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Month: August 2016

Check Out the Recent Fiction at Tor.com

Check Out the Recent Fiction at Tor.com

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La beauté sans vertu Genevieve Valentine-small Red as Blood and White as Bone Theodora Goss-small A Dead Djinn in Cairo P. Djeli Clark-small

Earlier this week I summarized the results of the annual Locus Awards vote for Best Magazine, as reported in the July issue of Locus magazine. I was very proud to see that Black Gate came in at #8 (out of 27 magazines). I was also surprised to see that Tor.com had placed #2 on the list, beating out magazines like Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, and Analog. Locus readers tend to favor the fiction magazines over media sites and online blogs…. but then again, Tor.com has gradually become one of the top sites on the internet for genre fiction.

Witness the month of May and early June at Tor.com, which featured brand new fiction from Genevieve Valentine, Brian Hodge, Nisi Shawl, and many others. There’s plenty here for adventure fantasy fans, including “Orphan Pirates of the Spanish Main” by Dennis Danvers, an SF tale featuring Stan and Ollie, orphans who receive a mysterious postcard from their father, who disappeared decades ago into the deadly Abyss in New Mexico; P. Djeli Clark’s “A Dead Djinn in Cairo,” in which Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi, in an alternate 1912 Egypt, faces rampaging ghouls, saucy assassins, and clockwork angels in the ancient ruins beneath Cairo; and Theodora Goss’s “Red as Blood and White as Bone,” a dark fantasy about a kitchen girl who lets a ragged woman into the castle during a raging storm, certain she is more than what she appears to be.

Links and brief descriptions for May-June fiction at Tor.com are below.

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New Treasures: Skyships Over Innsmouth by Susan Laine

New Treasures: Skyships Over Innsmouth by Susan Laine

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Skyships Over Innsmouth-small Skyships Over Innsmouth-back-small

Airships! Cataclysms! Lovecraft! Horrors beyond imagining! And airships! Really, you had me at airships and Lovecraft.

Susan Lane lives in Finland, and is primarily known as an author of Erotic Alternative Cowboy Romances with great titles, like Lone Wolf and His Cool Cat and Twist in the Saddle. She’s also written the 5-volume Lifting the Veil series of supernatural romances. Skyships Over Innsmouth seems to be her first foray into straight-ahead post-apocalyptic Lovecraftian steampunk… but then again, she seems to have essentially invented it, so she’s free to do it her way. Airships! Lovecraft! This woman has definitely cracked the code for literary cool, and my wallet is helpless before her. That awesome cover doesn’t hurt, either.

Skyships Over Innsmouth was published by DSP Publications on August 2, 2016. It is 200 pages, priced at $14.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The gorgeous cover is by Stef Masciandaro. Get more details (and read a sample chapter by hitting the “Show Excerpt” button) at the DSP website.

GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 1 – New Games

GenCon Update: Day 1, Part 1 – New Games

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Pikachu shows up at GenCon 2016
Pikachu shows up at GenCon 2016

The Best Four Days in Gaming has come to Indianapolis, and again I’ve made my way into the dragon’s den to seek out new and interesting games. The scope of GenCon has definitely expanded over the decade or so that I have been attending and covering it, largely swallowing up downtown Indianapolis. This year, the Lucas Oil Stadium used by the Indianapolis Pacers has become the newest participant, becoming home to the popular “True Dungeon” live dungeon crawl adventure (which, one of these years, I will actually participate in). Even the types of games have expanded. Though in the past, Pokemon has had an incredibly sparse presence at GenCon, two giant inflatable Pikachu’s dangling from the ceiling have indicated a change in that trend.

In addition to the convention expanding in size, the number of games has become truly dizzying. The game company iEllo, best known for their breakaway hit, the monster-ravages-city game King of Tokyo (and its sequel King of New York), hosted a party on Thursday evening that I was fortunate enough to be invited to, and I ended up sitting next to Eric Summerer of The Dice Tower podcast. He discussed just the sheer difficulty generated by the volume of games being produced, and how it affects not just individual game consumers, but also those of us who spend some portion of our time trying to make sense of which games to discuss. What is the best way to present information about quality games, when the general quality across the industry has become so high and there are so many publishers seeking to get the word out on their new products?

One overwhelming trend in the gaming industry is expansions and sequel games, and that’s going to be the focus of my “part 2” review. For now, I’m going to focus on brand new games, as I think they deserve a bit more attention. And by “new games” I mean brand new games. There are some fantastic new games in the Legendary series from Upper Deck, for example, but since they largely apply an existing game mechanic, I’m counting them among the sequels. Definitely watch for that.

Now, on to some of the new and upcoming games …

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How No Man’s Sky Has Reinvigorated a Gaming Generation (No, Not That One)

How No Man’s Sky Has Reinvigorated a Gaming Generation (No, Not That One)

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No Man's Sky-small

Let’s get something out of the way. Being just shy of entering my sixth decade, I am officially what I used to refer to as ‘an old fart.’ Not sure how this happened, but I’m dealing with it with world-weary humor and longer attempts to get up from the couch. This also means that I’m not quite the young buck any more when it comes to video games. My hand/eye coordination is no longer sharp enough to get Lara to that seemingly unreachable alcove in the Bolivian temple, my reflexes have dulled to the point where fifth place in any race is a win in my book, and being trash-talked by a twelve-year-old, killing me for the umpteenth time while I try to figure out where I am on the map, has lost its glamour.

