Black Gate – Page 634 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2016, edited by Paula Guran

Sunday, July 3, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I really enjoy dark fantasy and horror, but my hands are full just keeping up with the latest fantasy magazines and anthologies. It’s almost impossible to simultaneously stay on top of the excellent work being done in horror, in magazines like Sirenia Digest, Lackington’s, The Dark, and Nightmare, and anthologies like Aickman’s Heirs, Innsmouth Nightmares, Horrorology, Sing Me Your Scars, and many others.

That’s why I’m so grateful to editor Paula Guran, whose excellent Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror volumes — published every year since 2010 — have guided me towards the writers and editors doing really exemplary work. I look forward to new editions every year, and this year’s installment arrives in trade paperback from Prime Books next week.

Macabre meetings, sinister excursions, and deadly relationships; uncanny encounters; a classic ghost story featuring an American god; a historical murderer revived in a frightening new iteration; innovative Lovecraftian turns; shadowy fairy tales and weird myths; strange children, the unexpected, the supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real… tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows. This volume of 2015’s best dark fantasy and horror offers more than 500 pages of tales from some of today’s finest writers of the fantastique — sure to delight as well as disturb.

This year’s volume contains 30 short stories by Kelley Armstrong, Dale Bailey, Gemma File, Neil Gaiman, John Langan, Ken Liu, Seanan McGuire, Kelly Robson, Sofia Samatar, John Shirley, Angela Slatter, Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Kai Ashante Wilson, and many others.

Here’s the complete table of contents.

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Your Dreams are on You: The Throme of the Erril of Sherril by Patricia A. McKillip

Sunday, July 3, 2016 Damien Moore Comments 0 Comment

The Throme of the Erril of Sherill-small

The Throme of the Erril of Sherill-back-small

The Throme of the Erril of Sherril
by Patricia A. McKillip
Tempo/Berkley (165 pages, $2.25, January 1984)
Cover by Stephen Hickman; interior illustrations by Judith Mitchell

The Throme of the Erril of Sherril by Patricia A. McKillip reads like a running brook in a quiet forest on a peaceful summer afternoon. You can read it in a trance and still retain its message.

What McKillip means to tell her readers comes down to this: If you want your dreams to come true, you have to make them so. Don’t leave it to an omniscient being. It’s all on you, buddy.

This brings us to Caerles, a Cnite of the possessive King of Everywhere. The King’s daughter, Damsen, weeps within the sepulchral darkness of her father’s castle. Caerles intends to wed her and end her misery. The King, however, demands the Throme before their dreams can come true. But it is the stuff of fantasy. Then surely the Cnite cannot save his lady love from her boundless misery?

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Series Fantasy: The Greatcoats by Sebastien de Castell

Saturday, July 2, 2016 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

In her review of the second volume in Sebastien de Castell’s Greatcoats trilogy, Sarah Avery said:

De Castell is carving himself an enduring place in the fantasy canon…. I forgot I was wondering or worrying or writing a review, because the stalwart, somewhat cracked hero Falcio Val Mond was tugging me back into his story. I’d follow Falcio anywhere… he makes us laugh, raucously, especially in the bleak moments when he and we need it most…

One of the great pleasures of Knight’s Shadow is that the worldbuilding deepens, opens outward, flowers. In Traitor’s Blade, the Dashini made only a brief onstage appearance, and otherwise were basically ciphers, bogeymen the Greatcoats feared because so little was known about them. In the new volume, we learn about their tragedies and traumas, and why they were founded in the first place. The Greatcoats themselves had a centuries-long history with a violent end before King Paelis refounded them… Like Traitor’s Blade, Knight’s Shadow ends on a note that could still be satisfying if the series ended right now. One hazard of series fantasy is an endless episodic structure in which boundaries between volumes can feel arbitrary… It’s one problem you won’t find in de Castell’s work. Each of the two books now before us has a clear beginning, middle, and end…

Knight’s Shadow is so strong, the only way I can see the Greatcoats series failing to achieve eventual wide recognition as a classic is if the author meets an untimely demise before he finishes writing it. Live a long life, Sebastien de Castell.

Saint’s Blood, the third installment in the series, was released in hardcover by Jo Fletcher Books last month. Here’s the description.

