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Month: February 2016

In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Eleven

In the Wake Of Sister Blue: Chapter Eleven

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In The Wake of Sister Blue Mark Rigney-medium

Linked below, you’ll find the eleventh installment of a brand-new serialized novel, In the Wake Of Sister Blue. These pages keep the focus on Maer, with plenty of violence and unexpected encounters to leaven the story-telling. Chapter Twelve will follow in two weeks’ time, so stay tuned –– and for those who fear I’m writing a doorstop, be reassured. This will be Book One of a pair (but no, not an ongoing, endless cycle) and the Great Divide between the two is rapidly approaching.

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 (or perhaps my unexpectedly popular D&D-related post, “Youth In a Box,”) I think you’ll also find much to like in this latest venture. Oh, and if you’re only now discovering this portal, may I suggest you begin at the beginning? The Spur awaits…

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

Read the eleventh and latest installment of In the Wake Of Sister Blue here.

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Future Treasures: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

Future Treasures: The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

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The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories-smallKen Liu has been one of the breakout fantasy stars this decade. His first novel, The Grace of Kings, was nominated for a Nebula Award last week, and Amal El-Mohtar called it “a magnificent fantasy epic.” As a translator he’s brought some of the most important Chinese-language SF to America, including last year’s Hugo winner, The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu.

But much of Ken Liu’s reputation was built on a stellar series of short stories published in places like Clarkesworld, F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog, Strange Horizons, and Lightspeed. He’s received virtually every award our field has to offer for his short fiction, including the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards — and he was the first person ever to win all three awards for a single story, “The Paper Menagerie,” originally published in the March-April 2011 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (read the complete story at io9).

Next month Saga Press will publish Ken’s first short story collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, collecting all of his award-winning and nominated fiction, including “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” (Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards), “Mono No Aware” (Hugo Award winner), “The Waves” (Nebula Award finalist), “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” (Nebula and Sturgeon award finalists), “All the Flavors” (Nebula award finalist), “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” (Nebula Award finalist), and the title story, “The Paper Menagerie.”

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories also includes a brand-new story exclusive to this volume, “An Advanced Reader’s Picture Book of Comparative Cognition.”

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Retro Reviews: Amazing Science Fiction, June 1960 and July 1960

Retro Reviews: Amazing Science Fiction, June 1960 and July 1960

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Amazing Science Fiction June 1960-small Amazing Science Fiction July 1960-small

Two more issues from 1960, which more and more seems to me to be the year Cele Goldsmith really began to hit her stride. I’m covering these two because they contain both parts of a serial, James Blish’s …And All the Stars a Stage.

The June cover is by Leo Summers, illustrating Robert Bloch’s “The Bald-Headed Mirage.” Interiors are by Finlay and Varga. For July the cover is by Harrel Gray, not illustrating any story. Interiors are by Finlay, Varga, and Grayam.

Norman Lobsenz’ June editorial is about death rays, and sterilization schemes. The book review column, The Spectroscope, by S. E. Cotts, covers Chad Oliver’s Unearthly Neighbors and John Brunner’s Slavers of Space, both favorably. The letter column features Mike Deckinger; B. Joseph Fekete, Jr.; Paul Shingleton, Jr.; Paul Zimmer, Scott Neilson; Bob Adolfsen, N. C., Lenny Kaye; and A. D. Scofield. The only names I recognized were Zimmer (Marion Zimmer Bradley’s brother) and Kaye, whose letter is his first, wherein he calls himself “the loneliest fan in the state of New Jersey.” Kaye’s second letter appeared the next issue … I’ll discuss him in the next paragraph. Mike Deckinger was also a pretty prominent fan, and folks who were around back them remembered Fekete and Shingleton as well.

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Check out the For a Few Gold Pieces More Kickstarter

Check out the For a Few Gold Pieces More Kickstarter

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For a Few Gold Pieces More-small

Q: Would you introduce yourself?

A: Hi, I’m Richard C. White, a science fiction/fantasy author and occasional blog contributor here at Black Gate. I’m also the sponsor of the For a Few Gold Pieces More Kickstarter. Along with my writing, I’m a member of the Writer Beware committee for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

What is this project about?

