Black Gate – Page 731 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

New Treasures: The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman

Wednesday, November 4, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Kim Newman is the author of the classic vampire novel Anno Dracula and its many sequels (including The Bloody Red Baron, Johnny Alucard, and Dracula Cha Cha Cha).

His newest novel is a YA tale set in a boarding school for girls with supernatural abilities in the 1920s, a tale of daring adventure after lights out… and a sinister and deadly conspiracy.

A week after Mother found her sleeping on the ceiling, Amy Thomsett is delivered to her new school, Drearcliff Grange in Somerset.

Although it looks like a regular boarding school, Amy learns that Drearcliff girls are special, the daughters of criminal masterminds, outlaw scientists and master magicians. Several of the pupils also have special gifts like Amy’s, and when one of the girls in her dormitory is abducted by a mysterious group in black hoods, Amy forms a secret, superpowered society called the Moth Club to rescue their friend. They soon discover that the Hooded Conspiracy runs through the School, and it’s up to the Moth Club to get to the heart of it.

The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School was published by Titan Books on October 20, 2015. It is 410 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, and $5.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Amazing15.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

A Prophet Without Honor: J.G. Ballard

Wednesday, November 4, 2015 Thomas Parker Comments 9 comments

After the past several months of Socratic dialogue/pie fight/drunken Hell’s Angels motorcycle-chain melee (in other words, after dozens of articles and hundreds – thousands? – of comments on the Hugo debacle, for you late arrivers), we here at Black Gate have firmly answered the nonmusical question, “What are awards good for?” In a nutshell, we have established that awards can help writers find a wider audience, they can provide a bit of financial leverage for those who win them, and perhaps most of all, they can be tangible forms of validation and encouragement for those whose work is often difficult, lonely, and (unless your name starts with George, has two middle initials, and ends with Martin) financially unrewarding.

All of that being said however, consider this: Tolstoy never won the Nobel Prize for Literature. (He was passed over ten times.) Cary Grant never took home a Best Actor Oscar. Martin Scorsese didn’t win Best Director for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, or Goodfellas — he won for The Departed (do you really want to argue that one, tough guy?) and Howard Hawks, the director of Red River, The Big Sleep, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, To Have and Have Not, Rio Bravo, and (unofficially) The Thing From Another World, was never even nominated.

F. Scott Fitzgerald never won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction — but Edna Ferber did, the year The Great Gatsby was published. The Best Picture Oscar of 1952 went to The Greatest Show on Earth. (I’ll spare you some Googling and tell you that it’s a Cecil B. DeMille circus picture. Now you just take a minute and think about that.) Try watching The Greatest Show on Earth today — just try. Only don’t do it alone; you’ll definitely want someone present to hear all of your witty zingers and rude asides, or to perform the Heimlich Maneuver if you choke on a buffalo wing during the epic train derailment scene, in which Jimmy Stewart scales unheard-of heights of tragic heroism… all in clown make-up.

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Sasquatch, Chupacabra, and Haunted Puppets: Beasts by Brendan Detzner

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 MichaelPenkas Comments 0 Comment

Far from being a review, what I want to offer you is a warning. If you find yourself in possession of this collection, take precautions to limit the number of stories you finish in one sitting. One or two should be safe. Any more than that and your view of the world around you will begin to … shift. Perhaps you think you’ll avoid misadventure by perusing only the more sedate “normal” selections in this volume.

So which stories in this collection are normal?

Can’t you guess? Consider:

In The Fall – Are monsters born or made? In a struggle between the supernatural and the mad, can there be any doubt who will win every time?

The Chupacabra Versus Sasquatch Variations 1-9 – No matter the time or place, two ancient foes continue to fight, having long forgotten why.

Spirits of the Wind – They are never far and, though we rarely see them, they are always watching us. Always waiting to touch our lives.

A Day And Two Nights When I Was Twenty – Of course, they’re not always content to lightly touch our lives. Sometimes, they want to give us a push.

The Return of Uncle Hungry’s Pizza Time Fun Band – At least clowns can wash away their make-up when the celebrations are finished. For puppets, the smiles stay forever painted in place. And when all the parties are finished, what horrid things they have to say to each other.

I-65 – One of the ironies of rage is that we think our vision is most clear, but that’s when things are most often not what they seem. And forgiveness is not always enough to dispel that illusion.

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The New Yorker on the Tangled Cultural Roots of Dungeons & Dragons

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

In a lengthy and sometimes rambling article for The New Yorker, Jon Michaud reviews Michael Witwer’s new biography Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons, with particular focus on the anti-D&D satanic scares of the late 70s, and the apparently surprising fact that Gygax was a practicing Jehovah’s Witness. Ultimately though, he finds Gygax a worthy subject for a 320-page biography.

