New Treasures: The Catcher’s Trap by Ricardo Henriquez

New Treasures: The Catcher’s Trap by Ricardo Henriquez

Comments 0 Comment
the-catchers-trap-small the-catchers-trap-back-small

Inkshares is a crowdfunded publisher, with kind of an oddball business model. They publish only those books that have a successful crowdfunding campaign — i.e. those that meet a designated pre-order threshold. Inkshares says this is “democratizing publishing” by having readers select what gets published, and they do claim to edit, design, print, distribute and market any book that meets their threshold.

I can attest to at least two aspects of that claim: the book I’m holding in my hands, Ricardo Henriquez’s The Catcher’s Trap, is thoroughly professional in design and layout — which makes it two steps above most small press titles that cross my desk, anyway. They also have a nice selection of blurbs on the back, and they sent me a review copy… so they seem to be no slouches in the marketing department either. The release that accompanies the book proudly claims they’ve published 61 titles since launching in February 2014; that ain’t bad at all.

But are the books any good? Really, that’s the question. The Catcher’s Trap looks intriguing enough. I should probably try it, but I’m not gonna. You try it.

The Catcher’s Trap was published by Inkshares on November 8, 2016. It is 241 pages, priced at $13.99 in trade paperback and $4.99 for the digital version. The cover was designed by Marc Cohen. Click the images above for bigger versions.

Fantasia 2016, Day 20: Twisting History and Twice-Told Tales (The Arbalest and The Piper)

Fantasia 2016, Day 20: Twisting History and Twice-Told Tales (The Arbalest and The Piper)

Comments 0 Comment

The ArbalestTuesday, August 2, was the next-to-last day of the 2016 Fantasia festival. I had two movies lined up. First would come The Arbalest, at the De Sève Theatre: a period fantasy about a man who made an addictive puzzle in a slightly alternate 1970s. That would be followed by The Piper (Sonmin), a Korean film that reimagined the Pied Piper story as set in a postwar Korean village. Both looked promising. One delivered on that promise.

The Arbalest is the debut feature by writer/director Adam Pinney, presenting the career of millionaire toy inventor Foster Kalt (Mike Brune). In the late 1970s the reclusive Kalt prepares to tell the story of his life to a TV news crew. He reveals less to them than one might expect, but we see flashbacks to his past; specifically, to the eve of a crucial toy fair, when Kalt spends a fateful night in a hotel room with two other people. One of them, an unnamed man (Jon Briddell), is the real inventor of the Kalt Kube, the toy Kalt would go on to present as his own. The other is a woman named Sylvia (Tallie Medel), with whom Kalt falls madly in love. Further flashbacks show us Kalt stalking Sylvia, taking a cottage near her home, and entering into conflict with her and her husband (Robert Walker Branchaud).

The Arbalest is a difficult movie to figure out, though on a basic plot level what’s happening and why is always clear. Movement between different time periods is smooth and assured. But what we’re watching is increasingly baffling, both in terms of character development and of the world we think we’re seeing.

…

Read More Read More

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in November

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in November

Comments 1 comment

astonishing-swordsmen-and-sorcerers-of-hyperborea-smallIf there was a popular topic at Black Gate last month, it was Jeffrey Talanian’s role playing game Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Gabe Dybing interviewed Jeffrey for us on November 11, and Bob Byrne wrote a brief feature on the runaway success of the Kickstarter campaign to fund a second edition of the rules — and both articles leaped into the Top Ten for the month.

The number one post at Black Gate in November was our report on the contents of Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2017, followed by Mark Rigney’s open letter to George R. R. Martin and the producers of Game Of Thrones. Coming in at number three was Howard Andrew Jones’ heartfelt response to the election, Seeking Solace.

Rounding out the Top Five for the month was our report on Asimov’s SF and Analog magazines switching to bimonthly publication, followed by C.S.E. Cooney’s rave review of the new Saga anthology The Starlit Wood, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe.

Anthologies were a hot topic in November. Our third anthology feature, on Hank Davis’ Things From Outer Space, came in at number seven, and Sean McLachlan’s fascinating article on the Iraqui science fiction anthology Iraq + 100 was the ninth’s most popular for the month. Wrapping up the Top Ten was Derek Kunsken’s review of Doctor Strange.

