Black Gate – Page 930 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

How Eilean Donan Castle Nearly Shrugged off the Age of Gunpowder (Then Got Blown up Anyway)

Thursday, September 4, 2014 Comments 4 comments

AD 1719, the wild West Coast of Scotland, where nobody seems to realise that the Viking Age is over, and three government frigates close in on Eilean Donan Castle.

How’s this going to go?

Eilean Donan Castle — which was once famously defended by just two men, one a good archer — has a Spanish garrison of 46 soldiers. They’re here to guard a depot for munitions shipped in to support yet another Jacobite uprising.

Jacobite means “supporters of James,” in this case James Stuart, son of the deposed King James II Stewart, last of king of the Scottish dynasty deposed in favor of a Hanoverian-as-in-German one. Most Scots then and now don’t get too romantic about the Stuarts. Once they became kings of the United Kingdom, the Stuarts didn’t do much for their former countrymen, and once deposed, they mostly got them killed.

And it’s not that the Spanish government particularly likes the Stuarts. It’s just that Spain is on the other side from the British in something called the War of the Quadruple Alliance, so stirring up trouble is part of the game.

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Kirby McCauley, September 11, 1941 — August 30, 2014

Thursday, September 4, 2014 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

In late fall 2000, Dave Truesdale convinced me to reprint Edmond Hamilton’s first published story, the creepy pulp tale “The Monster-God of Mamurth,” from the August 1926 issue of Weird Tales. Harlan Ellison told us “it’s an awful story,” but what does he know? It has ancient lost cities, valiant explorers, horrible curses, and seriously spooky giant spiders. I loved it.

So I dutifully tracked down the rights, and discovered they were controlled by the Pimlico Agency in New York. In short order, I found myself on the phone with a guy named Kirby McCauley, negotiating the right to reprint the story in the second issue of Black Gate for $200.

Now, I’d certainly heard of Kirby McCauley. He was Stephen King’s first agent, and King had famously related some of the guidance McCauley gave him early in his career. More interesting to me, McCauley was also an accomplished editor. His Dark Forces was easily the most acclaimed horror anthology of the 1980s (it included Stephen King’s The Mist, among many other notable stories.) So in between our business dealings, I mentioned to Kirby that I was a fan. He was very gracious and surprisingly easy to deal with.

For a good many years, Kirby McCauley was one of the most successful agents in the industry, with a client list that made his peers green with envy. George R.R. Martin said “Kirby revolutionized agenting in SF and fantasy and horror,” and that was no exaggeration. However, McCauley’s career suffered a significant downturn in the late 90s, and he lost most — but not all — of his biggest clients.

Kirby McCauley passed away last weekend, and his death has largely been ignored by the industry. But today, I found a lengthy appreciation written by his client and friend George R.R. Martin. It’s definitely worth the read, both as a remembrance of a man who made a big difference in the industry and as a wonderful snapshot of what publishing was like in the 70s and 80s.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best of Murray Leinster, edited by Brian Davis

Thursday, September 4, 2014 John ONeill Comments 10 comments

Here’s a vintage curiosity for you.

Last June, I wrote a blog article on The Best of Murray Leinster, volume 14 in Lester Del Rey’s famous Classics of Science Fiction line. It’s one of my favorite titles in a series filled with great books.

Then earlier this year, I stumbled across the UK version of The Best of Murray Leinster for sale on eBay, with a gloriously pulpy cover by Peter A. Jones. I mean, just look at that thing (at left, click for bigger version.) Any time a guy with a 6-inch knife takes on a monster bigger than a Winnebago, you’ve got my attention. Especially when it involves that much purple.

Of course I wanted it. But it was expensive — $16.99, including shipping — and I couldn’t really justify it. (But believe me, I was sooooo close.) Besides, there seemed to be errors in the listing. The book was edited by J.J. Pierce, not Brian Davis. Also, it was first published in 1978, not 1976 as the listing claimed. Unless there were two books with the title The Best of Murray Leinster which, ha ha, would pretty ridiculous.

Turns out publishing is a pretty funny industry. According to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, there are two books titled The Best of Murray Leinster. The first, subtitled A Memorial Anthology Selected by Brian Davis, was published in paperback in the UK by Corgi in 1976, the year after Leinster’s death. The US edition, from Del Rey, didn’t arrive until two years later.

Well, that’s all the excuse I needed to order the UK version. It arrived a few weeks later, and I was delighted to discover that it’s a completely different book, with only three stories in common with its American cousin: “The Ethical Equations,” “Symbiosis,” and “Pipeline to Pluto.” The remaining seven include some of Leinster’s more entertaining short stories, which were somehow left out of the US edition — such as “Sam, This Is You” and “If You Was a Moklin.”