For a Few Gold Pieces More is a collection of ten short stories I originally did for an e-publisher a few years ago. After having the rights to these stories returned, I decided it was time to release them as a collection, both e-book and in print. It’s tough to promote an e-only series at conventions, because as soon as you get people interested, they want the book now — not when they go home and try to remember what the book was or who wrote it.

The idea for the stories was to take folktales, fairy tales, and legends and given them a decidedly dark twist. And speaking of dark twists, my protagonist isn’t exactly a hero, but he’s not as hard and cynical as he like to think he is. Suffice to say he does what it takes to get the job done.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Pair of Holmeses Named Alan

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: A Pair of Holmeses Named Alan

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Napier_Napier2In 1937, Holmes made his first appearance on American television in The National Broadcasting Corps’ rendition of The Three Garridebs, starring Louis Hector. Regular television service from NBC hadn’t even begun yet when this test show was transmitted and it’s likely few people saw it. Sadly, I’m only aware of one picture taken from a television screen, though I believe someone in the industry once told me there are other stills in the archives. There’s certainly no belief an actual recording of the broadcast exists!

In 1949, CBS aired a series of 30-minute literary adaptations in the Your Show Time program. The tenth episode was The Speckled Band, starring Alan Napier as Holmes. Napier was certainly a stuffy, stiff detective, with a bit of Raymond Massey (Holmes in a 1931 film of the same story) and Leonard Nimoy in his look.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Skeleton Matters (Or, Why It’s Not OK to Skip Scenes in Your Third Act)

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Skeleton Matters (Or, Why It’s Not OK to Skip Scenes in Your Third Act)

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Seriously, [novelist’s name redacted],

I get that you were writing a romance with a post-apocalyptic setting and plot, and not a post-apocalyptic novel with romantic elements. I get that the pacing and structure is significantly different between those two categories.

gas mask lovers-small

BUT, I don’t care which one you’re writing: you don’t get to leave out the middle of the third act! It would only have been a couple scenes; they could have been done in as little as 4 or 5 pages (though 8-10 would have been better), but they were important scenes. You can’t just toss the events off in a couple of graphs of narrative summary in the scene you jump to.

You had built that villain into a bad mo-fo: you can’t cheat us out of the meat of their encounter!

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New Treasures: Dragon Hunters by Marc Turner

New Treasures: Dragon Hunters by Marc Turner

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Dragon Hunters Marc Turner-smallIn his December article for Black Gate, Marc Turner described his first novel thusly:

My epic fantasy debut, When the Heavens Fall, came out in May this year, and it can best be summed up as The Lord of the Rings meets World War Z. It’s not a zombie apocalypse novel, but that’s going to come as scant consolation to the characters who find themselves having to wade through an army of undead.

Sounds plenty intriguing to me. The second book in the series, Dragon Hunters, has been much anticipated in these parts, and it finally arrived earlier this month. Here’s the description.

Once a year on Dragon Day the fabled Dragon Gate is raised to let a sea dragon pass from the Southern Wastes into the Sabian Sea. There, it will be hunted by the Storm Lords, a fellowship of powerful water-mages who rule an empire called the Storm Isles. Alas, this year someone forgot to tell the dragon which is the hunter and which the hunted.

Emira Imerle Polivar is coming to the end of her tenure as leader of the Storm Lords. She has no intention of standing down graciously. She instructs an order of priests called the Chameleons to infiltrate a citadel housing the mechanism that controls the Dragon Gate to prevent the gate from being lowered after it has been raised on Dragon Day. Imerle hopes the dozens of dragons thus unleashed on the Sabian Sea will eliminate her rivals while she launches an attack on the Storm Lord capital, Olaire, to secure her grip on power.

But Imerle is not the only one intent on destroying the Storm Lord dynasty. As the Storm Lords assemble in Olaire in answer to a mysterious summons, they become the targets of assassins working for an unknown enemy. When Imerle initiates her coup, that enemy makes use of the chaos created to show its hand.

