13 years old. It was one of the first SF magazines I ever bought and, as Obiwan Kenobi put it later that year, it was my “first step into a wider world.”

The January/February 2017 issue is a landmark for another reason, as it’s the first issue in the new bimonthly format. I always enjoy the big double issues, and getting six of them a year is something I look forward to — especially since the magazine has added an additional 16 pages (bringing it up to 208), making it the thickest issue of Asimov’s in years.

Here’s Sheila’s full description from the website:

We’re celebrating our fortieth anniversary all year long. The party starts with the super-stuffed double January/February 2017 issue! Two dramatic stories frame the issue. Allen M. Steele’s famous frontier planet, Coyote, has been settled for some time, but terrifying dangers still lurk around the bend of an unexplored river. Members of a scientific expedition soon learn that it takes more than bravado to survive “Tagging Bruno.” In Robert Reed’s new novella, crewmembers from the Big Ship encounter a very strange and very intelligent alien who puts their own spin on “The Speed of Belief.”

Octavia Cade escorts us to the Siberia of Stalinist Russia for “The Meiosis of Cells and Exile”; Jack Skillingstead arrives at a chilling “Destination”; Jim Grimsley paints a “Still Life With Abyss”; denizens of Fire Island will “Blow Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks” in John Alfred Taylor’s new story; Tom Purdom reveals the powerful strength of a “Fatherbond”; Robert R. Chase helps pick up the “Pieces of Ourselves”; Lisa Goldstein exposes us to “The Catastrophe of Cities”; Ray Nayler imbues a hazardous “Winter Timeshare” with new meaning; young people attempt a first contact with the help of Stephen Baxter’s mysterious “Starphone”; while beauty and sorrow are stunningly portrayed in Sean Monaghan’s evocative depiction of “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles.”

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The Killingest Book I Know: The Twelve Children of Paris by Tim Willocks

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 8 comments

“It is night and the night has no end.”

Matthias Tannhauser

I have read all sorts of hyper-violent books: thrillers; crime; horror; even some fantasy. Nothing, and I mean absolutely, utterly nothing, comes close to Tim Willocks’ The Twelve Children of Paris (2014). Seven years after his adventures during the Great Siege of Malta chronicled in The Religion (and reviewed here), Matthias Tannhauser, ex-Janissary and current Knight of St. John, comes to Paris in search of his wife, Carla. It is August 23rd, 1572, just hours before the start of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

The massacre was the result of the tremendous instability the Reformation had caused to France. During the ten years preceding the massacre, France had fought the first three of the Wars of Religion. Primarily a struggle between two noble houses, the Calvinist House of Conde and the devoutly Catholic House of Guise, the kings strove to maintain a balance between them and avoid bloodshed. When it seemed the Protestants had gained too much power and threatened that of King Charles IX, he authorized twenty-four hours of killing. The plan was to eliminate the leaders of the Protestant cause, many of whom had come to Paris for the wedding of Charles’ sister, Margaret, to the Protestant Henry of Navarre. Not counted on was the terrible enmity the strongly Catholic Parisians held for the Protestants. Instead of a day, the carnage lasted for several days and spread out into the countryside. Estimates vary from five to thirty thousand dead.

Into this brewing hellstorm Matthias Tannhauser rides. Carla, noblewoman and renowned player of the viol da gamba, has been summoned to play at a concert for the royal wedding. Though eight months pregnant, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse a royal summons. Tannhauser, away on business in North Africa, has returned to France and ridden to Paris to join his wife. Upon hearing of an assassination attempt on Protestant leader Admiral de Coligny and the consequent cancellation of the musical performance, Tannhauser decides he must find his wife and remove her from a city on the brink of civil collapse. Unfortunately, he has only the slightest idea of where she might be.

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HELP! Author’s House Robbed

Monday, January 16, 2017 Patty Templeton Comments 0 Comment

Friday the 13th didn’t do so well for indie author and helluva-nice-dude, Zig Zag Claybourne, also known as Clarence Young. Why, you ask? Because Zig Zag Claybourne’s house got robbed.

Claybourne doesn’t deserve this crap. No one does. So why not help a fantastic writer out?

How can you help?

You can buy one of his books. My favorite is The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan. If you’re a fan of Buckaroo Banzai or The Hitchhiker’s Guide, you should read it. Now is the perfect time to buy it — or any of his fine books. (CLICK TO BUY!)

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The Omnibus Volumes of Cassandra Rose Clarke: Magic of Blood and Sea and Magic of Wind and Mist

Monday, January 16, 2017 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Angry Robot is one of the most innovative (and successful) new genre publishing houses in the last decade. Not every aspect of its journey has been equally successful, however. Its Strange Chemistry imprint, launched in 2011 to publish young adult SF and fantasy, shut down in 2014… but not before publishing highly acclaimed new work by Martha Wells, Jonathan L. Howard, and three early novels by Cassandra Rose Clarke: The Assassin’s Curse (2012) and its sequel The Pirate’s Wish (2013), and The Wizard’s Promise (2014). A fourth novel, The Nobleman’s Revenge, the sequel to The Wizard’s Promise, was never published.

Clarke was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award for her first novel for adults, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, in 2013, and late last year Saga Press reprinted the book in a new trade paperback edition. Now they’re doing the same with Clarke’s Strange Chemistry novels. The Assassin’s Curse series will be reprinted in a handsome omnibus edition, Magic of Blood and Sea, arriving in hardcover in early February. And The Wizard’s Promise and the previously unpublished The Nobleman’s Revenge will appear in Magic of Wind and Mist in 2018.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Let’s Talk About The Dying Detective

Monday, January 16, 2017 Bob Byrne Comments 3 comments

Last week I wrote about the season four opener of BBC’s Sherlock, which was an improvement on season three and the abysmal Abominable Bride. But the second episode was yet another huge disappointment, so I’m not going to bother with a negative post about it. However, I’m going to talk about the Canonical story it was based on.

