Black Gate – Page 633 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

New Treasures: New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey

Wednesday, June 29, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

You know what I didn’t know I wanted? A Roman-era adventure tale/modern thriller mash-up. At least, I didn’t know I wanted it until a copy of Daniel Godfrey’s debut novel New Pompeii showed up on my doorstep, courtesy of Titan Books. Now I can’t wait to read it.

Calling New Pompeii a delightful mix of genres is something of an understatement. Alan Smale (Clash of Eagles) says it’s “That rare science fiction novel that reads like a thriller… an astonishing debut.” Gareth L. Powell (The Recollection, Hive Monkey) concurs, calling the novel “A smart, intriguing thriller in the tradition of Michael Crichton and Philip K. Dick.” And Barnes & Noble calls it, “Deliciously Readable.” And yeah, it’s their job to sell books, but you gotta admit they don’t say that about everybody.

Whatever the case, New Pompeii has one of the most original and intriguing premises I’ve heard this year. Not bad at all for a debut novel. Here’s the description.

In the near future, energy giant Novus Particles develops the technology to transport objects and people from the deep past to the present. Their biggest secret: New Pompeii. A replica of the city hidden deep in central Asia, filled with Romans pulled through time a split second before the volcano erupted.

Historian Nick Houghton doesn’t know why he’s been chosen to be the company’s historical advisor. He’s just excited to be there. Until he starts to wonder what happened to his predecessor. Until he realizes that NovusPart have more secrets than even the conspiracy theorists suspect.

Until he realizes that NovusPart have underestimated their captives…

New Pompeii was published by Titan Books on June 21, 2016. It is 422 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, and $7.99 for the digital edition.

The Series Series: The Ever-Expanding Universe by Martin Leicht and Isla Neal

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 Sarah Avery Comments 1 comment

Two publishers asked if we’d try something unusual. It was the same unusual thing — reviewing an entire trilogy in one go — for two different series and two different reasons.

One series, Brian Stavely’s The Emperor’s Blades, was about to conclude. The other, Martin Leicht and Isla Neal’s The Ever-Expanding Universe, had been published by one imprint as YA, and was being given a second chance as a series for adults by another imprint of the same house. Though I knew reviewing two trilogies in this way would reduce the number of posts I made to BG this year considerably, I was curious. So here we are.

The Ever-Expanding Universe follows the adventures of a daring young engineer whose dreams of interplanetary exploration and college, not necessarily in that order, seem at first to be dashed by a bout of teen pregnancy. Thanks to the cover copy, it’s no spoiler to tell you that the young engineer’s baby daddy and not-quite-boyfriend turns out to be of extraterrestrial ancestry, and the most contested commodities in a resource war between two alien species are the bodies of the girls at the near-earth-orbit boarding school for unwed mothers where Elvie Nara has gone to hide from her high school nemesis.

Is it worse when Cole Archer, the sort-of-boyfriend, turns out to be an alien commando, or when Cole’s definitely-girlfriend and Elvie’s aforementioned cheerleader nemesis Britta McVicker turns out to be one of Elvie’s classmates for prenatal yoga? The three of them, and an impressively varied passel of other gravid girls seriously irked at having been tricked by alien boyfriends, spend the first volume of the series, Mothership, dodging ruthless alien attackers and fleeing through a booby-trapped and sabotaged space cruise ship refitted as a high school.

It’s a delightful mix of suspense, fight scenes, engineering puzzles involving transitions from one gravity or atmospheric environment to another, slapstick comedy, social satire, secret history, and stuff blowing up real good, all delivered by a hilariously smart first-person-smartass narrator you want to see triumph. How could any SFF reader resist? How did we miss this series when it first came out? Why is it not already a classic of humorous science fiction?

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Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4, edited by Terry Carr

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 John ONeill Comments 21 comments

The Best Science Fiction of the Year 4 Terry Carr-small

The Best Science Fiction of the Year 4 Terry Carr-back-small

With all the Best of the Year volumes arriving over the past few months — from Jonathan Strahan, Rich Horton, Neil Clarke, and David Afsharirad, and more due next month from Gardner Dozois, Paula Guran, and others — it’s hard to remember those dark years in the mid-20th Century when there were only two or three.

Hard, but not impossible. Don Wollheim, Lester del Rey, and the great Terry Carr all had Best of the Year anthologies back in the mid-70s. I know because I bought and cherished them as they showed up in bookstores, starting around 1977 or so. I think my favorite editor of the batch was Terry Carr, who was already famous for his exemplary work at Ace at the time.

How good was Carr at extracting the cream of the crop from the digest magazines in the 70s? Depends who you ask of course, but in general Carr’s reputation was stellar. I’d read plenty of anthologies from the era, but I didn’t remember the magazines I read at the time well enough to say for certain.