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Enter the DragonCon

Wednesday, September 3, 2014 Jon Sprunk Comments 0 Comment

This past weekend, I attended my fourth DragonCon in sunny Atlanta.

It’s a working vacation for me, where I spend most of my time at the Pyr Books booth telling people about the wonderful products this SFF imprint produces, but I also make a little time to walk around and see the sights. And there are a LOT of sights to see at DragonCon.

The host hotels. Sadly, I haven’t been able to snag a room at any of the four massive host hotels since 2010, but that doesn’t stop me from walking through them and marveling at the sheer scope of this convention. There are a ton of people. (Attendance is listed as 57,000 in 2013, and I’d wager there were more than that this year.) And so many people are in costume.

Cosplay has grown in popularity over the years, and DragonCon is one of those venues where people come out to show their stuff. (My wife attends in her Xena, Warrior Princess costume, which gets a lot of attention.) Some of the costumes are just fun and light, but others are true works of art, as good as (or better) than the costumes used on major movie sets.

This year, I saw Yaya Han showing off her cosplay of Enira, the Banshee Queen, which was spectacular. There are so many wonderful costumes, and the party lasts until the wee hours of the morning. If you love cosplay, DragonCon is a place you need to see.

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Announcing the Winners of Free Copies of The Ultra Thin Man and Echopraxia

Wednesday, September 3, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Last month, we told you that you had a chance to win two new novels from Tor: Patrick Swenson’s The Ultra Thin Man, and Peter Watts’s Echopraxia. How did you enter? Just by sending us a one-sentence review of your favorite Tor fantasy or science fiction novel. Easy as that! One winner for each book was drawn at random from all qualifying entries.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of The Ultra Thin Man is Guillermo Cantu, who reviewed a fantasy classic by Glen Cook:

The Black Company is the gritty tale of a band of crafty mercenaries that get entangled in a war of ancient and wicked sorcerers against questionable rebels, as told by the sarcastic company analyst, from the trenches.

And the winner of Echopraxia is Lee Hunter, with this one-sentence review of his favorite Tor science fiction title:

David Weber’s Off Armageddon Reef is an original story about fighting in the face of overwhelming, impossible odds; and the innate human will to survive and overcome an enemy.

The Ultra Thin Man was published by Tor Books on August 12, 2014. It is 334 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Victor Mosquera. Echopraxia was released on August 26, 2014 by Tor Books. It is 383 pages, priced at $24.99 for the hardcover and $11.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Richard Anderson.

Thanks to all those who entered our contest and thanks again to Tor for making it all possible!

Future Treasures: The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures edited by Sean Wallace

Wednesday, September 3, 2014 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Last January, we told you about Sean Wallace’s intriguing anthology The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, a generous collection of short fiction from Amal El-Mohtar, Barth Anderson, Jeffrey Ford, James Morrow, Mary Robinette Kowal, Aliette de Bodard, N.K. Jemisin, and many others.

The book was a solid success and no publisher can resist success. So it should be no surprise that the sequel, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures, is scheduled to arrive next month here in the US (it’s already on sale in the UK).

This volume collects over 30 steampunk tales, including three originals from Benjanun Sriduangkaew, E. Catherine Tobler, and Jonathan Wood. Other contributors include K.W. Jeter, Tobias S. Buckell, Cherie Priest, Jay Lake, Christopher Barzak, Carrie Vaughn, Chris Roberson, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Tony Pi, Aliette de Bodard, Nisi Shawl, Genevieve Valentine, Sofia Samatar, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Cat Rambo, Margaret Ronald, Ken Liu, and many others.

Our very own C.S.E. Cooney contributes a reprint, her marvelous tale “Canary of Candletown,” from Steam-Powered II. Ann VanderMeer provides the introduction.

Sean Wallace is also the editor of the upcoming The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry, a very promising sword & sorcery collection with a story reprinted from Black Gate (Matthew David Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael”), as well as contributions from James Enge, Chris Willrich, Aliette de Bodard, Mary Robinette Kowal, N.K. Jemisin, Saladin Ahmed, and many others.

I’m a big fan of these Mammoth anthologies. They’re attractive, well edited, and a great value for the money. Keep your eye out for this one.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Selling your Past

Wednesday, September 3, 2014 Scott Taylor Comments 8 comments

Considering the fact that James ‘Grognardia’ Maliszewski is one of my office mates here in Black Gate L.A., I’m often inspired by what he has to say on the subject of gaming. Now sure, James comes at the hobby from a more mechanics angle, while I take on the artistic side, but nonetheless, we are still cut from the same cloth and overlap on many details [he’s two years older than me, so MUCH wiser].

After reading his The Golden Age article this week, I couldn’t help but find an odd pleasure in the fact that I too was revisiting my gaming past, only once again from a different angle.