Dragon Hunters is the second novel in The Chronicle of the Exile; we covered the first volume here. It was published by Tor Books on February 9, 2016. It is 493 pages, priced at $29.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Greg Manchess.

Superhero TV: Exploring the Dark Mysteries of Gotham

Superhero TV: Exploring the Dark Mysteries of Gotham

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Gotham TV show-small

We seem to be in a new Golden Age of superhero television. It’s been so long that I can’t even remember the last one…. the early 80s, maybe, when Bill Bixby and William Katt (as The Incredible Hulk and The Greatest American Hero, respectively) dominated airwaves? Could be, but record-keeping was scattered in that long-ago time, and no one alive today remembers that far back.

But there’s ample evidence we’re in a new Golden Age. It’s a pretty simple yardstick, really. If you can count the number of really great superhero TV shows on more than two fingers, it’s probably a Golden Age (again, no one is exactly certain, because we’re not sure it’s ever happened before). These days, it’s hard to shake a stick at all the big-budget, highly acclaimed superhero drama on the small screen. There’s the brilliant Daredevil and Jessica Jones, both on Netflix, which have elevated adult action shows to high art. There’s Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow and Joss Whedon’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which started slow but became must-watch-television by the second season.

Derek Kunsken and Marie Bilodeau kicked off Black Gate‘s survey of our favorite Superhero TV shows last week; Derek opened with a look at ABC’s Supergirl, and Marie followed with The CW’s The Flash. But for my money, the most successful superhero TV show on the airwaves at the moment doesn’t even have any superheroes in it: Fox’s marvelous exploration of the greatest city in comics, Gotham.

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The Dark Issue 11 Now on Sale

The Dark Issue 11 Now on Sale

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The Dark February 2016-smallThe Dark is a quarterly magazine co-edited by Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace. The 11th issue features four all-original short stories by Michael Wehunt, Amber van Dyk, Gregory Norman Bossert, and Kristi DeMeester.

“Birds of Lancaster, Lairamore, Lovejoy” by Michael Wehunt
“And the Woods Are Silenty” by Amber van Dyk
“Between Dry Ribs” by Gregory Norman Bossert
“All The World When It Is Thin” by Kristi DeMeester

You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by subscribing to the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets. A one-year sub (six issues) is just $15 – subscribe today.

If you enjoy the magazine you can also support it by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments. Read issue 11 here, and see their complete back issue catalog here.

The cover for the February issue is by Quebec artist Daniel Bérard.

The issue is cover dated February 2016. We last covered The Dark with Issue 10.

See our February Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

Future Treasures: Guile by Constance Cooper

Future Treasures: Guile by Constance Cooper

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Guile Constance Cooper-small Guile Constance Cooper back-small
Art for "The Wily Thing" by Michael Vilardi (BG 12)
Art for “The Wily Thing” by Michael Vilardi (BG 12)

I frequently get excited by upcoming fantasy novels. But I rarely get as excited as I am by Guile, the debut fantasy novel from Constance Cooper, to be released next month by Clarion Books. Here’s Constance, from her blog:

Guile started with a short story called “The Wily Thing” which was published in Black Gate magazine in 2008. It was well received…

It was indeed. Here’s Lois Tilton at The Internet Review of Science Fiction:

Yonie and her cat LaRue make a meager living as Seers in one of the cheaper districts of Wicked Ford. Actually LaRue is the Seer, having been nearly drowned as a kitten. It is prolonged contact with the waters that make an object or a person guileful. Now a fisherman has brought Yonie an object, a ship’s gong taken from a wrecked vessel, that has some very dangerous wiles, but the fisherman has disappeared before she can warn him about it — and be paid.

An absolute delight. The setting is fascinating and original, every detail crafted in prose with real charm… RECOMMENDED.

“The Wily Thing” originally appeared in Black Gate 12, and it’s one of my favorite stories from that era of the magazine. The novel tells a brand new tale of Yonie and her magically gifted cat LaRue, set in the treacherous waters of Wicked Ford.

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