It’s no huge surprise that The Lying Detective was based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale, “The Dying Detective.” As far as that goes, The Lying Detective was actually a decent adaptation of the original story. That’s damning with faint praise, however, as I consider “The Dying Detective” to be one of the weakest stories in the Canon.

Appearing in December of 1913, it was the forty-sixth Holmes story to be published. It was one of just eight stories included in His Last Bow.

THE STORY

SPOILERS – I’m going to talk about a story that’s been out there for over one hundred years. And it features the most popular fictional character of all time. If you REALLY don’t want to be tipped off, jump over here and spend fifteen minutes reading it. You have been warned!

Holmes starves himself, looks ghastly, lays in bed, insults Watson, the villain comes over, helpfully confesses, is arrested and Holmes reveals that the was faking it. Yep, that’s the whole thing. Holmes lies in bed for all but a few seconds of the story (he jumps up to lock Watson in the room). No deducing, no finding clues, no nothing. His work in trying to pin a murder on Culverton Smith all happens beforehand.

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Victoria II: When Peace Was Rare, and War Was an Old Friend

Sunday, January 15, 2017 eeknight Comments 0 Comment

While seeking an escape from the distressing politics of the early Twenty-First Century, I decided to plunge headlong into the distressing politics of the Nineteenth Century and picked up a game I’ve long been meaning to try: Victoria II. It was a good call. This civ-building game is quite an achievement. I find it a good deal more engrossing than the Civ series (admittedly, I have a tough time jumping the mental hurdle of Abe Lincoln building pyramids). Something about the era just hits the spot.

You might wonder how good a Civilization-type game can be if it covers just a hundred years from the 1830-1930s, but think about all the key stuff that happened then. Industrialization. Rise of the nation-state. Colonialism. Marxism. Revolutions in science and industry. La Belle Époque and the Great War.

The challenges in the game are quite convincing, and there’s all sorts of matters to juggle with everything from the immigrant balance of your population to your tech tree (“I’m going to rush Freudian psychoanalysis”). The game is both broad and deep, broad in that you can play just about any nation-state (some require a little jiggering — if you wish to play Poland you first have to control it as a Great Power, then free it. The game allows you to switch nations if you wish every time you do this) and deep in that it allows you to micromanage your economy, if your political regime allows it, that is.

The different nations do have some realistic flavor built into them. You can take Japan out of feudalism, or try to hold Russia together, wake the sleeping giant that is China, unite Germany, or be those miserable fat Belgian bastards in the Congo.

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New Treasures: Lords of Dyscrasia by S.E. Lindberg

Sunday, January 15, 2017 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

I met Seth Lindberg at the World Fantasy Convention back in October. He co-moderates the Goodreads Sword & Sorcery Group, one of the rare groups that pays a lot of attention to genre magazines, like Cirsova and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He also maintains a fairly active (and excellent) blog — check out his recent reviews of Joe Bonadonna’s Mad Shadows II, and Skelos issue #1.

He’s also an acclaimed S&S author in his own right. Joe Bonadonna wrote a rave review of his first novel Lords of Dyscrasia here at Black Gate last year. Here’s Joe.

Lords of Dyscrasia (an abnormal or disordered state of the body or of a bodily part) is touted as “Graphic Sword and Sorcery,” but to me it has more in common with the dark fantasy of Clark Ashton Smith and the gothic tones of Mervyn Peake’s first two Gormenghast books. There is some nice Lovecraftian shading to this novel, as well, with a touch of Edgar Allen Poe to lend it a feverishness of tone, and even a psychedelic flavor in style.

While Lindberg channels his influences with a deft hand, he has mapped out a beautifully grotesque world that is truly his own unique creation. This book was described to me as being part of the Grimdark subgenre of dark fantasy, and it is indeed a grim, dark tale….

This is a complex and well-written novel, very difficult to describe. The settings and the atmosphere are rich in color and texture, and story’s pace is almost relentless: it rushes along like a bullet train, with very few stops along the way. Although Lysis Endeken is the main character, it is the weird and wonderful Doctor Grave who really rises above all others.

I bought a copy of this novel from Seth at the convention, and I’m glad I did. It’s become the foundation of a popular new S&S series, and the second volume, Spawn of Dyscrasia, was published in 2014.

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Download Some of the Best from Tor.com 2016 For Free Before January 17th!

Sunday, January 15, 2017 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Some of the Best from Tor.com 2014-small

Every year since 2011 Tor.com, one of the top short fiction markets in the industry, has compiled a collection of some of their finest short fiction into a digital anthology. And this year they’re making the latest edition completely free on their website — but only until January 17th. Act now to grab your free copy today!

We are very excited to offer a free download of the 2016 edition of Some of the Best from Tor.com, an anthology of 25 of our favorite short stories and novelettes from the last year. The ebook edition will be available as a free download here until January 17th, it will also be made available wherever ebooks are sold for the duration of 2017.

Of course, you can always enjoy all of our free weekly short stories by visiting Tor.com’s fiction index.

These stories were acquired and edited for Tor.com by Ellen Datlow, Ann VanderMeer, Carl Engle-Laird, Liz Gorinsky, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Justin Landon, Diana Pho, and Miriam Weinberg. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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