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Month: January 2015

Vintage Treasures: The Second Ghost Book, edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith

Vintage Treasures: The Second Ghost Book, edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith

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Great Pan Second Ghost Book-smallI’ve done a fair job of collecting American horror and dark fantasy paperback anthologies over the years. I have by no means a complete collection (or anything close to a complete collection), but after nearly four decades of collecting I’ve seen almost all the really desirable stuff, and I’m intimately familiar with the market.

That’s not remotely true of British paperbacks. Take for example the highly regarded Pan Ghost Books. They were published between 1952 and 1980, and there are a lot of them. How many? I have no idea. A lot.

The first, originally titled The Ghost Book, was published in hardcover from Hutchinson in 1926, and didn’t appear in paperback until 1945. The Second Ghost Book had a hardcover edition in 1952 from James Barrie, and was reprinted in paperback by Pan (under the imprint Great Pan) in 1956. If things had continued at that pace, we wouldn’t have much of a series to talk about, but fortunately they picked up a bit, with the third appearing in hardcover in 1955.

The books were a mix of original fiction and reprints. All three of the first Pan Book of Ghost Stories were edited by Lady Cynthia Asquith, who was also a contributor (under the name Cynthia Asquith.) The fourth volume was edited by James Turner; altogether the series had half a dozen editors by the time it petered out in 1980.

My first encounter with the series was with The Bumper Book of Ghost Stories, a fat omnibus of two later volumes, which I found at the Windy City Pulp & Paper show last year. That was enough to set me on the trail of the earlier volumes. I recently stumbled across a copy of the The Second Ghost Book, and it’s got a stellar list of contributors, including V. S. Pritchett, Lord Dunsany, Elizabeth Bowen, L. P. Hartley, and many others. It’s also got a fabulous cover.

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The Tragic and Poignant Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist: A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread

The Tragic and Poignant Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist: A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread

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A Night on the Moor-smallIt’s probably no surprise that I got a new volume in the Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural series for Christmas.

I’m not familiar with R. Murray Gilchrist, but that’s the beauty of this series — it’s introduced me to a wide range of excellent ghost story writers. Gilchrist wrote chiefly in the late 1800s and he produced a fine range of supernatural ghost stories, including horror, humor, mystery, and even tragic romance. A Night on the Moor is a slender volume (at just 190 pages, it’s considerably shorter than most of the recent Wordsworth edition we’ve covered), but I’m enjoying it so far.

Robert Murray Gilchrist (1868-1917) is perhaps best known for his interest in topography, and for his stories set in Derbyshire’s Peak District. But he was also a master of mystery and horror, as this richly varied collection shows.

If you are looking for a conventional horror story, in which the supernatural element is paramount, try “The Crimson Weaver,” “Dame Inowslad,” “Witch In-Grain,” or “A Night on the Moor.” If you are more taken with the psychology of the participants, often allied to a fascination with the killing of friends or lovers, then “Francis Shackerley,” “The Noble Courtesan,” “Althea Swathmore,” and “My Friend” will be right up your street. For humor we are offered the Peakland comedy of “The Panicle” or “A Witch in the Peak.” And when it comes to love, there are the tragic and poignant tales we might expect (“The Return,” “The Lost Mistress,” “The Madness of Betty Hooton”), but also the engaging and unusual “Bubble Magic” — a story of romantic betrayal which hints at a happy ending.

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James Bond is in the Public Domain in Canada

James Bond is in the Public Domain in Canada

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James Bond 007-smallNews that the character of James Bond entered the public domain in several countries around the world, including Canada, on January 1st 2015, has stirred considerable excitement among small press publishers.

As io9 reported on Thursday, for many countries who signed the international Berne Convention governing copyright, an author’s works are protected until 50 years after her death. Ian Fleming died in 1964, which means his work entered the public domain this year. Fleming’s original novels can now be published by anyone in Canada, and new film adaptions of those works are fair game.

Canadian publishers such as Neil Baker’s April Moon Books, who recently produced the popular anthologies The Dark Rites of Cthulhu and Amok!, are exploring what this means to those interested in producing new Bond-related books and anthologies. Here’s Neil:

Here is what I know so far. The name James Bond is currently not trademarked, and it wouldn’t be an issue if it was. However, James Bond OO7 is trademarked, and would cause a kerfuffle. The movies are off-limits, so no fluffy white cats or Q. Movie versions of James are off-limits, as is SPECTRE and, to some extent, villains using nuclear threats. It’s all a bit murky, but I’m still digging.

I’m trying to clarify the position of writers outside of Canada, bear with me on this.