However, I recently had the opportunity to do a little primary research of my own. I bought a collection of vintage Analog magazines from the early 70s, back when Ben Bova was editor, and I’ve spent a week of warm evenings on the porch with them, pretending I was Rich Horton.

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May Short Story Roundup

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 4 comments

Well, sad to say, there are just not that many swords & sorcery stories to round up this month. The big guns, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Grimdark Magazine, (the latter delayed while they run the Kickstarter for their anthology, Evil Is A Matter of Perspective) were silent. Beneath Ceaseless Skies’ two May issues didn’t have anything that fit the S&S bill. None of the other magazines yielded stories to review either. Only the stalwart Swords and Sorcery Magazine came through, just like it does every single month for over four years now.

According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a skimmington is “a boisterous procession intended to ridicule an unfaithful spouse or a shrewish wife often with effigies and a mock serenade” and “The Skimmington” is the title of B.C. Nance’s story in this month’s issue of SSM. No one in town believes wealthy landowner Daegal’s claim that his wife, Esma, ran out on him. Alden, a man who once loved the missing woman, convinces his fellow citizens to conduct a skimmington parade out to Daegal’s estate. His hope is they can shame Daegal into revealing where Esma really is. While there’s a supernatural element to the tale, it could just as easily be set in any small pre-industrial town. In any setting, though, it would remain a well told story with a haunting ending.

“Rivenrock,” by Connor M. Perry (whose previous story in SSM, “Stragglers in the Cold,” I enjoyed very much), tells of Elegia, the reborn Shepherd of Night, and her lover, Darza. Together, they are searching for the Shepherd’s ancestral home, a place called Rivenrock. Their guide is a man named Averon Thorn whom neither fully trusts, even though he claims to be a supporter of their cause. The concluding spasm of violence is brutal and affecting, but it doesn’t really provide a satisfying conclusion to the story.

Behind the events of “Rivenrock” is an ongoing struggle between the Shepherd of Night and the Lord of Morning. Each appears to have been recently reborn after having been gone for sometime. The Lord seems to have come back earlier and wields more temporal and magical power at present. The Shepherd is still finding her way, thus her need to reach Rivenrock. It’s all very vague and makes following the story less than compelling.

So that’s all there is to review this month. As usual, you should go read them and let the authors and editor know what you think.

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June 2016 Lightspeed Magazine, the People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction Issue, is Now Available

Monday, June 27, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Lightspeed Magazine June 2016-back-small

Lightspeed has produced some really exceptional special issues over the last few years, including the groundbreaking Women Destroy Science Fiction and Queers Destroy Science Fiction issues. June sees the People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction special issue, weighing in at a massive 464 pages. It was funded by a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign that wrapped up on February 20, and is guest-edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Kristine Ong Muslim (original short fiction), Nisi Shawl (reprints), Grace L. Dillon (nonfiction), and Sunil Patel (personal essays).

Even folks who didn’t contribute to the Kickstarter get to share in the benefits, as much of this issue’s massive payload of fiction is already up and freely available at the Lightspeed website — including brand new stories by Sofia Samatar, John Chu, JY Yang, S.B. Divya, and many others. But that’s not all…there’s also a rich assortment of paid content — including original fiction, a novella, flash fiction, reprints, and much more — available to backers, and anyone who purchases the digital edition for just $3.99. This issue is also available in a special trade paperback edition, with all the bonus content, for $17.99.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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New Treasures: The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman

Monday, June 27, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Christopher Buehlman is a fast-rising horror star. His debut novel, Those Across the River, was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, and he followed it quickly with The Necromancer’s House and Between Two Fires. Last year’s The Lesser Dead, a novel of vampire clans in New York, won the American Library Association’s award for Best Horror Novel of the Year, and Tor.com called it “surprising, scary, and, ultimately, heartbreaking.” Based just on the gonzo description his latest, The Suicide Motor Club, may be his best yet. Check it out.

Remember that car that passed you near midnight on Route 66, doing 105 with its lights off? You wondered where it was going so quickly on that dark, dusty stretch of road, motor roaring, the driver glancing out the window as he blew by.

Did his greedy eyes shine silver like a coyote’s? Did he make you feel like prey?

You can’t remember now.

You just saw the founder of the Suicide Motor Club. Be grateful his brake lights never flashed. Be grateful his car was already full.

They roam America, littering the highways with smashed cars and bled-out bodies, a gruesome reflection of the unsettled sixties. But to anyone unlucky enough to meet them in the lonely hours of the night, they’re just a blurry memory. That is — to all but one…

Two years ago, they left a witness in the mangled wreck of her family car, her husband dead, her son taken. She remembers their awful faces, despite their tricks and glamours. And she’s coming for them — her thirst for vengeance even more powerful than their hunger for blood.

