Black Gate – Page 717 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Future Treasures: The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernandez

Thursday, December 3, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

When you publish a lot of book reviews, you get used to hearing manufactured publicity from publishers… half-hearted quotes from their other writers, and glib comparisons to best sellers. Which makes it so refreshing when you encounter true buzz building around a wonderful new book — chatter on social media, unsolicited endorsements from other writers, and excited discussions among friends. That’s what I’m seeing with Carlos Hernandez’s first book, a quirky and compelling collection of science fiction stories that’s rapidly building a tidal wave of admiration and anticipation in advance of its release next month.

Curious about all the commotion, I reached out to Carlos to see if I could get him to say a few words about his book, and he was generous enough to send me the comments below. Enjoy.

The title of my collection, The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria, is so esoteric and personal that it might leave a body wondering how it could serve anyone as a guide to anything. But I’ve picked up travel guides to places I am unlikely ever to visit just for the utter delight of reading them, grateful for the maps, the region-specific vocabulary, the window into human experience there aren’t world enough and time for me to get first-hand. The ones I relish most are deeply introspective, well-mannered, street-smart, generous. They understand the transformative power of small acts, of minute observation, of language. And they are, despite everything they have seen in their travels, deeply in love with humanity.

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Taming the Massive Beast of Pathfinder: An Interview with F. Wesley Schneider

Thursday, December 3, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

F. Wesley Schneider has had a fascinating career. He was the former assistant editor of Dragon magazine, and co-authored Complete Scoundrel for Dungeons & Dragons. He is the co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and over the last seven years has produced dozens of Pathfinder adventures and accessories, including Hell Unleashed, Artifacts and Legends, Varisia, and Rule of Fear.

He’s currently the editor-in-chief at Paizo, and in that capacity has overseen the entire line of Pathfinder Tales, including novels by Howard Andrew Jones, Tim Pratt, Dave Gross, and many others. His first novel, Bloodbound, was released this week, and we had the chance to chat with him about this exciting change in his career.

You’ve been writing and designing game supplements and adventures for over a decade. What’s it like to get behind the wheel of a novel instead? How are the challenges similar, and how are they different?

Honestly, after spending so much time working on roleplaying games, writing a novel felt sort of self-indulgent. Working on Bloodbound was far more like the act of playing a roleplaying game than writing an RPG adventure actually is.

For anyone not familiar with roleplaying game adventures, they’re essentially giant outlines that allow a Game Master to tell a particular story without having to do much preparation. An RPG adventure provides the script for a story, descriptions of the settings, and game rules for all the various threats.

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New Treasures: The Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume 1

Thursday, December 3, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

I’ve been very pleased to watch Heroic Fantasy Quarterly‘s reputation grow by leaps and bounds over the past few years, to the point where it is openly acknowledged as one of the premier sources of adventure fantasy. Howard Andrew Jones calls their output “Stirring, polished adventure fiction [that] needs to be seen by more readers,” and Fletcher Vredenburgh proclaims it “My favorite fantasy magazine… Always true to the traditions of heroic fiction, they yet manage to publish tales that push the genre in new directions.” So I was excited to see a thick anthology of their best work arrive last month — and very honored when I was asked to write the introduction. Here’s a sample.

At its very best, Sword & Sorcery showcases the kind of worldbuilding that twists your head around. It’s the floating pocket dimensions of Adrian Cole’s The Voidal. The savage landscapes of Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age. The twisted streets of unmappable Lankhmar, the doomed Atlantis of Kull, the shadow dimensions of Chronicles of Amber…

The setting of a Sword & Sorcery tale is fundamentally very different from the setting of Heroic Fantasy. Heroic Fantasy is castles and keeps and barbarian provinces. It’s wind-swept vistas and dark dungeons, elven forests and cloud kingdoms and subterranean cities and the dangerous borders of Mordor. If you’re going to vacation in the lands of Heroic Fantasy, you’ll need an experienced guide. Because one wrong turn and suddenly you’re an orc hostage.

You needn’t trouble with a guide in the world of Sword & Sorcery. Because S&S… man, S&S will kill you.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is an ezine dedicated to short works of heroic fantasy. It is edited by Adrian Simmons, David Farney, William Ledbetter, and James Frederick William Rowe, and published four times a year. Issues are are completely free. We last covered HFQ with issue #25. The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 1, 2009-2011 was compiled by the editors of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and published on November 27, 2015. It is 226 pages, priced at $9.99 in paperback and $4.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Justin Sweet. See the complete Table of Contents here.