Keep up with developments on the April Moon Facebook page.

The 2014 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees

The 2014 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees

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Reach For Infinity Solaris-smallThe Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually for distinguished science fiction originally published in paperback in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society.

The six finalists this year are (with links to earlier Black Gate coverage, where appropriate):

Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct Press)
The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter by Rod Duncan (Angry Robot)
The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison (Sybaritic Press)
Memory Of Water by Emmi Itäranta (Harper Voyager)
Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest (Roc)
Reach For Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

I wasn’t aware that anthologies are eligible for the Dick Award, but I’m very pleased to see Jonathan Strahan’s Reach for Infinity on the list this year.

Last year’s winner was Countdown City by Ben H. Winters, author of The Last Policeman, with a special citation going to Toh EnJoe’s Self-Reference Engine.

This year’s winner will be announced on Friday, April 3, 2015 at Norwescon 38 in SeaTac, Washington. The 2014 judges are Jon Armstrong, Ritchie Calvin, Ellen Klages, Laura J. Mixon (chair), and Michaela Roessner. See more details at the Official Philip K. Dick Awards Home Page.

See all of our recent News articles here.

The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, Part II

The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, Part II

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Chanur’s Endgame-small Alternate Realities Cherryh Alliance Space-small

Last week I wrote the first installment of a three-part series looking at DAW’s ambitious program to bring some two dozen of C.J. Cherryh’s early fantasy and space opera novels back into print, The Omnibus Volumes of C.J. Cherryh, Part I. I looked at The Faded Sun Trilogy, The Morgaine Saga, and The Chanur Saga, published in January, March, and May of 2000, respectively.

In the Comments section of that article, Joe H. observed,

That first Chanur omnibus always confused me because it was functionally equivalent to putting The Hobbit, Fellowship and Two Towers into a single volume. And then you had that seven-year gap before the second Chanur omnibus was published…

Joe is quite correct. Chanur’s Homecoming, the fourth novel in the series, was in effect the conclusion of a trilogy which began in Chanur’s Venture and The Kif Strike Back. Readers coming to the novels for the first time with the first omnibus had to track down a copy of the final volume, or wait until it was collected with Chanur’s Legacy in the omnibus Chanur’s Endgame in 2007.

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January 2015 Nightmare Magazine Now on Sale

January 2015 Nightmare Magazine Now on Sale

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Nightmare magazine January 2015-smallThe January 2015 issue of Nightmare Magazine is now available.

Nightmare is the sister publication to the highly-regarded science fiction and fantasy magazine Lightspeed. It’s an online magazine of horror and dark fantasy, with a broad focus — editor John Joseph Adams promises you’ll find all kinds of horror within, from zombie stories and haunted house tales to visceral psychological horror. Fiction contents this month are:

Original Stories

“Returned” by Kat Howard
“The Trampling” by Christopher Barzak

Reprints

“The Hollow Man” by Norman Partridge
“Blessed Be the Bound” by Lucy Taylor

There’s also an editorial with news on the follow-up to the groundbreaking Women Destroy Science Fiction! anniversary issue of Lightspeed, the upcoming Queers Destroy Science Fiction! project, as well as new subscription pricing through Amazon. Read the complete editorial online here,

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New Treasures: Dangerous Games edited by Jonathan Oliver

New Treasures: Dangerous Games edited by Jonathan Oliver

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Dangerous Games Jonathan Oliver-smallTime for another New Treasure. This time, I’m in the mood for an anthology — one I can really sink my teeth into. Fortunately, I think I have just the thing.

The latest anthology from Solaris, Dangerous Games, collects original short fiction from Chuck Wendig, Lavie Tidhar, Paul Kearney, Pat Cadigan, and many others, on a theme near and dear to my heart: games.

In a world of chances, one decision can bring down the house, one roll of the dice could bring untold wealth, or the end of everything. In this anthology of all new short stories the players gather, their stories often dark, and always compelling.

The players and the played, this new anthology from Jonathan Oliver (Magic, End of The Road, House of Fear, The End of The Line, World War Cthulhu) brings together brand new stories from an international team of talented authors, each with their own deadly game. This collection is set to include a full house of top authors including Hugo award-winning American writer Pat Cadigan, Brit Gary McMahon, Mexican Silvia Moreno Garcia, plus Tade Thompson, Rebecca Levene and more!

We’ve covered several excellent anthologies from Solaris recently, including Ian Whates’s Solaris Rising, Solaris Rising 2, Solaris Rising 3, and two from Jonathan Strahan’s — his SF books Engineering Infinity, Edge of Infinity, and Reach for Infinity, and his fantasy volumes Fearsome Journeys and Fearsome Magics.