Gygax was an ur-nerd who not only changed the way games are played but who also endured a tumultuous business career that, in the right hands, could make as compelling a story as that of Steve Jobs. He was a high-school dropout who lost his father when he was still young, never had a driver’s license, married early, had six children, two wives, turned an obsession with military war-gaming into a worldwide phenomenon, started a successful company from which he was later pushed out only to return and then be bought out once again. Following a well-trodden path, he went to Hollywood, where he briefly prospered, snorting cocaine and hosting pool parties at King Vidor’s mansion, before failing, miserably, to get a motion picture made. His influence can be seen in everything from video games to The Hunger Games. Like Debbie in Jack Chick’s Dark Dungeons, Gygax, who died in 2008, made his way back to God at the end of his life, writing in January of that year, “All I am is another fellow human that has at last, after many wrong paths and failed attempts, found Jesus Christ.”

Read the complete article here.

Future Treasures: Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Lawrence M. Schoen has been nominated for the Nebula Award three times, and the Hugo Award once, and anticipation is high for his next novel: Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, a far-future SF tale in which humans are long gone but anthropomorphic elephants, exiled to the ghetto world of Barsk, speak with the dead. I met Lawrence at the Nebula Awards banquet earlier this year, and he was kind enough to give me an advance copy. The early reviews contains some of the most effusive praise I’ve seen for a novel this year, with Karl Schroeder calling it “A compulsive page-turner and immensely enjoyable,” Robert J. Sawyer describing it as “Weird, wise, and worldly… a triumph,” and James L. Cambias proclaiming it “Captivating… [a] heartwarming story in a unique and fantastic world… as rich and mysterious as Dune.” Do yourself a favor and grab a copy when it arrives next month.

An historian who speaks with the dead is ensnared by the past. A child who feels no pain and who should not exist sees the future. Between them are truths that will shake worlds.

In a distant future, no remnants of human beings remain, but their successors thrive throughout the galaxy. These are the offspring of humanity’s genius-animals uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings. The Fant are one such species: anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. There, they develop medicines upon which all species now depend. The most coveted of these drugs is koph, which allows a small number of users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets.

To break the Fant’s control of koph, an offworld shadow group attempts to force the Fant to surrender their knowledge. Jorl, a Fant Speaker with the dead, is compelled to question his deceased best friend, who years ago mysteriously committed suicide. In so doing, Jorl unearths a secret the powers that be would prefer to keep buried forever. Meanwhile, his dead friend’s son, a physically challenged young Fant named Pizlo, is driven by disturbing visions to take his first unsteady steps toward an uncertain future.

Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard will be published by Tor Books on December 29, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The marvelous cover is by Victo Ngai.

Against Despair: Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 Fletcher Vredenburgh Comments 22 comments

“To the Lords of Revelstone, I am Lord Foul the Despiser; to the Giants of Seareach, Satansheart and Soulcrusher, The Ramen name me Fangthane. In the dreams of the Bloodguard, I am Corruption. But the people of the Land call me the Gray Slayer.”

Lord Foul to Thomas Covenant

Lord Foul’s Bane came out in 1977, one of two books pulled from the submissions pile by the del Reys in their search for another Tolkien. The first was the Lord of the Rings-derived The Sword of Shannara (reviewed here), which makes total sense. But this? It’s a work full of crushing despair along with a miserable and unpleasant protagonist who refuses to be the hero people want and need. He also rapes a 16-year old girl. This is not the rolling green hills of Middle-earth and hobbits.

I can remember the reactions of people in my circle. My father hated it all around. My friend’s mom, a high school English teacher, loathed it as well, supposedly for its criminally bad prose alone. I myself found it dense, impenetrable, and dull. I was only twelve but I had already read LotR twice, so I just assumed it was no good. The only person I knew who read it and its sequels was a friend who read any and all fantasy without a drop of discrimination.

Even today much of the reaction toward Donaldson’s series is negative. In Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels, David Pringle describes it as an “unearned epic.” During Cora Buhlert’s dustup with Theo Beale over morality in fantasy she said she could never get past Covenant being a rapist. James Nicoll wrote that Covenant should win a “special lifetime achievement award” for the “most unlikeable supposedly sympathetic protagonist.”

I finally read Lord Foul’s Bane a few years ago and found it a fascinating book. I got sidetracked from reading the rest of the initial trilogy but my present desire to read some epic high fantasy brought me back to it. Also, my friend, Jack D., keeps asking me if I’ve read these and if not why not. I don’t think he reads a ton of fantasy so his love for Donaldson’s work is something that I found especially intriguing. So I went back and came away a captive of Donaldson’s strange first novel.