Gregory Frost’s Tain Returns

Wednesday, December 2, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Two months ago, in early October, I wrote a brief article about the Cú Chulainn novels of Gregory Frost, both published by Ace and both now long out of print. Several readers commented on how much they’d enjoyed them, and Eugene R. said “Frost… uses a dry, understated wit that really underlines the heroic and tragic parts of the original legends.” On November 20th author Gregory Frost dropped by to say:

Just wanted to alert any of you who are interested that Táin and Remscela are back in the world as ebooks, currently exclusively through Book View Cafe. Táin was just this week re-released, and Remscela will be out in December.

On his blog, Frost goes into considerably greater detail on the origin of the books:

Many years ago, with Terri Windling as my editor, I penned two novels spun from the Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge – the epic fantasy tales of the demigod Setanta, better known as Cú Chulainn. The project became something of an obsession… It was picked up in the late 1990s in a small-press edition that put both novels into one volume called Crimson Spear, and in that form Time-Warner’s early (and ultimately premature) venture into ebook publishing put it out.

Both of those combined editions had a plethora of typos and other minor issues. So I’m delighted to have the rights back to these books. And as of today, the first one, Táin, is again available in ebook format for Nook and Kindle exclusively through Book View Cafe. The sequel, Remscela, will be out in early December, also exclusively from Book View Cafe.

Táin is currently available for $5.99; I note Frost’s debut novel Lyrec is also available for $4.99. Check ’em out here!

Uncanny Magazine Issue 7 Now on Sale

Wednesday, December 2, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Editors Lynn and Michael Thomas celebrate the success of the Uncanny Magazine Year Two Kickstarter, which raised over $32,000, in their editorial in the November/December issue.

The fact that you’re reading this tells you that we were successful. Not only did Year Two fund, we reached every initial stretch goal. Year Two will have all of the content that Year One had, plus a spiffy new webcomic by the amazing Liz Argall…

We are so grateful and honored to be doing this again. We love Uncanny Magazine, and we believe we’re publishing important, quality Science Fiction and Fantasy stories, poems, podcasts, and essays, featuring diverse voices and pieces with a certain Uncanny point of view. Based on the fact that so many people support us with Kickstarter, through subscriptions, and on Patreon, clearly a large portion of the community of SF/F readers, creators, and fans agree.

The November/December issue contains original fiction from Elizabeth Bear, Ursula Vernon, Alex Bledsoe, Karin Tidbeck, and Yoon Ha Lee, a reprint by Alaya Dawn Johnson, nonfiction by Aidan Moher, Annalee Flower Horne and Natalie Luhrs, Deborah Stanish, and Tansy Rayner Roberts, poems by Mari Ness, Sonya Taaffe, and Lisa M. Bradley, and interviews with Yoon Ha Lee and Alex Bledsoe.

All of the content became available for purchase as an eBook (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) on November 1, 2015.

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Heather Hildenbrand on Her Path to Becoming a Hybrid Author, Resources for Authors, and Hot Guys on Motorcycles

Wednesday, December 2, 2015 Emily Mah Comments 0 Comment

Heather Hildenbrand began as a self published author and quickly advanced to the point that she could live off her income. These days she’s a hybrid author who coaches others who want to follow in her footsteps.

Even her publishing company, Elephantine Publishing, shows new authors the ropes to better equip them for self-publishing or finding a good traditional publishing deal.

She is the author of The Dirty Blood Series (fantasy) and The Imitation Series (science fiction) and primarily writes young adult and new adult fiction.

I had the pleasure of chatting with her over Skype on her career to date, how she got where she is, and what advice she has for others starting out.

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British Museum Presents Egypt: Faith After The Pharaohs

Wednesday, December 2, 2015 Sean McLachlan Comments 0 Comment

Seated figure of the ancient Egyptian god Horus, wearing Roman military costume, limestone, Egypt, 1st–2nd century AD © The Trustees of the British Museum

Ancient Egypt is famous for its elaborate religion with a multitude of deities and an obsession with the afterlife. While there have been many exhibitions on ancient Egyptian religion, it’s rare to see one that traces Egypt’s transformation from a land that was mostly pagan to one that was mostly Christian, then mostly Muslim, with a strong tradition of Judaism running through it.

