Browsed by
Category: Editor’s Blog

The blog posts of Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones and Editor John O’Neill

New Treasures: Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych

New Treasures: Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych

Comments 2 comments


Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction , Volumes 1-3 (Ansible Press, December 13, 2023,
November 22, 2024, and October 21, 2025). Covers by Tithi Luadthong, Xiaofan Zhang, and Pascal Blanché

I was delighted to see (on S. M. Carrière’s Facebook feed) news of the upcoming launch of Volume Three of Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych. The book is already available in digital and print formats, and the big launch party happens at Bakka-Phoenix Books in Toronto this Saturday.

As long-time readers of this blog know, I’ve been a huge fan of Year’s Best SF anthologies since I first discovered Terry Carr’s legendary The Best Science Fiction of the Year (1972-1987) in the mid-70s. I dearly miss Gardner Dozois’ long-running The Year’s Best Science Fiction, which ran for 35 years (1984-2018) and, in more recent decades, the Year’s Best series from Rich Horton, Neil Clarke, Jonathan Strahan, and Paula Guran — all of which folded in just the last few years.

…

Read More Read More

Why Did This Lot of Science Fantasy Digests Sell for $1,580? Michael Moorcock, That’s Why

Why Did This Lot of Science Fantasy Digests Sell for $1,580? Michael Moorcock, That’s Why

Comments 7 comments
28 UK Science Fantasy Magazines, sold last week on eBay for $1,580.55

After 25 years of buying vintage digest magazines on eBay, I’m rarely surprised. But I was left with my jaw hanging open last week when a set of 28 Science Fantasy magazines offered on eBay (above) blew past my $98 maximum bid, and ended up selling 9 minutes later for $1,580.

That’s not normal. I bought a set of 39 issues of its sister magazine New Worlds just a few days earlier for $70, not even $2 per issue. Copies of Science Fantasy do tend to command higher prices, but not that much higher. So what’s going on?

It didn’t take long to figure out. Turns out the lot happened to include the June 1961 issue, containing Michael Moorcock’s “The Dreaming City,” the first appearance of Elric of Melniboné.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Empires: James Nicoll on Galactic Empires, Volumes One & Two, edited by Brian W. Aldiss

Vintage Empires: James Nicoll on Galactic Empires, Volumes One & Two, edited by Brian W. Aldiss

Comments 2 comments
Galactic Empires, Volume One and Two (Orbit, October 1976). Covers by Karel Thole

My fellow Canadian James Nicoll continues to be one of my favorite SF bloggers, probably because he covers stuff I’m keenly interested in. Meaning exciting new authors, mixed with a reliable diet of vintage classics.

In the last two weeks he’s discussed Kate Elliots’s The Witch Roads, Axie Oh’s The Floating World, Ada Palmer’s Inventing the Renaissance, and Emily Yu-Xuan Qin’s Aunt Tigress, all from 2025; as well as Walter Jon Williams The Crown Jewels (from 1987), Wilson Tucker’s The Long Loud Silence (1952), C J Cherryh’s Port Eternity (1982), and John Brunner’s 1973 collection From This Day Forward. Now that’s a guy who knows how to productively use his leisure time. Not to mention caffeine.

But my favorite of his recent reviews is his story-by-story breakdown of Brian W. Aldiss’s massive two-volume anthology Galactic Empires, which made me want to read the whole thing all over again.

…

Read More Read More

Interviewing the Champion of Heroes, Jason M Waltz of Rogue Blades Entertainment and Foundation

Interviewing the Champion of Heroes, Jason M Waltz of Rogue Blades Entertainment and Foundation

Comments 8 comments

Jason M. Waltz has published 16 Books under Rogue Blades Entertainment (RBE), another 3 under Rogue Blades Foundation (RBF), having lured in authors Such as Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, C.L. Werner, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Ian C. Esslemont, William King, Andy Offutt, and spurred the writing careers of dozens. Not all are Sword and Sorcery (S&S), with weird western and pirate anthologies appearing, but most are.  Two of my favorite introductions to anthologies cap the ends of the RBE series: Return of the Sword (2008) and Neither Beg Nor Yield (2024 BG reviewed by Vredenburgh and Mele), the latter JMW refers to as his Swan Song marking a shift toward focusing on his own writing. Coincident with that, he has recently sunsetted the related RBF.  We’ll discuss some of his works to date, but note that he has three stories seeing publication in July 2025!

