Emily Bold on Celtic Lore, Timeless Romance, and Accidentally Swearing in Gaelic

Emily Bold on Celtic Lore, Timeless Romance, and Accidentally Swearing in Gaelic

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thumbAs many of you know, my alter-ego is E.M. Tippetts, an indie chick-lit author. This means I do my best to stay on top of the indie publishing scene. Most people think of the English speaking markets when it comes to indie publishing, but Germany actually had more market penetration early on by the self-published set. Up to half of the Amazon.de top 100 were indie at any given time in 2012 (as opposed to a quarter on Amazon.com). One such success story is Emily Bold, who I had the privilege of meeting online via my German translator.

When he suggested I try cross-marketing with her, I first looked up the one book of hers that was available in English at the time, The Curse, and was dismayed to see it was paranormal romance. This is not my favorite genre, but I downloaded it and began to read…

…and finished it about a day and a half later. It was that good. Forget everything you thought you knew about paranormal romance. Payton, the male lead, was cursed with immortality along with the rest of his clan hundreds of years ago, and has been in emotional stasis ever since. Not everyone in the clan considers this a curse; what could be better than living for eternity and never again feeling any form of pain?

Enter Samantha, an American exchange student who has no idea about her ancient, Scottish bloodline, nor the prophecy that she alone can fulfill.

Because of the wealth of background research in this series, and Emily posting on Twitter that she sometimes finds herself swearing in Gaelic without even thinking about it, I assumed Emily was a historian. But no, detailed background research is just another of her many talents.

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New Treasures: Congress of Secrets by Stephanie Burgis

New Treasures: Congress of Secrets by Stephanie Burgis

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congress-of-secrets-stephanie-burgis-smallStephanie Burgis is the author of the Kat, Incorrigible trilogy of Regency fantasy adventures for kids. Masks and Shadows, her first historical fantasy novel for adults, was published by Pyr earlier this year. Martha Wells calls her newest, Congress of Secrets, “A gripping and enjoyable historical fantasy thriller, with engaging characters scheming for survival and revenge, fighting addictive alchemical magic against the lush background of the 1814 Congress of Vienna.” That’s good enough for me.

In 1814, the Congress of Vienna has just begun. Diplomats battle over a new map of Europe, actors vie for a chance at glory, and aristocrats and royals from across the continent come together to celebrate the downfall of Napoleon… among them Lady Caroline Wyndham, a wealthy English widow. But Caroline has a secret: she was born Karolina Vogl, daughter of a radical Viennese printer. When her father was arrested by the secret police, Caroline’s childhood was stolen from her by dark alchemy.

Under a new name and nationality, she returns to Vienna determined to save her father even if she has to resort to the same alchemy that nearly broke her before. But she isn’t expecting to meet her father’s old apprentice, Michael Steinhüller, now a charming con man in the middle of his riskiest scheme ever. The sinister forces that shattered Caroline’s childhood still rule Vienna behind a glittering façade of balls and salons, Michael’s plan is fraught with danger, and both of their disguises are more fragile than they realize. What price will they pay to the darkness if either of them is to survive?

Our previous coverage of Stephanie Burgis includes:

A Most Improper Boxed Set
Masks and Shadows
Stephanie Burgis on Scandals in Regency England, Magickal Bathwater, and an Illness That Is No Laughing Matter by Emily Mah

Congress of Secrets was published by Pyr on November 1, 2016. It is 347 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Nicole Sommer-Lecht.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Get Hard Cased (with Charles Ardai)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Get Hard Cased (with Charles Ardai)

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ardai_fiftyCharles Ardai co-founded the internet company, Juno. That success gave him the opportunity to start his own publishing imprint, Hard Case Crime, which both reprints forgotten pulp novels and also publishes new novels in the genre. The roster of Hard Case Crime authors is beyond impressive: Lawrence Block, Max Allen Collins, Lester Dent, Erle Stanley Gardner, Stephen King, Wade Miller. Richard Stark, Donald Westlake and many more.

Hard Case Crime has found several “lost” books by some big names, including James M. Cain and Gore Vidal. While Erle Stanley Gardner is best known for Perry Mason, he put out 29 books about a mismatched duo of detectives, Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. The Knife Slipped was to have been the second in the series but it was cancelled by the publisher. A week from Tuesday, on December 6, a veritable treasure goes on sale. Hard Case Crime is printing, for the first time ever, that unpublished Cool and Lam novel. I’ll be writing ab out Cool and Lam right here, next week. But today, I’ve got a Q & A with Charles Ardai!

A never before published Cool and Lam novel. Wow! How in the world did you get your publisher hands on that?

Jeffrey Marks, a biographer in the mystery field who has written about Craig Rice and Anthony Boucher among others, was working on a bio of Erle Stanley Gardner when he came across references to an unpublished Cool and Lam novel among Gardner’s papers. He brought it to my attention, and my reaction was roughly the same as yours: Wow. With the assistance of Gardner’s grandson we got a copy of the typescript from the University of Texas, where Gardner’s papers are held, and I read the thing, hoping against hope that it hadn’t remained unpublished for 75 years for good reasons. And far from deserving to be unpublished, I found it was easily one of the most enjoyable books in the series!