Now a major exhibition at the British Museum, Egypt: Faith after the Pharaohs, uses about 200 objects to explore the history of religion in this fascinating country. The first gallery emphasizes that Egypt still has a sizeable Christian community. While that community has been targeted by extremists in recent years, there is also a large amount of cooperation between the two faiths. Photos from the Arab Spring show Christians making a protective ring around Muslims as they pray, and the Muslims returning the favor around churches on Sunday. The Western media tend to skip these stories of tolerance for more ratings-friendly tales of bloodshed, thus giving a skewed picture of the situation. As one of my old newspaper editors said, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

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Vintage Treasures: Brother Assassin by Fred Saberhagen

Wednesday, December 2, 2015 John ONeill Comments 10 comments

Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker series was one of the most popular military SF series on the market during my formative reading years (the other, to which it was frequently compared, was Keith Laumer’s Bolo.) Today the Berserker novels, with their desperate battles against ancient planet-destroying engines of destruction, would be called space opera, but back then we just called them science fiction.

The first book, Berserker, was a collection of short stories originally published in IF magazine between 1963-66. It was released by Ballantine Books in 1967. But it didn’t become a series until the sequel, Brother Assassin, the first full fledged Berserker novel. It was released by Ballantine with a Richard Powers cover in January 1969 (above left).

This book has an interesting history. The early Berserker books were re-released by Ace Books in the late 70s with brand new covers, with Brother Assassin sporting the exceptionally fine piece by Michael Whelan (above middle). It was so fine, in fact, that the concept was stolen by Arbor House for the cover of the first book in Roger Zelazny’s Merlin series, Trumps of Doom, seven years later (see below).

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io9 Founder Annalee Newitz Departs as Site Joins Gizmodo

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The changes at io9 have begun, as the site begins restructuring in preparation for its upcoming merger with design and technology blog Gizmodo. Perhaps the biggest change occured yesterday with the departure of founder Annalee Newitz. In her public goodbye, Newitz wrote:

Today is my last day at io9 and Gizmodo. It’s been a long, astounding road, to say the least. I founded io9 back in 2008, and I watched it journey from the farthest reaches of space to its current home under this atmosphere bubble on Ceres… In January of this year, I took on the role of editor at Gizmodo, and since then, Charlie Jane and I have been integrating the world of io9 into Gizmodo. It’s kind of like we joined the United Federation of Planets….

And this is where my path diverges from io9 and Gizmodo. This past year managing both sites taught me that I’m not actually interested in being a manager. I want to write.

Annalee Newitz was one of io9‘s most talented writers, and we certainly understand her desire to pursue a writing career. Katie Drummond will take over from Newitz, and Charlie Jane Anders (whose own first novel, All the Birds in the Sky, will be released by Tor on January 26) will continue as Editor-in-Chief.

io9, one of the most popular locations for SF fans on the web, was launched in 2008 by Newitz and Anders. It covers science fiction, fantasy, comic books, science and technology. The site is owned by Gawker Media, which is restructuring its many holdings to focus more on politics (Gawker’s other holdings, including celebrity gossip site Defamer and Valleywag, which covers Silicon Valley, will be closed down). The merger with Gizmodo has apparently been in the works for months; when completed, io9 will become a section of Gizmodo, and io9.com will redirect to Gizmodo. All existing content will be preserved.

Future Treasures: Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Susan Dennard is the author of the popular Something Strange and Deadly series from Harper. Next month she launches the Witchland series from Tor with the opening novel Truthwitch. The early reviews have been very strong, with Books of Wonder saying it’s “Full of magic, unbreakable friendships, and purpose… a lush and wonderful adventure tale.” Look for it in early January.

On a continent ruled by three empires, some are born with a “witchery,” a magical skill that sets them apart from others. In the Witchlands, there are almost as many types of magic as there are ways to get in trouble — as two desperate young women know all too well.

Safiya is a Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lie. It’s a powerful magic that many would kill to have on their side, especially amongst the nobility to which Safi was born. So Safi must keep her gift hidden, lest she be used as a pawn in the struggle between empires. Iseult, a Threadwitch, can see the invisible ties that bind and entangle the lives around her — but she cannot see the bonds that touch her own heart. Her unlikely friendship with Safi has taken her from life as an outcast into one of of reckless adventure, where she is a cool, wary balance to Safi’s hotheaded impulsiveness.

Safi and Iseult just want to be free to live their own lives, but war is coming to the Witchlands. With the help of the cunning Prince Merik (a Windwitch and ship’s captain) and the hindrance of a Bloodwitch bent on revenge, the friends must fight emperors, princes, and mercenaries alike, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch.

Truthwitch will be published by Tor Teen on January 5, 2016. It is 416 pages, priced at $18.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital version.