Black Gate – Page 758 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Vintage Treasures: A Treasury of Fantasy, edited by Cary Wilkins

Friday, November 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

In the mid-90s, Gramercy Books had some success with a line of titles focusing on the supernatural and the occult, including The Book of the Dead, The Witchcraft Delusion, and A Treasury of Witchcraft (a collection of spells from ancient sources, which today has accumulated some hilarious Amazon reviews from folks reporting on their various effectiveness.) All of these were (at least nominally) non-fiction, but in early 1995 they added to their line up A Gothic Treasury of the Supernatural, a thick collection of half a dozen classic horror novels repackaged in an attractive hardcover.

The latter must have been successful enough for Gramercy to dabble in fiction anthologies at least one more time, since later in 1995 they repacked a 1981 Crown anthology by Cary Wilkins, A Treasury of Fantasy, with a brand new wraparound Romas cover (looking very much like Michael Whelan). Except for a rather embarrassing typo on the cover (they misspelled the editor’s name as “Wilkens”), this is the preferred edition of a thick omnibus collection of three novels and eight short stories by William Morris, George MacDonald, Lord Dunsany, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others.

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Joel Cunningham on Why There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Sci-Fi & Fantasy Reader

Friday, November 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

I’ve lived through enough boom-and-bust cycles in this industry to have read plenty of “science fiction is doomed’ prophecies over the decades. It usually happens at the start of a bust cycle, as the publishing industry contracts and readers see steep cutbacks. Funny enough, I almost never see the opposite — astute readers pointing out the signs of a boom. Joel Cunningham at Barnes & Noble seems to be the exception. Have a look as he catalogs many of the signs of an ongoing explosion in SF & Fantasy publishing.

Hachette Book Group today announced an ambitious expansion of its sci-fi/fantasy imprint Orbit… Beginning in the fall of 2016, Orbit will grow its list by 50 percent, publishing approximately 90 titles a year—and they’re hiring new editors, marketers, and book packagers to do it.

Nothing proves belief in a market like investment, and across the board, publishers are investing in SF/F. Just this year, we’ve welcomed to the fold Saga Press, the dedicated genre imprint from Simon & Schuster that has developed a roster of launch titles unparalleled in the industry (the debut novel from award-winning short story author Ken Liu, anyone?).

Tor.com Publishing has emerged out of Tor Books, the largest player in the genre space, with a new business model that focuses on digital-first novellas, allowing for a faster-moving, more innovative strategy that brings you, the reader, the kinds of books you might never have been able to read before…

Why is this happening? It’s because of all of us. We readers are a passionate bunch, and we’ve voted with our time, attention, and most of all, our dollars, propelling big-money, book-first franchises like Game of Thrones and the Marvel and DC superhero universes to the forefront of the cultural conversation. There’s no stigma about being a genre reader these days, because genre touches everyone — just try getting through December without hearing about Star Wars on the regular (spoiler alert: it isn’t going to happen).

We covered the news of the Orbit expansion here, the launch of Saga Press here, and Tor.com‘s ambitious publishing venture here. Read Joel’s complete article here.

New Treasures: Night Music by John Connolly

Friday, November 27, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

John Connolly is the bestselling author of thirteen thrillers featuring P.I. Charlie Parker, which The Independent calls “the finest crime series currently in existence.” Ten years ago he published Nocturnes, a collection of supernatural tales. This follow-up volume contains thirteen new tales — eleven short stories and two novellas, the multi-award-winning “The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository” and “The Fractured Atlas – Five Fragments” — set in Britain and Ireland. Here’s a clip from Mike Berry’s review in Portland Press Herald:

“The Blood of the Lamb” takes place in Dublin, focused on a married couple as they await the arrival of two Vatican priests who will examine their daughter. The girl has begun to exhibit miraculous healing powers, and her encounter with the visitors reveals itself to be a chilling exercise in misdirection. “Lamia” follows a woman’s quest for vengeance against her rapist, and “The Hollow King” employs the structure of a fairy tale to explore a hellish bargain.

