Black Gate – Page 694 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Clarkesworld 113 Now Available

Thursday, February 11, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Neil Clarke makes a pretty big announcement in his editorial this issue.

It’s time to give up the day job. My family and I are trying to work out how to make that happen, but we need help to do so. If you are already subscribing to Clarkesworld or Forever, then thank you, that’s keeping the option on the table. If you haven’t been subscribing, now’s the time that would make the biggest difference to the future of this magazine.

I’ve mentioned before that a small percentage of our readers converting to subscribers would do the trick, but that’s easier said than done. Experience says that Clarkesworld will only be part of the puzzle. The new SFWA job helps. Forever helps. The anthologies help. Nothing stands on its own, but like a crowdfunding project, all the little bits add up to take you to your goal.

I think this is going to be a good year.

If you’re a fan of Neil and Sean’s work at Clarkesworld (and you definitely should be), then perhaps you might consider a subscription… this is the year when your support could really have an impact. And if you’ve never tried Clarkesworld or Forever, this is a great time to do so. Check out their support page — or why not buy their upcoming Clarkesworld: Year Eight anthology? It collects all the stories from last year, and the proceeds go towards supporting the magazine.

Issue #113 of Clarkesworld has four new stories by Paul McAuley, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Nick Wolven, and An Owomoyela & Rachel Swirsky, and two reprints by Ted Kosmatka & Michael Poore, and Kim Stanley Robinson.

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New Treasures: Broken Hero by Jonathan Wood

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Horror and comedy are a tough mix — but it can be a great combo when done right. Jonathan Wood seems to have the touch… his debut novel No Hero, the first book in the Arthur Wallace series, was called “a funny, dark, rip-roaring adventure with a lot of heart” by Publisher’s Weekly, and listed as one of the 20 best paranormal fantasies of the past decade by Barnesandnoble.com. Starburst called the third installment, Anti-Hero, “A gripping tale of dark comedic horror.”

The fourth volume, Broken Hero — featuring the continuing misadventures of MI37 agent Arthur Wallace, tasked with dealing with the supernatural, extraterrestrial, and the generally odd — was released late last month by Titan.

How’s a secret agent meant to catch a break? If it’s not a demi-god going through puberty, it’s a renegade Nazi clockwork army going senile. Or a death cult in Nepal. Or a battery-chewing wizard’s relationship problems. Arthur Wallace, agent of MI37 — Britain’s agency for dealing with the supernatural, the extraterrestrial, and the generally odd — has to pull everything together, and he has to do it before a magical bomb tears reality apart…

Jonathan Wood’s short fiction has also appeared in Weird Tales, Chizine, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and anthologies such as The Book of Cthulhu 2 and The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Year One.

Broken Hero was published by Titan Books on January 26, 2016. It is 429 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, and $7.99 for the digital version. The cover was designed by Amazing15.

Thomas M. Disch on the Best Science Fiction of 1979

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

The Best Science Fiction of the Year 9 Terry Carr-small

Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year Ninth Annual Collection Gardner Dozois-small

The 1980 Annual World's Best SF Donald A. Wollheim-small

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction has put some delightful old content on their website for those who care to look, and earlier this month I came across their reprint of Thomas M. Disch’s Book column from the February 1981 issue, in which he compares the three Best of the Year volumes published the previous year.

1979 was a marvelous year for short SF, with many stories destined to become classics — including George R.R. Martin’s brilliant “Sandkings,” and his Hugo Award-winning “The Way of Cross and Dragon,” Barry B. Longyear’s novella “Enemy Mine,” Donald Kingsbury’s “The Moon Goddess and the Son,” Vonda N. McIntyre’s “Fireflood,” Orson Scott Card’s “Unaccompanied Sonata,” Richard Cowper’s “Out There Where the Big Ships Go,” and many others. Of course, Disch was as curmudgeonly as always.

The annuals are out, and here, if we can trust the amalgamated wisdom of our four editors, are the thirty best stories of 1979. It is in the nature of annual reports to pose the question, Was it a good year? and it pains me, as both a shareholder and a consumer, to answer that for science fiction, as for so many other sectors of the economy, 1979 was not a good year.

Against such a sweeping judgment it may be countered that sf is not a unitary phenomenon nor one easily comparable to a tomato harvest. Sf is a congeries of individual writers, each producing stories of distinct and varying merit. A year of stories is as arbitrary a measure as mileage in painting. Nevertheless, that is how the matter is arranged, not only by anthologists but by those who organize the two prize-giving systems, SFWA, which awards the Nebulas, and Fandom, which gathers once a year to hand out Hugos. The overlap between the contents of the annuals and the short-lists for the prizes is so great that one may fairly surmise that something like cause-and-effect is at work. As the nominating procedures are conducted in plain view, it seems certain that the editors will keep their eyes open for the likeliest contenders, since the annual that most successfully second-guesses the awards nominees has a clear advantage over its rivals.