He’s mingled with the Black Gate crew in many ways over the years, invited John O’Neill to pen the introductions, published many contributors here, and now he is interviewing them. Yes, you will be glad to know that even as he steers from publishing to writing more, he is still actively building the community through his 24 in 42 podcast [broadcasted via the Rogue Blades Presents YouTube channel]. Heck he is even hand in the game by guest editing Raconteur Press’ first Sword & Sorcery anthology.  He never tires.

As we salute his heroic efforts, let’s learn more about his journey!

“Heroes are those who continue to do the ordinary in extraordinary times, and to do the extraordinary in ordinary times.” –  JMW 2008

…

Read More Read More

Get it While You Can: Manly Wade Wellman’s Cahena Going Out of Print

Get it While You Can: Manly Wade Wellman’s Cahena Going Out of Print

Comments 3 comments


Cahena by Manly Wade Wellman (DMR Books, November 1, 2020). Cover by Lauren Gornik

I’m hearing reports that Manly Wade Wellman’s final novel Cahena, out of print for nearly 35 years until DMR released a handsome new edition in 2020 with a striking cover by Lauren Gornik, is on the verge of going out of print again.

Cahena is an overlooked gem in Wellman’s distinguished catalog. A historical novel with fantasy elements, it tells the tale of the legendary Berber queen who lived in the 7th Century in North Africa, and led her people against the Romans and later Muslim invaders. The Cahena, as she was known, was said to be both a sorceress and prophetess, and she led an army forty thousand strong in a valiant struggle to save her beleaguered people.

DMR’s rights to the book expire this month, and at the end of May it will not longer be available. Morgan Holmes says that with this final novel, “Wellman went out on top.” If you’re a Wellman fan, or a fan of quality adventure fiction, grab a copy while you can. Don’t wait another thirty-five years for the next reprint! Order directly from DMR Books here.

Howard Andrew Jones, July 19, 1968 – January 16, 2025

Howard Andrew Jones, July 19, 1968 – January 16, 2025

Comments 47 comments
John O’Neill and Howard Andrew Jones at the World Science Fiction Convention, Washington DC, December 19, 2021

Howard Andrew Jones is dead.

It’s hard to write those words. Howard has been a huge part of my personal and professional life since 2002, when I opened a submission to Black Gate magazine and found a long, rambling, and extremely enthusiastic cover letter from him, expressing his delight at finding a quality magazine devoted to heroic fantasy. The letter ended with “I want in, bad,” and was attached to a terrific tale featuring two adventurers named Dabir and Asim.

We eventually published three Dabir and Asim tales in Black Gate, and within a few years Howard’s editorial contributions had become so essential to the magazine that we named him our first Managing Editor. He ran our non-fiction department, single-handedly recruiting and managing over a dozen contributors to fill some 80 pages every issue with thoughtful essays, book reviews, gaming coverage, and much more.

…

Read More Read More

The Failed Giant: Five Tributes to Barry N. Malzberg

The Failed Giant: Five Tributes to Barry N. Malzberg

Comments 6 comments
Barry N. Malzberg

Barry N. Malzberg died on December 19. In his Black Gate obituary, Rich Horton wrote:

Malzberg was in his unique way a true giant in our field. Barry himself, in his later years, seemed to regard his career as a failure, but it was no such thing. He may have stopped publishing novels out of a feeling the publishing world wasn’t receptive to his work, but the best of what he did publish is outstanding, and thoroughly representative of his own vision.