It’s difficult to do anything new with the classic ghost story, but Connolly displays a sure hand when he puts his mind to the task. “A Dream of Winter” spins a creepy spell in exactly 300 words, and “A Haunting” examines the end of a long, loving marriage through the prism of a spectral visitation. Connolly moves farther afield geographically with “Lazarus,” in which the friends and family of the title character discover that corporeal resurrection has its drawbacks. And in “Razorshins,” a group of Maine bootleggers during Prohibition face off against a creature that demands tribute from any who cross its path…

The centerpiece of Night Music is “The Fractured Atlas – Five Fragments,” another tale of the magical properties of literature. Across the centuries, unfortunate individuals in the book trade encounter a mysterious tome that seems intent upon rewriting the very essence of reality. The short novel is nastier and far more unsettling than most of the other offerings here, reminiscent of the darkest horrors of Clive Barker and H.P. Lovecraft.

Night Music: Nocturnes 2 was published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on October 6, 2015. It is 464 pages, priced at $17.00 in trade paperback and $12.99 for the digital edition. Click on the covers above for bigger versions.

Goth Chick News: Dashing Through the Snow to the Days of the Dead Show

Thursday, November 26, 2015 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

Granted, snow in the windy city in November is not exactly unexpected. But it is a bit surreal to be making our way to the last horror show of the year in white-out conditions.

And yet this is precisely the situation Black Gate photog Chris Z and I found ourselves facing last Saturday morning. Thankfully, the Chicago BG office is well equipped for such emergencies, though attempting to get John O out of bed before noon to requisition the keys to the company urban assault vehicle turned out to be only the first of many challenges we faced that day.

Still, we trundle into the unplowed parking lot of the venue in our jacked up Jeep Wrangler precisely at 9:45, to find roughly 500 other hard-core horror fans bent double against the howling wind, making their way through 18” of snow to pay homage to the season’s last genre-specific event.

Was it worth it?

Oh, hell yes.

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Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Thursday, November 26, 2015 William I. Lengeman III Comments 8 comments

My peak Star Trek watching years came in the seventies. Those of us who were too young to catch the show when it first aired in the mid-sixties could gorge ourselves on seemingly endless reruns of three seasons worth of shows. It was a far cry from Netflix and calling up any episode any time but we made do.

As the seventies wound down my interest in Star Trek waned and I wasn’t really cognizant of what came along later — four more TV series and a heap of movies. I sought to rectify this in the early years of the new century, watching as many TV episodes as possible and some of the movies, but my intake of the latter was sporadic.

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Announcing the Winners of This Gulf of Time and Stars by Julie Czerneda

Thursday, November 26, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Woo hoo! We have two winners!

Last week we invited you to enter a contest to win one of two copies of Julie Czerneda’s This Gulf of Time and Stars, the opening volume in a brand new adventure SF series from one of the most popular authors in the field. To enter, all you had to do was send us an e-mail with the subject “This Gulf of Time and Stars.”

We have two versions to give away — a copy of the hardcover, and an audiobook. Our lucky winners were selected from the pool of eligible entries by the most reliable method known to modern science: D&D dice. The winner of the hardcover is:

Paul Lipps

And our audiobook winner is:

Derek A. Neve

Congratulations all! Once again, we’d like to thank DAW Books and Audible.com for providing the prizes and making the contest possible. Read Julie’s interview with Allyson Johnson, the voice of the audible.com edition of This Gulf of Time and Stars, right here at Black Gate.

This Gulf of Time and Stars was published by DAW Books on November 3, 2015. It is 464 pages, priced at $25.95 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Apex Magazine #78 Now on Sale

Thursday, November 26, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

In his editorial this month, Jason Sizemore gives us the lowdown on the issue.

This month we offer three outstanding works of science fiction to our readers. “Blood on Beacon Hill” by Russell Nichols is that rarest of things — a vampire story in our publication…. completely by coincidence is the use of the word ‘beacon’ in Day Al-Mohamed’s “The Beacon and the Coward.” Finally, we have a story by one of the genre’s rising stars, Sam J. Miller. “To Die Dancing” has a tightly bound emotional core that I think you’ll enjoy.