So, when he posted his image of the ‘treasure’ found at his ancestral home, I couldn’t help but smile because I’d just taken a picture similar to it myself the day before. You see, James, according to the article, was enjoying the nostalgia of his TSR collection in his visual framing, but for me, I was working toward the reality of parting ways with mine.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been selling off parts of my RPG collection. It began as a quest to raise capital for other projects, but as it continued, it turned into a kind of cathartic shedding of unneeded pounds. Last year, I wrote an article for Black Gate entitled The Weight of Print, and over the past weeks I’ve toted at least a hundred pounds of books to the USPS from my RPG shelves.

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The Golden Age

Tuesday, September 2, 2014 James Maliszewski Comments 10 comments

There’s a famous epigram mistakenly attributed to a number of different people – as famous epigrams so often are – that states that “the golden age of science fiction is twelve.” Some quick research into the matter reveals that its actual author was Peter Graham, an editor of fanzines in the late 1950s and early ’60s. My research also revealed that the original quote stated the golden age of science to be thirteen.

I turned thirteen in the Fall of 1982, three years after I first discovered Dungeons & Dragons. By that time, I was hopelessly in the thrall not just of D&D, but of a wide variety of roleplaying games. RPGs played a very important role in my young life, complementing many of my earlier interests and hobbies (like mythology, science fiction, and fantasy) and fostering many news ones (such as history, foreign languages, and philosophy). It is no exaggeration to say that I’d be a completely different man today if it weren’t for these games.

Consequently, I tend to look back on that time as a golden age, a time when the hobby of roleplaying was just right for a kid like me. I was reminded of this recently when I returned to visit my mother at my childhood home. Though I haven’t lived in that house on a permanent basis since I first went away to college in 1987, it still holds a great many things belonging to me that I simply hadn’t had the time to take with me as I traveled up and down the East Coast of North America. This year, I vowed that, during my visit, I’d do a proper inventory of what I’d left behind so that I could get rid of the stuff I didn’t want and once again take possession of at least some of the rest.

What I found was a time capsule of the inner life of my thirteen year-old self.

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Living Outside Society’s Rules: Blackguards

Tuesday, September 2, 2014 Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones Comments 4 comments

I’m pleased today to feature a guest post from writer Laura Resnick, all about an upcoming anthology, one that’s already received a lot of funding from Kickstarter. Take it away, Laura:

Back before I ever started writing or had any intention of becoming a writer, I read an interview with an author who, when asked if her dark, challenging characters were also the sort of people she was drawn to in her real life, said of course not — who could actually live with someone like that? She said she preferred stable, even-tempered, good-natured people in her real life (as I do, too). But fiction is about conflict; it’s about things breaking down, imploding, exploding, escalating, and reaching a crisis point — not about things humming along smoothly and contentedly (which tends to be what most of us want from real life most of the time).

We read fantasy novels about Good and Evil doing battle with each other, not about Good and Evil agreeing to sit down together and work out a reasonable compromise as calmly as possible.

Similarly, there is a longtime and widespread fascination in fiction with living outside the rules of society. Many people fantasize at various points about the satisfaction, excitement, or pleasure of simply doing whatever they want — stealing a boat, robbing a bank, killing their boss, seducing total strangers, breaking into the Vatican, etc. But few people are so committed to those fantasies that they want to risk losing their homes, their livelihoods, their families, their future, and their freedom in order to fulfill them. There’s also the problem of conscience; most of us would feel cripplingly terrible about murdering someone or taking possessions we have no right to take.

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Ten Acclaimed Historical Fantasy Novels You Need to Read

Tuesday, September 2, 2014 John ONeill Comments 14 comments

If there’s something we’re consistently good at here at Black Gate, it’s jumping on a trend late. What can I tell you? We’re too busy reading to be hip. On laundry day, I still wear bell bottoms.

But there are some trends so obvious that even we notice. Social media? It’s starting to catch on — take our word for it. Superhero movies? They’re going to be popular. Believe it.

Most recently, I’ve noticed that the emerging trend in fantasy — the one attracting the hottest writers in the field — seems to be historical fantasy. Mary Robinette Kowal, Genevieve Valentine, Patty Templeton, Catherynne Valente, and many others have penned some really terrific historical fantasies recently… and more are arriving every week.

Not convinced? Have a look at the following list of 10 recent, and highly acclaimed, historical fantasy novels, written by a Who’s Who of emerging fantasy writers.

If you’re like most readers, you’ll find more than a few you haven’t read. Do yourself a favor and check out one or two that sound interesting.

Trust us; you’ll be glad you did.

1. The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine

The fairytale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses , set in Jazz Age Manhattan.

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