On the deserted highways of America, the hunters are about to become the hunted…

The Suicide Motor Club was published by Berkley on June 7, 2016. It is 368 pages, priced at $26 in hardcover, or $12.99 for the digital edition.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Lt. Columbo

Monday, June 27, 2016 Bob Byrne Comments 4 comments

The mystery field is full of great detectives and private eyes, both amateur and professional, created by authors. Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Father Brown, Inspector Morse, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, The Continental Op: and of course, Sherlock Holmes. The list goes on and on.

There have also been quite a few detectives created for television. McCloud, Matt Houston, Magnum PI and Jim Rockford to name a few. The germaphobic Adrian Monk was immensely popular. But perhaps the supreme television detective is Inspector Columbo.

A prototype Columbo, if you will (heck – even if you won’t), appeared in Enough Rope: a 1960 episode of The Chevy Mystery Hour, played by Bert Freed. It was then turned into a play, Prescription Murder, starring Thomas Mitchell, who died of cancer during its run.

Next, the play evolved into a two-hour television movie. The under-appreciated Lee J. Cobb was approached but unavailable and Bing Crosby turned down the part (imagine that). Though he was considered too young at the time, Peter Falk was given the part and the movie aired in 1968.

The network ordered another TV movie to see if a series was feasible. Ransom For a Dead Man did well and Columbo became part of a rotating series of shows, including Dennis Weaver’s McCloud and McMillan and Wife, with Rock Hudson.

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in May

Sunday, June 26, 2016 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

Black Gate had 1.16 million page views in May, slightly more than our monthly average last year. We’ve gotten used to significant traffic increases year after year, so it’s actually something of a relief to have traffic stabilize for a bit. Nonetheless, we’re grateful to you, our readers, for all the time you spend with us each month, and we hope we keep things interesting for you.

How did we keep things interesting last month? Our top story for May was Black Gate‘s second Hugo nomination… which we declined (again). The brief statement announcing our decision was read 8,200 times, making it our number one post for the month. It was followed by an article questioning whether Weird Tales had quietly folded, and Rich Horton’s analysis of the 2016 Hugo situation.

Rounding out the Top Five for May were Martin Page, with his thoughtful piece on the 80’s moral panic surrounding Dungeons & Dragons, and Bill Maynard’s examination of the Abuses of Public Domain Fiction.

Coming in at number 6 for the month was our report on the launch of one of the most exciting magazines of the past decade, Skelos, followed by our photo-essay on the 2016 Nebula Awards weekend. Peadar Ó Guilín clocked in at #8 with his detailed review of Michael Swanwick’s modern classic The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, followed by our announcement that SF Signal was shutting down.

Closing out the Top Ten for last month was Thomas Parker’s thoughtful and frequently hilarious review of Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake, titled Shut Up, You Freak!

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

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2016 Locus Award Winners Announced

Sunday, June 26, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the winners of the 2016 Locus Awards, and you know what that means. Cake and drinks for everybody!

The winners are selected by the readers of Locus magazine. The awards began in 1971, originally as a way to highlight quality work in advance of the Hugo Awards. The winners were announced yesterday, during the annual Locus Awards Weekend in Seattle WA.

The winners are:

FANTASY NOVEL

Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Del Rey)

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie (Orbit)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

The Shepherd’s Crown, Terry Pratchett (Harper)

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Future Treasures: The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent

Sunday, June 26, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Tiffany Trent is the author of the six-volume Hallowmere historical fantasy series, published in paperback by Mirrorstone. But my first exposure to her was in 2012, when I attended a superb reading series hosted by Wiscon in Madison. Here’s what I said in my convention report.

The first reading of the con for me was The Sisterhood of the Traveling Corset, featuring Tiffany Trent, Franny Billingsley, Ellen Kushner and Caroline Stevermer… my favorite tale from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Corset was Tiffany Trent’s The Unnaturalists.

Set in an alternate London where magical creatures are preserved in museums, The Unnaturalists follows plucky young Vespa Nyx, who is happily cataloging unnatural creatures in her father’s museum until she becomes involved in Syrus Reed’s attempts to free his Tinker family, who have been captured to be refinery slaves. Funny, fast-paced, and packed with lively characters, Tiffany Trent’s novel captured my attention immediately.

The Unnaturalists was a success, and it spawned a sequel, The Tinker King, published in hardcover in February 2014. The Unnaturalists was published in hardcover by Simon & Schuster on August 14, 2012, and in trade paperback on August 13, 2013. It will be reprinted in mass market paperback by Saga Press on June 28, 2016, to be followed by the mass market edition of The Tinker King, on July 26. The Unnaturalists is 311 pages, priced at $7.99. The cover is by Aaron Goodman.