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Reading Burroughs’ Biography as a Writer

Saturday, July 2, 2016 Derek Kunsken Comments 4 comments

About eight years ago, when I was struggling to get my short stories published, I picked up the two-volume biography of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Irwin Porges. I think I’d been looking for some communion with a writer I’d enjoyed as a teen; I got that and more, including a reassurance that I was on the right track.

Now, it’s difficult to discuss Burroughs in any setting without dropping some pretty big caveats. Burroughs was a product of his time, and it wasn’t a good time. By way of example, he wrote A Princess of Mars in 1911, a time when women and minorities could not vote in Canada, and a time when Jim Crow laws in the United states wouldn’t be repealed for another 50 years. His great white male hero appeared in most of his popular stories and his depiction of anybody who wasn’t white was rife with stereotypes and/or condescension.

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Interzone #264 Now on Sale

Saturday, July 2, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The May/June issue of Interzone magazine is now on sale, with a cover by 2016 cover artist Vincent Sammy, “My Name To You No More” (click the image at right for a bigger version.)

Interzone #264 contains five stories:

“Breadcrumbs” by Malcolm Devlin
“Starlings” by Tyler Keevil
“Mars, Aphids, and Your Cheating Heart” by James Van Pelt
“Lifeboat” by Rich Larson
“The Tower Princesses” by Gwendolyn Kiste

Non-fiction this issue includes an Editorial by Elaine Gallagher, Future Interrupted by Jonathan McCalmont, Time Pieces by Nina Allan, plus David Langford’s Ansible Link, and the regular columns: book reviews, Nick Lowe’s Mutant Popcorn film reviews, and Tony Lee’s DVD column, Laser Fodder. Issue 264 is nearly 100 pages and packed with fiction, columns, and top-notch art.

Interzone is the sister magazine of Black Static, both are published by TTA Press in the UK. The distinguished Andy Cox is the editor of both.

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New Treasures: The Destructives by Matthew De Abaitua

Friday, July 1, 2016 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

The Destructives Matthew De Abaitua-small

Matthew De Abaitua’s first novel for Angry Robot, If Then, was called “Stunningly original and superbly well written… everything science fiction should be aiming for,” by Nina Allen. In his review in Locus magazine, Paul Di Filippo said “This is the kind of post-apocalypse, after-it-all-changed novel that the Brits do with so much more classy, idiosyncratic style than anyone else. It is full of magisterial weirdness, logical surrealism, melancholy joy and hopeful terror.”

His follow-up novel, set in the same world as If Then (and sharing a single character, Alex Drown) is The Destructives, released in paperback in March. From what I’ve read so far, it seems packed with the same gonzo weirdness that made If Then such a success. Well worth checking out.

Theodore Drown is a destructive. A recovering addict to weirdcore, he’s keeping his head down lecturing at the university of the Moon. Twenty years after the appearance of the first artificial intelligence, and humanity is stuck. The AIs or, as they preferred to be called, emergences have left Earth and reside beyond the orbit of Mercury in a Stapledon Sphere known as the university of the sun. The emergences were our future but they chose exile. All except one. Dr Easy remains, researching a single human life from beginning to end. Theodore’s life.

One day, Theodore is approached by freelance executive Patricia to investigate an archive of data retrieved from just before the appearance of the first emergence. The secret living in that archive will take him on an adventure through a stunted future of asylum malls, corporate bloodrooms and a secret off-world colony where Theodore must choose between creating a new future for humanity or staying true to his nature, and destroying it.

The Destructives was published by Angry Robot on March 1, 2016. It is 415 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Raid71. See more details at the Angry Robot website.