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Atlantis, Vikings, and the Hordes of Kublai Khan: Merlin’s Ring by H. Warner Munn: Part II

Atlantis, Vikings, and the Hordes of Kublai Khan: Merlin’s Ring by H. Warner Munn: Part II

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terrortales-smallTime to come clean! When I published Part 1 of my review of Merlin’s Ring last year, it was not because the article was so massive that it had to be broken down into smaller parts. Rather, it’s because I was unable to finish the book promptly, and soon enough unforeseen circumstances left me deprived of my copy, wondering what happened to Gwalchmai and Corenice. John O’Neill suggested I proceed with what I had, and commit to completing the review later.

A replacement book was not an easy find. Mr Munn’s works are like hens teeth where I live. Honestly I have only ever, quite recently, come across one in a second hand book shop – alas it was The King of the World’s Edge, which is the book that caused me to seek out Merlin’s Ring in the first place!

Well, thanks to the internet and a service called Alibris, I finally received a replacement volume from Floridas. Not in as good a nick as my previous, pristine volume, but it is the first printing Ballantine version, which I suppose is something.

Part 1 of my review left off where Gwalchmai had joined forces with Joan of Arc, and became part of the army set to liberate Orleans. One has to appreciate the admiration for St Joan that Mr Munn must have had. His passion for the subject is strong, and the resultant detail a joy to read. My own knowledge of Joan of Arc has (until now) been somewhat sketchy. Pretty much the basics: when she lived, that she was burned as a heretic, and there have been a few recent movies about her.

While I can’t say whether Munn’s account is historically accurate, at least the recent movies have acquainted me with the subject of Joan of Arc. Munn’s Secondary characters are detailed and believable, with small quirks that can easily be believed. One example is Master Jean, the best marksman in France when it comes to the “hand cannon” (predecessor to a harquebus). The secret to his skill is cleverly woven into the plot, something rather mundane by today’s standards but so revolutionary, and risky, for a gunner in those days.

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The B&N Sci-Fi Blog on The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of November

The B&N Sci-Fi Blog on The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of November

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Jim Killen has been as the science fiction and fantasy buyer for Barnes & Noble for nearly 20 years, and every month he shares his top new SFF releases at the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog. His November list includes exciting new books from Brandon Sanderson, Ben Bova, Emma Newman, Christopher Hinz, Kim Harrison, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Erika Johansen, David Weber, David Dalglish, and others — including Culdesac by Robert Repino, the sequel to the widely acclaimed Mort(e), the tale of a housecat who becomes a war hero in an apocalyptic battle between humans, giants ants, and sentient animals.

Repino returns to the war-torn world he established in Mort(e) as the War with No Name rages on. The Colony, a race of intelligent ants, has humanity on the run before its army of sentient and intelligent animals. Culdesac, a housecat-turned-general for The Colony, is a brutally effective warrior, for whom violence is always the answer. As his forces occupy the town of Milton, however, he must prepare for a brutal counteroffensive from the humans, even as he discovers secrets that threaten to undermine his understanding of this new universe. Repino imbues a startling sense of realism to a story about an intelligent cat’s desire to wipe out humanity; Culdesac’s story is not only tense and violent, but oddly emotional and touching.

Culdesac was published by Soho Press on November 15. It is 128 pages, priced at $9.99 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. We covered Mort(e) here.

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Reverse-Turing Testing the Editor of Black Gate, or How I Said Goodbye to My Spam Followers

Reverse-Turing Testing the Editor of Black Gate, or How I Said Goodbye to My Spam Followers

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56043582This week, my friend Marie looked at my website because I didn’t know what I was doing. You may recall that one of the reasons I blog at Black Gate magazine is because I assume no one would ever read anything I put on my personal web page.

So far I’ve been with Black Gate about three years and love it here. But I haven’t lavished the same love on my own website.

So Marie looked at it and found I had literally hundreds of comments! You can’t imagine the shock and delight I experienced for 2.75 seconds.

Until she said “I think these are all spam comments.” Personally, I thought she was suffering from sour grapes, because she didn’t have 137 comments on her posts.

“But they’re engaging with me!” I said. “They like my posts!”

“No,” said Marie (continue imagining sour grapes). “It’s almost all spam. You have a couple of real people though.”

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Future Treasures: Gloriana: Or, The Unfulfill’d Queen by Michael Moorcock

Future Treasures: Gloriana: Or, The Unfulfill’d Queen by Michael Moorcock

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gloriana-or-the-unfulfilld-queen-smallMichael Moorcock is best known today for his ambitious Eternal Champion story arc, which includes the sword & sorcery classic Elric of Melnibone, the Hawkmoon novels, the Chronicles of Corum, the Von Bek novels… and man, a whole lot more. Seriously, if you want to dive in, there’s a whole lot of reading ahead of you. The Wikipedia page, which lists roughly a billion novels and short stories in the seres, will get you started.