The complete list of Top Articles for November follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular overall articles, online fiction, and blog categories for the month.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: Galactic Empires, edited by Neil Clarke

Future Treasures: Galactic Empires, edited by Neil Clarke

Comments 6 comments

galactic-empires-neil-clarke-small2016 was another great year for anthologies. I haven’t read them all of course — not even close — but some of my favorites so far include Things From Outer Space, edited by Hank Davis, What the #@&% Is That? by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen, Bridging Infinity, from Jonathan Strahan, Women of Futures Past, edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Drowned Worlds, also from the mighty Jonathan Strahan. Not to mention the various Best of the Year volumes, of course.

2016 is already looking pretty jammed packed with great anthologies as well. But the first must-read anthology of the year, no question, is Neil Clarke’s Galactic Empires, an ambitious (read: huge) collection of SF tales featuring far-flung confederations in the stars. The TOC is a who’s-who of virtually everyone doing important work at short length in science fiction, including Paul J. McAuley, Ann Leckie, Brandon Sanderson, Greg Egan, Aliette de Bodard, Neal Asher, Yoon Ha Lee, Tobias S. Buckell, Robert Silverberg, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert Reed, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Naomi Novik, Ian McDonald and many others.

Galactic Empires will be published in trade paperback and digital formats by Night Shade Books next month. Here’s the description.

From E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman, to George Lucas’ Star Wars, the politics and process of Empire have been a major subject of science fiction’s galaxy-spanning fictions. The idiom of the Galactic Empire allows science fiction writers to ask (and answer) questions that are shorn of contemporary political ideologies and allegiances. This simple narrative slight of hand allows readers and writers to see questions and answers from new and different perspectives.

The stories in this book do just that. What social, political, and economic issues do the organizing structure of “empire” address? Often the size, shape, and fates of empires are determined not only by individuals, but by geography, natural forces, and technology. As the speed of travel and rates of effective communication increase, so too does the size and reach of an Imperial bureaucracy.

Sic itur ad astra — “Thus one journeys to the stars.”

Note that Gardner Dozois edited a collection with the same title for the Science Fiction Book Club back in 2008 (we covered that one here). It’s a popular title; we don’t judge.

…

Read More Read More

Fantasia 2016, Day 19: Critiques of Cartesian Dualism, Plus an Elk (Embers, L’Élan, We Are the Flesh)

Fantasia 2016, Day 19: Critiques of Cartesian Dualism, Plus an Elk (Embers, L’Élan, We Are the Flesh)

Comments 0 Comment

EmbersBy Monday, August 1, the end of the 2016 Fantasia Film Festival was in sight. Two more days, and it’d be over for another year. Bearing that in mind I was determined to pass by the Festival’s screening room and catch up with some films I’d missed earlier in the festival. First, though, I was headed to the De Séve Theatre for a showing of the American-Polish science-fiction movie Embers, about a world struck by a plague of forgetting. After that I’d go to the screening room, where I’d watch the French absurdist comedy L’Élan and the Mexican horror-fantasy We Are the Flesh (Tenemos la carne).

A short film called “Event Horizon” played before Embers. Directed and written by Josépha Celestin, it’s a sweet but slow film about a young girl (Kate McLaughlin) in 1997 with a desire to explore, and a black hole that appears not far from her home in a Scottish village. Other youths aren’t as idealistic as she is, providing some tension to the piece. It’s an understated story, for good or ill, with striking cinematography. It’s remarkable for doing something character-based with a distinctly science-fictional premise.

Embers is the first feature film from director Claire Carré, with a script by Carré and Charles Spano. It gives us a future in which the world’s afflicted by a mysterious global plague robbing its victims of their short-term memories. The plague struck ten years before the film begins, and seems to have infected virtually everyone. Embers follows several different plot strands — some of which overlap and some of which do not — in the decayed world that has resulted. Time having passed since I saw Embers at Fantasia, I will note that it’s now on Netflix in Canada and the US; and I will say at once that anyone looking for a cerebral yet character-centred science-fiction film should see this movie. Well-crafted and elliptical, it avoids presenting easy answers or obvious genre structural strategies while being science-fiction in the most profound sense, using a nominally technologically-based shift in the world to raise questions about identity and human nature.