Announcing the 2016 Robert E. Howard Foundation Award Winners

Friday, July 1, 2016 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

The winners of the 2016 Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards were announced earlier this month at the REH Days celebration in Cross Plains, Texas. Several Black Gate contributors were honored with nominations this year, including Barbara Barrett, Bob Byrne, Howard Andrew Jones, and Bill Ward:

The Cimmerian — Outstanding Achievement, Essay (Online)

BARRETT, BARBARA – “Hester Jane Ervin Howard and Tuberculosis (3 parts)” REH: Two Gun Raconteur Blog (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

The Stygian — Outstanding Achievement, Website

BLACK GATE (John O’Neill)

The Black River — Special Achievement

BYRNE, BOB – For organizing the “Discovering REH” blog post series at Black Gate

JONES, HOWARD ANDREW and BILL WARD – For their “Re-Reading Conan” series at howardandrewjones.com

The REH Foundation Awards honor the top contributions from the previous year in Howard scholarship and in the promotion of Howard’s life and works. The top three nominees in each category were selected by the Legacy Circle members of the Foundation and the winners were voted on by the full membership of the Foundation.

The complete list of winners follows.

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Spider Robinson: Better a Dead Lion

Friday, July 1, 2016 Violette Malan Comments 0 Comment

Robinson Telempath I’m a long-time fan of Spider Robinson’s work, and I’ve written about his Callahan’s Bar Stories and novels here, and here, but today I’d like to take a look at some of his work that doesn’t get referred to anywhere near as much.

Those of us familiar with Robinson’s work know that, even at its most humorous, it’s what you might describe as “idea-heavy.” This isn’t in the strict, hard science sense, though there’s definitely some hard science in there, but more in the social, philosophical sense.

Telempath (1983) is a post-apocalyptic thriller of the “what if?” variety, but where the end of the world as we know it comes about in a most unusual way. Sure, there was a plague, and by far the majority of the race was wiped out, but not in any expected or commonplace way. The virus that was accidentally(?) released exponentially increased humanity’s sense of smell. As a concept, it seems humorous at first – the kind of idea that people smoking dope kick around – but as Robinson shows us, if it actually happened it wouldn’t be very funny at all. For one thing, such a change would make it impossible for people to live in cities, or to support technologies that produce unpleasant odours, which is, like, all of them. Can anyone say pollution?

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The Late June Fantasy Magazine Rack

Thursday, June 30, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The month of June ended with a flurry of new magazine arrivals, more than your humble editors could hope to cover. But we took our best shot.

We added one new title to our coverage: the delightful board game periodical Meeple Monthly (and there’s no truth to the rumor we waited until it did a cover feature on Star Trek first). Fletcher Vredenburgh reported on the latest issue of Swords and Sorcery in his May Short Story Roundup, and the distinguished editor Jonathan Strahan shared his assessment of 2016’s breakout short fiction stars. In other news, we reported that Tor.com is shopping for novellas to feed their fast-growing label, and that the Summer issue of SFX magazine offers a terrific spread on galactic hero Perry Rhodan (including quotes from yours truly.)

We had plenty for vintage magazine fans this month, too — including a review of L. Sprague de Camp’s The Tritonian Ring, which originally appeared in Two Complete Science Adventure Books from 1951, Rich Horton’s Retro Review of the October 1962 Amazing Stories, and a look at Terry Carr’s The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4, from 1974.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our early June Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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Goth Chick News: A Series of Unfortunate Events, or This Is Where I Came In

Thursday, June 30, 2016 Sue Granquist Comments 6 comments

Way back in 2000, I submitted a book review to Black Gate magazine on a dare.

I had recently fallen in love with the first three installments of the newly published Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (aka Dan Handler) and was going on about them at work to anyone who would listen. Finally, a coworker dared me to tell someone who might actually care and send my annoyingly enthusiastic review to his favorite publication, Black Gate – assuming, I am sure, that head honcho John O’ would effectively tell me to shut it, in writing.

But sixteen years later, thanks to that annoyed coworker and the high tolerant nature of our editor-in-chief, I continue to occupy a subterranean office at Black Gate where I perpetually maintain a small shrine to Handler beside the blender: not only because his work is where Goth Chick News began, but because he remains to this day, just that entertaining.

In 2004, five years after the first book in the Series of Unfortunate Events was published, Hollywood made what I deem a truly disastrous attempt to bring them to life on the big screen; “disastrous” because rather than focusing on the three, young protagonists, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, Paramount Pictures offered it up as a vehicle for Jim Carey. And pulling out every facial expression and delivery shtick from every one of his past characterizations all the way back to In Living Color, Carey dealt the potential franchise an agonizingly slow, 108-minute death.

At least that is what I say happened.

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