But some of Moorcock’s most acclaimed fantasies were standalone works — including the World Fantasy Award and John W. Campbell Award winner Gloriana: Or, The Unfulfill’d Queen, which first appeared nearly 40 years ago. The tale of a beautiful but sexually frustrated queen who finds herself drawn into deadly court intrigue, Gloriana has been reprinted over a dozen times, and at the end of the month Saga Press returns it to print again in a handsome new hardcover description. Here’s the description.

In this “spellbinding” (The Sunday Times) award-winning fantasy, the vast empire of Albion is ruled by the beautiful and forlorn queen, Gloriana who must battle against a nefarious scoundrel, Captain Quire, and a court soured by debauchery with her wits.

First published in 1978, Gloriana is the award-winning story set in the alternate English kingdom of Albion that reimagines Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

Bawdy, cruel, and brilliant, Gloriana has been awarded the World Fantasy Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction, and is often cited as one of the great works of speculative fiction and fantasy along the lines of J.G. Ballard, Thomas Pynchon, and Philip K. Dick.

Gloriana has previously been published in the US by Avon Books, Questar, Warner Aspect, and the Science Fiction Book Club, and in the UK by Fontana, Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks, Gateway/Orion, and others. I’ve collected half a dozen examples below, with a gorgeous sampling of cover art — including the 1986 Flamingo edition, one of the rare examples of full frontal nudity I’ve ever seen on a mass market fantasy cover.

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Weirdbook 33 Now Available

Weirdbook 33 Now Available

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weirdbook-33-smallI was very pleased to finally get my hands on a copy of Weirdbook 33 this week, the third issue of the newly re-launched weird fantasy magazine. It follows issue #32 by just four months, which is lightning fast in the world of small press magazines.

While the last issue contained 25 short stories, this time editor Doug Draa mixes it up a little with a focus on longer fiction. Here’s an excerpt from his editorial.

This issue is going somewhat against the norm in that there are only 9 pieces of long fiction, a single flash piece, from the esteemed James Aquilone, and our talented rouges gallery of poets this time around. The nine stories are all of novelette or novella length.

I was tempted to call this our “Super-duper Occult Detective Halloween Spooktacular,” but feared that that would have been overdoing things a wee bit. To be honest, it’s purely coincidental but this issue contains 3 detective pieces. One of them is a new “Nick Nightmare” story from British Fantasy Award winner Adrian Cole, another one is from rising star John R. Fultz, and the third is a tale of shamanistic detection set in the true north strong and free by the extremely talented Bruno Lombard.

This issue also sees the return of two genuine masters to the pages of Weirdbook. A powerful, erotic dark fantasy by Jessica Amanda Salmonson and a wonderfully pulpy adventure from the pen of Franklyn Searight himself.

This issue is even larger than the last one, clocking in at an impressive 178 pages. Here’s the complete table of contents.

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Last Chance to Win a Copy of Sarah Avery’s The Imlen Brat

Last Chance to Win a Copy of Sarah Avery’s The Imlen Brat

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Ten days ago we announced a contest to give away two copies of Sarah Avery’s new book The Imlet Brat. Sarah has been a blogger at Black Gate since the days when our server was a coal-powered gear box in Howard Andrew Jones’ barn, and we were writing breathless articles about hot new writers Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. Sarah is also the author of “The War of the Wheat Berry Year” (from BG 15) and the acclaimed novella collection Tales from Rugosa Coven, which won the Mythopoeic Award in 2015.

There’s still an opportunity to win one of these beautiful books, but time is running out. To enter, just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the subject “The Imlen Brat,” and a one-sentence review of your favorite fantasy novella.[In honor of Sarah’s legacy as one of our most popular writers, we’ll also gladly accept a one-sentence review of your favorite story from Black Gate magazine — including any of the tales in our Black Gate Online Fiction library.]

That’s all it takes! Two winners will be drawn at random from all qualifying entries, and we’ll reprint the winning entries when we announce the winners. All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Not valid where prohibited by law, or anywhere postage for a trade paperback is more than, like, 10 bucks. Eat your vegetables.

The Imlen Brat was published by Point Quay Press on October 30, 2016. It is 70 pages, priced at $9.99 in trade paperback and $2.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Kate Baylay. Copies are available at Amazon and other fine outlets. See more details here.

Goth Chick News: Days of the Dead Drags into Chicago

Goth Chick News: Days of the Dead Drags into Chicago

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days-of-the-dead

Halloween heaves its last rasping breath each year in the Windy City when the annual Days of the Dead show lopes in around mid-November.

Granted, by this time not only are all traces of skeletons and zombies utterly erased, but rather than being replaced by little paper pilgrims and turkeys, Santas and Black Friday deals had long been encroaching on the tombstones in the retail aisles.  Still, there are enough of us not ready to let go of “the season” that the hotel playing host to the event for the last several years is dangerously close to violating the fire code for maximum capacity.

Not to be confused with the lively Mexican holiday honoring the dead, Dia de los Muertos celebrated on November 1, this Days of the Dead (“DotD” for you cool kids) is billed as the event “Where Horror Comes to Party”; which is sort of the same thing, only different.

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