Gemma Files is one of the best when it comes to writing unsettling fiction. To back my assertion, we’ve included her “Signal to Noise” as this month’s reprint feature.

Rounding out the issue are interviews with author Russell Nichols and artist James Lincke, a thought-provoking essay by Ed Grabianowski titled “Cthulhu Apocalypse and the Terrifying Tradition of Horror Role-Playing Games”, and poetry by Brittany Warman, Chloe Clark, Michael Sikkema, and Julia Kingston. We have three excerpts. The first is How to Pass as Human: A Guide to Assimilation for Future Androids by Android Ø by Nic Kelman. The second is The Flux by [Ferrett] Steinmetz. And, finally, The Weight of Chains by our esteemed managing editor Lesley Conner.

Here’s the complete TOC.

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British Museum Explores Celtic Identity

Wednesday, November 25, 2015 Sean McLachlan Comments 2 comments

The Battersea Shield. Bronze, glass. Found in the River Thames at Battersea Bridge, London, England, 350-50 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum

For many of us, the Celts are an enduring fascination. Their art, their mysterious culture, and the perception that so many of us are descended from them makes the Celts one of the most popular ancient societies. So it’s surprising that the British Museum hasn’t had a major Celtic exhibition for forty years.

That’s changed with Celts: Art and Identity, a huge collection of artifacts from across the Celtic world and many works of art from the modern Celtic Revival. The exhibition is at pains to make clear that the name ‘Celts’ doesn’t refer to a single people who can be traced through time, and it has been appropriated over the last 300 years to reflect modern identities in Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere. “Celtic” is an artistic and cultural term, not a racial one.

The first thing visitors see is a quote by some guy named J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote in 1963, “To many, perhaps most people. . .’Celtic’ of any sort is. . .a magic bag into which anything may be put, and out of which almost anything may come. . .anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight.”

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Check out the First Trailer for Captain America: Civil War

Wednesday, November 25, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Civil War was one of the biggest events in Marvel Comics roughly a decade ago, pitting Spider-Man, Iron Man and a host of other heroes against a tiny contingent led by Captain America. Marvel Studios has made a major effort to replicate the crossover impact of that event in the upcoming movie, which features a bevy of guest stars… see how many you can spot in the trailer above (hint: it’s a LOT.) Captain America: Civil War will be released on May 6, 2016.

Jeffrey Ford on Scott Nicolay’s After

Wednesday, November 25, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Jeffrey Ford took a chance on an unknown magazine, and sold us a story for the very first issue of Black Gate. (And a terrific story, too — a gonzo mystery set on an alien world, “Exo-Skeleton Town.” You can read the entire thing at Infinity Plus.) We’ve been pals ever since. One of the things I like about Jeff is he treats his Facebook friends to great, punchy mini-reviews of some excellent (and often hard-to-find) titles. That was the case yesterday, when he wrote the following about Scott Nicolay’s creepy horror tale After. He gave me permission to post it here. Enjoy.

if you get a chance, check out Scott Nicolay’s stand alone novella, After. About a woman who returns to her home in Seaside Heights after super storm Sandy to check on the damages. FEMA says she’s not allowed to stay but she does only to find out that some strange creature has been brought in by the storm and is lurking beneath her house.

This one’s got everything I like in a horror story — the slow burn, deep characterization so I care about the character, and the rare instance of a metaphorical resonance between the fearsome aspect of the world (the monster) and the defining condition of the character (in this case an abusive relationship). All this in a neat little book, well made (from Dim Shore Press) with a great cover and nice illustrations by Michael Bukowski.

Scott Nicolay is also the author of Do You Like to Look at Monsters? and Ana Kai Tangata: Tales of the Outer the Other the Damned and the Doomed.

After was published by Dim Shores on August 4th 2015. It is 104 pages, priced at $10 in trade paperback. The cover is by Michael Bukowski. The Dim Shores website is here.

See all of our recent Reviews here.