…

Read More Read More

With Doctor Strange Behind Us … My Ranking of the Marvel Studios Films

With Doctor Strange Behind Us … My Ranking of the Marvel Studios Films

Comments 9 comments

marvel-logo

With the release of Doctor Strange, Marvel Studios has now advanced two films into Phase 3 with a remarkable tally of fourteen feature films produced over eight years — the most prolific blockbuster franchise ever. More remarkable is the level of quality the series has maintained. There’s only one entry so far I’d classify as a legit bad movie, and Marvel got that one out of the way early. Marvel Studios keeps its comic book movie engine chugging steadily along because it’s woven together a mesh of characters audiences love, and because it varies tone, style, and genre with each movie. Tech adventures, space opera, fantasy, war, espionage… Marvel offers something for everyone.

And since the Internet loves numbered lists, and I like writing my opinions, here’s my personal ranking of the fourteen MCU films so far. It’s a wobbly list, but I’m fine with wobbly if the reason is that most of the entries are just so good that they crowd close together. With one exception, I’d gladly sit down to watch any of these films on a whim.

…

Read More Read More

Romeo and Juliet with Undead, an Underworld, and a Juliet Who Kicks Butt: Bright Smoke, Cold Fire by Rosamund Hodge

Romeo and Juliet with Undead, an Underworld, and a Juliet Who Kicks Butt: Bright Smoke, Cold Fire by Rosamund Hodge

Comments 0 Comment

bright-smoke-cold-fire-smallWhen I published her story “Apotheosis” in the final issue of Black Gate, Rosamund Hodge was a brand new writer, with only three published stories under her belt. Now she’s an acclaimed fantasy novelist, with two YA novels, Cruel Beauty and Crimson Bound to her credit, and a highly anticipated new book. Can I pick ’em, or what?

Bright Smoke, Cold Fire was released in hardcover from Balzer + Bray in September; it is the opening novel in a duology based on Romeo and Juliet (with necromancers). School Library Journal writes: “Hodge creates a world ravaged by the Ruining, a fog that killed the living and allowed the dead to walk… [with] magic, an underworld, and a Juliet who kicks butt.”

When the mysterious fog of the Ruining crept over the world, the living died and the dead rose. Only the walled city of Viyara was left untouched.

The heirs of the city’s most powerful — and warring — families, Mahyanai Romeo and Juliet Catresou, share a love deeper than duty, honor, even life itself. But the magic laid on the Juliet at birth compels her to punish the enemies of her clan — and Romeo has just killed her cousin Tybalt. Which means he must die.

Paris Catresou has always wanted to serve his family by guarding the Juliet. But when his ward tries to escape her fate, magic goes terribly wrong — killing her and leaving Paris bound to Romeo. If he wants to discover the truth of what happened, Paris must delve deep into the city, ally with his worst enemy… and perhaps turn against his own clan.

Mahyanai Runajo only wants to protect her city — but she’s the only one who believes it’s in peril. In her desperate hunt for information, she accidentally pulls Juliet from the mouth of death—and finds herself bound to the bitter, angry girl. Runajo quickly discovers Juliet might be the one person who can help her recover the secret to saving Viyara.

Both pairs will find friendship where they least expect it. Both will find that Viyara holds more secrets and dangers than anyone ever expected. And outside the walls, death is waiting…

Bright Smoke, Cold Fire was published by Balzer + Bray on September 27, 2016. It is 448 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital version. See all our coverage of the latest released from Black Gate writers here.

Goth Chick News: Take Me Back to Cloverfield

Goth Chick News: Take Me Back to Cloverfield

Comments 0 Comment

10-cloverfield-lane-smallIn January of this year we reported how J.J. Abrams was up to his old guerrilla marketing tactics again when 10 Cloverfield Lane was not only announced, but also came with a trailer and a release date only a few months later in March. The pseudo-sequel to the 2008 found footage sci-fi/horror film Cloverfield was a box office success, even garnering some serious if fleeting Oscar buzz for John Goodman.