Tomato harvest! At least he makes me laugh.

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John Dee, Scholar and Magician

Wednesday, February 10, 2016 Sean McLachlan Comments 5 comments

Dee had many books on astronomy. In the notes he wrote in the margins of this one, he discussed the two lunar eclipses he saw in 1556 and 1566. When a comet appeared in 1577, Queen Elizabeth asked him if it was an ill omen but Dee reassured her that it wasn't. — Dee owned many books on astronomy. In the notes he wrote in the margins of this one, he discussed the two lunar eclipses he saw in 1556 and 1566. When a comet appeared in 1577, Queen Elizabeth asked him if it was an ill omen but Dee reassured her that it wasn’t. I apologize for the quality of some of this photos. There were bright lights over the glass cases. Good for viewing, not so good for photography!

The name John Dee conjures up images of a Tudor-era mage plumbing the mysteries of the occult and speaking with angels through his system of Enochian magic. This is how most people know Dr. Dee, and it is all I knew about him until I visited an excellent exhibition at the Royal College of Physicians in London.

Scholar, Courtier, Magician: The Lost Library of John Dee sets the record straight on a misunderstood and often maligned Renaissance man. Far more than a mere occultist, Dee was a geographer, mathematician, astronomer, world traveler, and cryptographer. He was influential in two royal courts and was an early advocate for the colonization of the Americas.

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Fool’s Assassin: How Robin Hobb Writes Lyrical Fantasy Without Being Boring

Tuesday, February 9, 2016 Comments 12 comments

If you’re looking for a review of Robin Hobb’s Fool’s Assassin, please go away. This is a dissection, not a review, and it’s full of (slightly obfuscated) spoilers.

If you are wondering how Hobb works her magic, but haven’t read this book, then your probably want to do that first. However, if that means starting from the beginning of the Assassin series, then you can safely read on because by the time you reach Fool’s Assassin you’ll have forgotten.

It is a good book. It’s as if Mary Renault or Rosemary Sutcliff wrote Fantasy, or if Tolkien channeled Thomas Hardy with more magic ninjas. It’s also a very rare bird; a country house Gothic from the point of view of the moody denizens.

From a writerly point of view, it’s interesting because she makes two things work that are often the comeuppance of lesser writers: a first person narrative in a slow burn thriller, and rich description.

Here’s how I think she does it.

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Future Treasures: Haunts of Horror, edited by David A. Sutton

Tuesday, February 9, 2016 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Come on, who doesn’t love a haunted house story? I know I do. So I was very pleased to stumble on David A. Sutton’s upcoming anthology Haunts of Horror, which contains six novellas that explore the idea of the haunted house — but with a modern twist. The settings include “A seaside home, a school, a fantasy castle, a lighthouse, a wooden hut, a run-down tower block — all tainted by an abnormal atmosphere.” Yes, please! Here’s the TOC.

“Today We Were Astronauts,” Allen Ashley
“The Listener,” Samantha Lee
“The School House,” Simon Bestwick
“The House on the Western Border,” Gary Fry
“The Retreat,” Paul Finch
“The Worst of All Possible Places,” David A. Riley

Editor David A. Sutton has won the World Fantasy Award, The International Horror Guild Award, and twelve British Fantasy Awards; his previous anthologies include Fantasy Tales, Dark Voices, Dark Terrors, and Horror on the High Seas. Haunts of Horror was originally published in hardcover as Houses on the Borderland in 2008, by The British Fantasy Society. The new trade paperback edition will be published by Shadow Publishing on February 26, 2016. It is 322 pages, priced at $16 (order direct here). No word yet on a digital version. The splendidly spooky cover is by Edward Miller.

Vintage Treasures: The Early Fantasy Novels of Nancy Kress

Tuesday, February 9, 2016 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Nancy Kress is one of the finest science fiction writers we have. She’s won the Nebula Award six times, the Hugo twice, and the John W. Campbell Award. Her novels include the acclaimed Sleepless series (Beggars in Spain, Beggars and Choosers, Beggars Ride), An Alien Light (1988), and Steal Across the Sky (2009).

But before all of that, she began her career with three fantasy novels that are still fondly remembered today.

The Prince of Morning Bells (Timescape/Pocket, 224 pages, $2.75, October 1981) — cover by Carl Lundgren
The Golden Grove (Berkley, 246 pages, $2.95, January 1986) – cover artist unknown
The White Pipes (Berkley, 218 pages, $2.95, August 1986) — cover artist unknown

The books are not connected, but their publication did signal the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy.