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December 2015 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The December issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction contains a big new novella from Greg Egan, plus stories by M. Bennardo, Robert Reed, Rich Larson, and others. Here’s the description from the website:

You’ll find a brilliant new novella from Hugo-Award–winning author Greg Egan in our December 2015 issue. The tale combines awesome concepts for putting the asteroid belt’s orbital mechanics to work for humanity with the staggering cost of a civil war on Vesta. You won’t soon forget the brave men and women who struggle to survive in “The Four Thousand, The Eight Hundred.”

Hugo-Award–winning author Robert Reed considers the stark implications of the Fermi Paradox in “Empty”; new to Asimov’s author Rich Larson has a gleeful take on an audacious “Bidding War”; new author Julian Mortimer Smith maroons a young man off the Labrador coast with an unearthly “Come-From-Aways”; newish author Garrett Ashley continues the nautical theme with a story about thrill-seeking boys who tempt fate by “Riding the Waves of Leviathan”; another newish author, Amanda Forrest, escorts us into the Himalayas for the bittersweet tale “Of Apricots and Dying”; and M. Bennardo contemplates a very bad decision in “We Jump Down Into the Dark.”

Non-fiction this month includes Robert Silverberg’s Reflections column, which examines Non-Asimovian Robots; Peter Heck’s On Books, which looks at new books by James Morrow, Peter F. Hamilton, Carolyn Ives Gilman (“put Gilman on your list of writers to watch”), Alan Smale, and others; an editorial by Sheila Williams, and poetry.

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In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Three

Monday, November 2, 2015 markrigney Comments 0 Comment

Linked below, you’ll find the third installment of a brand-new serialized novel, In the Wake Of Sister Blue.

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, I think you’ll also find much to like in this latest venture. In this sequence, we keep pace with Maer and Doss, but we also expand our horizons via Mother Coal and a visit to the capital city. Their entwined fates, and those of Vashear, all lead inexorably to the slam-bang opening of Chapter Four, which I’ll post in two weeks’ time.

As I’ve said before, bear in mind that this as an experiment, an experiment performed in the most chaotic of laboratory environments (which is to say, my basement). I haven’t written to the end. I’m not offering you something that’s already complete. Instead, I’ll be doling out the breadcrumbs of story just as fast as I can tear them from the fictive loaf, and when we reach the end, we’ll get there simultaneously.

Welcome to adventure, In the Wake Of Sister Blue.

Tell your friends. Off we go — and if you’re just discovering this portal, don’t forget to begin at the beginning.

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

Read the third installment here.

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The Old Ones Unleashed: Apotheosis – Stories of Human Survival After The Rise of The Elder Gods

Monday, November 2, 2015 Adrian Simmons Comments 1 comment

It isn’t all bad, some of the Newcomers mix a fine screwdriver

Post Halloween funk got you down? Looking for something to cut the coming wave of forced holiday cheer? I have come from Kadath in the wastes to bring you news to make your sick heart feel so glad. Jason Andrew’s anthology Apotheosis: Stories of Survival After the Rise of the Elder Gods has been released to the world. A fearsome tome, seeping into your consciousness in both hardcopy and electronic formats.

It would be a lie of omission if I didn’t come clean and point out that my own story, “Dilution Solution,” is in the anthology. It would also be crass for me to rave about the quality of my own work — which I will simply describe as a tribe of self-gratifying warboys defending the lingering shreds of humanity, their fragile minds protected by crappy 90s virtual reality technology.

And far more grisly tales await in this collection — 17 tales to make you lose sleep, hoping that the stars are not right.

For some outside opinions, check out reviews from Black Gate contributor Fletcher Vrendenburgh and adventure aficionado Keith West at Adventures Fantastic.

New Treasures: Envy of Angels by Matt Wallace

Monday, November 2, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

Tor.com has had some impressive success with their stellar line-up of Fall novellas. Their first title, Kai Ashante Wilson’s The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of 2015, and after a strong critical response for the second novella, Witches of Lychford, Paul Cornell has already announced a sequel.

Their most recent release, Matt Wallace’s Envy of Angels: A Sin du Jour Affair, the first entry in a new urban fantasy series, was published on October 20. Matt Wallace is also the author of the futuristic sports thriller Slingers. The sequel to Envy of Angels, Lustlocked, has already been announced for January. (Click on the front and back covers above for bigger versions.)

Envy of Angels is the seventh title in Tor.com‘s debut publishing venture, which includes exciting new releases from K. J. Parker, Nnedi Okorafor, Alter S. Reiss, Daniel Polansky, and many others. Tor.com‘s Marketing & Publicity Manager, Mordicai Knode, talked about the genesis of the line in his first article for us, “Why Novellas? Tor.com‘s Stellar New Fantasy & SF Releases.”

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