Tributes and reminiscences have poured in over the last week, and many amplify Rich’s comments, especially in regard to both the importance of Malzberg’s work, and his embittered attitude towards the field near the end of his career. Several writers, including Adam-Troy Castro and Gregory Feeley, have generously granted permission for me to reprint their lengthy comments here, including several fascinating anecdotes.

…

Read More Read More

Merry Christmas from Black Gate

Merry Christmas from Black Gate

Comments 25 comments

This has been a milestone year for our little website. In 1999 my friend Wayne MacLaurin helped me register the blackgate.com domain, and we launched the site to support our ambitious fantasy magazine. This year we quietly celebrated a quarter-century of continuous operation and quality fantasy coverage, and in the process added several talented newcomers to our small staff of regular bloggers, including Neil Baker, Jeffrey Talanian, Charles Gramlich, William H. Stoddard, and Ian McDowell. We also welcomed back David Soyka, one of our founding bloggers, after a long sabbatical.

Over the past 25 years the site has evolved significantly, and when the print magazine died in 2011 it became our sole focus. Five years later George R.R. Martin presented us with an Alfie Award, and that same year we won a World Fantasy Award, a pair of singular honors I still find a little hard to believe.

Over the long years our focus has changed dramatically. In the early years it was all about growing the site and increasing traffic, and we achieved success I never dreamed of, peaking at over 2 million page views/month. But in the last fifteen years I’ve come to understand that the true rewards of a site like this aren’t in ever-increasing site metrics. They’re in the people I’ve met along the way, and the countless way my own love of the genre has deepened and expanded.

…

Read More Read More

G.W. Thomas on Science Fiction of the 30s by Damon Knight

G.W. Thomas on Science Fiction of the 30s by Damon Knight

Comments 7 comments

Conan the Barbarian: Archie Style! From Everything Archie
#111 (May 1984). Art by Stan Goldberg and Larry Lapick.

G.W. Thomas has gradually become my favorite genre blogger. Not just because of his constant stream of content — he posts every two days at Dark Worlds Quarterly, and has been doing so for nearly a decade — but because of his endlessly zany topics. In the past few months he’s covered Haunted Houses in 50s comics, the Top Ten Ghostbreakers from Weird Tales, Werewolves of EC Comics, Space Heroes of the Golden Age, Fearless Vampire Killers of the pulps, Top Ten Fantasy Fight Scenes from 1980-1985 sword & sorcery flicks, Plant Monsters, Conan in Archie Comics, and so, so much more. For pulp and comic enthusiasts of a Certain Age, G.W. has tapped a nostalgic mother lode.

He also delves pretty deep into more serious topics of real interest, like that time he wrote a one-sentence review of every story in Damon Knight’s classic anthology Science Fiction of the 30s, complete with the original pulp illustrations.

…

Read More Read More

Make Room For Harry Harrison: Anthony Aycock on a Forgotten SF Master

Make Room For Harry Harrison: Anthony Aycock on a Forgotten SF Master

Comments 17 comments


Make Room! Make Room! (Berkley Medallion, July 1967). Cover by Richard Powers

Harry Harrison was a true believer. Like Isaac Asimov, Terry Carr, Donald Wollheim, Gardner Dozois, Lin Carter, Damon Knight and a handful of others, he dedicated his life to science fiction, and in a multitude of roles, as writer, editor, critic, and scholar.

His fiction, however, has been largely — and unjustly — forgotten, and in the dozen years since his death in August 2012, all his books have gradually gone out of print, including once-popular novels like Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green in 1973) and The Stainless Steel Rat, one of the top-selling SF novels of the 60s, which spawned a hugely popular series that ran for twelve volumes.

So I was delighted to see Reactor (still known by fans under its secret identity, Tor.com) shine a long-overdue spotlight on our boy Harrison late last year. In “Make Room! Make Room! For Harry Harrison!” Anthony Aycock provides a brief overview of Harrison’s career, and introduces modern readers to his best work.

…

Read More Read More