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The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson

Tuesday, February 9, 2016 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 5 comments

And so we come to the end of the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (follow the links to read my reviews of the previous two books, Lord Foul’s Bane and The Illearth War). While not an upbeat book by any degree The Power That Preserves (1977) provides a satisfying and hope-filled conclusion to a series heretofore characterized mostly by loss and despair. Those elements still figure heavily in this story, but this time around they more clearly serve to prepare Covenant for the confrontation with Lord Foul.

The events of the crushing, sorrow-filled The Illearth War have left Thomas Covenant a broken man. He is pulled back and forth by the weight of what he did and his continued disbelief in the Land’s reality. Compelled by his reawakening need for human contact, he falls into a sort of madness and takes to haunting the woods and backstreets of his town, a place from which he’s been exiled because of people’s fear of his disease. When he stops taking the meds that suppress it, his leprosy is triggered.

While trying to save a little girl being menaced by a timber snake Covenant is summoned to the Land by the new High Lord, Mhoram. Under command of the Raver-possessed Giant, Satansfist, a vast army has destroyed Revelwood and laid siege to Revelstone. For weeks Lord Foul has called down perpetual winter on the Land and sent packs of marauders to kill any who defy his will.

Covenant insists he will help the Land, but must be allowed to return home and save the girl first. He does, but is poisoned himself. Once he’s satisfied she is safe, he says, “Come and get me. It’s over now.,” and is brought back to the Land. But he doesn’t arrive back in front of the Lords and inside the besieged Revelstone. Instead, he is called back to Kevin’s Watch where he first arrived in the Land in Lord Foul’s Bane. This time he has been summoned by Triock, one-time suitor of Lena (the woman he raped), and the Giant Saltheart Foamfollower. After he helps them fight off a vicious attack on Mithil Stonedown, Covenant decides the time has finally come to take a stand.

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In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Ten

Monday, February 8, 2016 markrigney Comments 0 Comment

Linked below, you’ll find the tenth installment of a brand-new serialized novel, In the Wake Of Sister Blue. The struggle for control over Vagen continues under the cover of darkness, with plenty of scheming and plotting. Chapter Eleven will follow in two weeks’ time, so stay tuned –– and for those who fear I’m writing a doorstop, be reassured. I expect to draw the curtain somewhere in the neighborhood of Chapter Fifteen.

A number of you will already be familiar with my Tales Of Gemen (“The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone“), and if you enjoyed those titles (or perhaps my unexpectedly popular D&D-related post, “Youth In a Box,”) I think you’ll also find much to like in this latest venture. Oh, and if you’re only now discovering this portal, may I suggest you begin at the beginning? The Spur awaits…

Read the first installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

Read the tenth and latest installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

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February 2016 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale

Monday, February 8, 2016 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

In her editorial in the latest issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sheila Williams explains why SF often gets a bad rap for predicting the future.

As I write this, I am awash in the flood of published reminisces about Back to the Future Part II’s journey into the future…. Most of these ruminations seem to be rather disappointed with the real 2015… They claim that these special effects from a late eighties flight of fantasy were somehow promised to all of us, but the future didn’t deliver.

I’ve seen these sort of complaints levied at science fiction on numerous occasions. Robots don’t have positronic brains, dilithium crystals are not a thing, and settlements on the Moon and Mars remain a distant dream. Yet anyone who’s at all conversant with SF soon realizes that most science fiction is descriptive rather than predictive…

For all his forward thinking, Isaac was as much a product of his time as any writer. Although he eventually became an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, his early fiction described a society that wasn’t very different from his own… While I’d love to have an FTL drive that would take me to Terminus and Trantor, I don’t want the future to look like the world of 1951, and I don’t expect it to look like 2016. I don’t fault the young man who created that society unaware of the actual changes in mores and social structure that lay ahead anymore than I’d fault today’s writers for not getting their future facts straight.

I’m glad that our prospects are still unknown. I wouldn’t mind a jetpack, but I’m happy that so far we aren’t standing on Nevil Shute’s beach waiting for death from nuclear fallout or from Racoona Sheldon’s screwfly solution.

The first interview I ever did, as a young internet blogger for SF Site in 1997, was a phone interview with the late writer and editor Algis Budrys. He argued the exact same thing. “Why should SF predict anything?… SF is for speculating, not predicting,” he told me. I debated the point at the time, but over the years I’ve come to see that he — and Sheila — are right.

Read Sheila’s complete editorial here.

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