Dangerous Games was edited by Jonathan Oliver and published by Solaris Books on December 2, 2014. It is 320 pages, priced at $9.99 in paperback and $7.99 for the digital version.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Four Tricks for Dealing with The Unsightly Scars of Righteous Battle

Four Tricks for Dealing with The Unsightly Scars of Righteous Battle

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Arnold as Conan-smallIt occurred to me while writing about the benefits of chainmail bikinis that one of the major downfalls is the vast amount of exposed skin. Not for any morality or mortality reasons (although those do make for interesting points), but rather for the sheer amount of maintenance that would require. I’m not even talking about shaving and waxing. (We all agree that Conan *must* wax to pull off that oily muscled look, right?)

And let’s be realistic. Wow, the scars adventurers must have. I mean, I once had a tick removed from my tender tender belly flesh. That’s what you get for running in the woods fully clothed, so I flinch at the thought of running half-naked in the woods. You’d become a tick magnet.

Anyway, a 70-year old mostly blind doctor went at me with a scalpel to remove the tiny leg still stuck in my flesh and, I gotta tell you, that left a scar. Now that was one tiny, super sharp and badly wielded knife. So let’s pause and imagine how many scars inappropriately armored individuals must have.

This is more about the unsightly scars left behind by being thrust at with swords, spears, arrows, knives, mystical weapons, spells, and large pachyderms. Obviously there are ways of dealing with such minor scars, leaving visible only the major nod-to-backstory ones.

In my continued efforts to support sword and sorcery fashion adventurers, here’s an undoubtedly incomplete list of tricks to deal with scarring while wearing almost nothing.

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Writerly New Year’s Resolutions and How to Make Them Work: Part 1

Writerly New Year’s Resolutions and How to Make Them Work: Part 1

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Xmas Sword
No rocket pack from Santa, but I’m not complaining… 🙂

So here it is, AD2015. This being the 21st century, I hope you’re enjoying the belated rocket pack Santa finally brought you. (For some reason mine didn’t arrive and I got a sword instead.)

Judging from the way the local kids’ birthday parties usually fall between September  and November, January is a time when people try to start something new, or at least make a fresh start. This is why the Internet is full of New Year Resolutions made by aspiring writers.

You know the kind of thing: This year I’ll… focus more on my writing… finish my novel… be more disciplined… write 10K words a week…. etc etc.

From the vague to the painfully specific, they mostly boil down to either being more productive, or else setting things up so you can be more productive.

Take being more productive.

First can we quickly discard the obsession with word count?

Yes, rapid drafting is a good thing, but really aggregate word count is what counts — time spent planning and revising is also valuable — and what that aggregate count counts towards is finishing a novel. So if you must measure your productivity, then please make a proper project plan with milestones and monitor yourself against that.

Now let’s turn to the most common subtext of productivity resolutions: the sporting idea that productivity and motivation are two sides of the same coin. A good pep talk — Steven Pressfield provides just about the best of these — and with proper motivation, you can blast through resistance, Bum In Chair (“BIC”), silence your inner critic, and Bob’s your uncle. Productivity! Hurrah!

Been there, done that. Maybe it’s because I’m British, but I think that’s putting the cart of enthusiasm before the horse of capability…

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Amazing Stories, May 1964: A Retro-Review

Amazing Stories, May 1964: A Retro-Review

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Amazing Stories May 1964-smallHere we are fairly late in Cele Lalli’s tenure, an issue with an impressive set of names on the TOC, but mildly disappointing overall content. The cover is by Ed Emshwiller, illustrating Lester Del Rey’s “Boiling Point”. The interiors are by George Schelling and Virgil Finlay.

The editorial, from Norman Lobsenz as usual, discusses with some concern the possibility of manipulation of people’s genetic material… then adds two silly Benedict Breadfruitian puns on the subject of the proper pronunciation of Lobsenz (Lobe-sense, it seems).

Ben Bova contributes a science article called “Planetary Engineering”, about prospects for building a base on the Moon. (Future articles in the series will cover more extensive “planetary engineering”, including terraforming other planets in the Solar System.)

Robert Silverberg’s book review column, The Spectroscope, covers Philip K. Dick’s The Game Players of Titan (which he judges as decent, but a disappointment relative to the best of Dick’s work), Doc Smith’s Skylark 3 (regarded by Silverberg as rather bad, though Doc is praised on personal grounds), and John Campbell’s anthology Analog 2 (he considers it very uneven, with one excellent story, a couple decent ones, and some weaker stuff). I will add that I agree with Mr. Silverberg on all points.

The stories, then.

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