Because 10 Cloverfield Lane reignited fan interest in the franchise (and made such bank), it was pretty much a done deal that there would be another entry in the Cloverfield universe. However, given that it was eight years between the first and second installments, no one was exactly holding their breath.

Then in October it seemed that we should have been, when The Wrap revealed that the next film in the series was already in production — and had a title and a release date: God Particle; ETA February, 2017

However, literally before I could bring you the news, the top secret film directed by Julius Onah, was pulled from the schedule.

Seriously J.J… WTF…?

Now this week comes word from Paramount Pictures’ PR branch that they plan to release a new Cloverfield movie in theaters (and IMAX) on October 27, 2017.

And with that we now have a mystery on our hands.

…

Read More Read More

December 2016 Clarkesworld Now Available

December 2016 Clarkesworld Now Available

Comments 0 Comment

clarkesworld-december-2016-smallIn his article “The Joy of Helping” in the latest Clarkesworld, writer and translator Ken Liu (The Wall of Storms, Invisible Planets) says some splendidly on-point things about helping others.

The truth is: It feels good to help people. Even today, much of my motivation in editing and translating stories from China is still tied up with this satisfaction of helping writers reach readers. Surely I would have written more original works and made more money without these translations — but I think I wouldn’t have been as happy.

And we don’t acknowledge and celebrate the joy of helping enough.

It’s also important to acknowledge that we like to be helped. I have been helped countless times in my career by friends, editors, readers, fellow authors—even Invisible Planets wouldn’t have been possible without the help of all the authors and many others along the way. All of us have probably had experiences where a friend’s insightful comments improved our stories… or we got onto a panel because someone more famous and accomplished thought it helpful to boost our voices. The sun feels brighter on those days, and even the writing seems to come out of the word-mines more easily.

It’s nice to be able to make someone feel that, isn’t it?

As freelancers in the uncertain publishing industry, writers are bombarded with advice on how to develop our careers and to think strategically. Sometimes it almost seems as if we’re supposed to feel foolish if our motivation for doing something is simply to help someone with no expectation of any advantage whatsoever. And if we do receive help, we are conditioned to think of it as part of some implied exchange, a favor owed that might be called in someday. Neither reaction, I submit, is necessary. Helping someone truly is its own reward.

Preach, brother Liu! It’s there’s one thing I’ve learned in 17 years publishing Black Gate, it’s that the biggest rewards always come from promoting others. Read Ken’s complete piece here.

…

Read More Read More

In 500 Words or Less: The King in Darkness by Evan May

In 500 Words or Less: The King in Darkness by Evan May

Comments 2 comments

the-king-in-darkness-by-evan-may-smallThe King in Darkness
By Evan May
Renaissance Press (267 pages, $14.99 trade paperback/$2.99 digital, July 21 2015)

I haven’t had much luck with writing by Canadian authors set in Canadian cities, regardless of genre — which isn’t to say that those sorts of novels aren’t generally good. I’ve just had bad luck, I think, which started with the Canadian literature I was forced to read in university, and led me until recently to avoid speculative fiction set in, say, Toronto or Vancouver.

Clearly I’ve been missing out, though; a while back I read the first of Linda Poitevin’s Grigori Legacy novels and loved it, and now I’ve hit gold with a second spec fic novel set in a Canadian city: The King in Darkness, the debut novel from Evan May, which takes place in our mutual home of Ottawa.

I’ve considered and abandoned the idea of writing a story set in Canada’s capital several times, always worried about the political essence of Ottawa creeping into the work. May manages to write a novel that uses the physical setting of Ottawa in interesting ways — including the grounds around Parliament and the University of Ottawa — while avoiding any of the baggage that our fair city might bring to the narrative. For an Ottawa resident, recognizing locations is like a video game’s Easter eggs; if you know nothing about Ottawa, you don’t lose anything, either, thanks to May’s clear descriptions.

…

Read More Read More