I became aware of No Man’s Sky when a trailer emerged from E3 in 2014, which proved to be enough to win the game several awards based on promise alone. In that trailer we gazed through the eyes of a cosmic explorer as they emerged from a cave into bright orange sunlight and traversed a landscape so exotically hued that all it was missing was Doug McClure standing in the middle with one sleeve ripped off.

Then the explorer dodged a few skittish antelope-types and rounded a group of towering dinosaurs before hopping into a small craft and blasting off from the planet surface. Moments later (which included zero loading screens) the explorer was in space, joining in a skirmish and zooming down to a different planet to pick off a trio of interstellar ne’er-do-wells. The whole trailer was extremely impressive due to its seamless game play, but it was the aesthetic of the video clip that really captured my imagination. The color palette and fanciful forms were a breath of fresh air compared to the modern penchant for dark and gritty™ and that immediately had me reaching for the nostalgia goggles.

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Goth Chick News: Our New Netflix Obsession – Stranger Things

Goth Chick News: Our New Netflix Obsession – Stranger Things

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Stranger Things Poster-small

Having begun my career as a lifelong geek quite early, I have learned that if anyone but my closest friends tell me I’m going to love this (book, movie, game, music), I’m probably not going to.

Granted, my adult tastes have widened a bit, but to this day if you ask me to choose between watching a current episode of Grey’s Anatomy or How I Met Your Mother versus MST3K or Twilight Zone, the question is barely valid. This is why the morning coffee-machine-conversations at my “day job” never involve topics to which I pay much attention.

That is until last week, when I overheard a raving endorsement for the Netflix series Stranger Things.

As stated, I would normally have ignored what I heard were it not for the phrase, “…think of it as Goonies, meets Stand by Me, meet It.”

Okay, the speaker knows these three movies well enough to wrap them into a comparison? About one Netflix series?

Stranger Things merited a bit of investigating.

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Where Epic Fantasy, Uncanny SF, and the New Weird Collide: The Stars Askew by Rjurik Davidson

Where Epic Fantasy, Uncanny SF, and the New Weird Collide: The Stars Askew by Rjurik Davidson

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Unwrapped-Sky-smaller The Stars Askew-small

Rjurik Davidson’s Unwrapped Sky was one of the most intriguing works of weird fantasy of 2014. Scott Westerfield called it “An amazing debut… Rjurik Davidson works the sharp edges where epic fantasy, uncanny science fiction, and the New Weird collide.” One of the most fascinating things about it was the marvelously realized fantasy city of Caeli-Amur, home to men, minotaurs, and ancient magic. Hannu Rajaniemi said, “Rjurik has a brilliant, fecund imagination, and I absolutely love the setting… Caeli-Amur is one of the more memorable cities in recent fantasy.” The Stars Askew is the long-awaited sequel, on sale now from Tor Books.

With the seditionists in power, Caeli-Amur has begun a new age. Or has it? The escaped House officials no longer send food, and the city is starving. When the moderate leader Aceline is murdered, the trail leads Kata to a mysterious book that explains how to control the fabled Prism of Alerion. But when the last person to possess the book is found dead, it becomes clear that a conspiracy is afoot. At its center is former House Officiate Armand, who has hidden the Prism. Armand is vying for control of the Directorate, the highest political position in the city, until Armand is betrayed and sent to a prison camp to mine deadly bloodstone.

Meanwhile, Maximilian is sharing his mind with another being: the joker-god Aya. Aya leads Max to the realm of the Elo-Talern to seek a power source to remove Aya from Max’s brain. But when Max and Aya return, they find the vigilants destroying the last remnants of House power.

It seems the seditionists’ hopes for a new age of peace and prosperity in Caeli-Amur have come to naught, and every attempt to improve the situation makes it worse. The question now is not just whether Kata, Max, and Armand can do anything to stop the bloody battle in the city, but if they can escape with their lives.

Read an original story in the same setting, “Nighttime in Caeli-Amur,” published free at Tor.com.

The Stars Askew was published by Tor Books on July 12, 2016. It is 411 pages, priced at $25.9 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Allen Williams.

Future Treasures: The Gate of Sorrows by Miyuki Miyabe

Future Treasures: The Gate of Sorrows by Miyuki Miyabe

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The Gate of Sorrows Miyuki Miyabe-small The Gate of Sorrows Miyuki Miyabe-back-small

Miyuki Miyabe is a best-selling novelist in her native Japan. Her first fantasy novel Brave Story won the Batchelder Award for best children’s book in translation from the American Library Association in 2007; her second, The Book of Heroes, appeared in English translation in 2010. It was followed by Ico: Castle in the Mist (2010), inspired by the classic Playstation game Ico.

The Gate of Sorrows is  a departure from her previous work — and yet strongly linked to it. It’s an adult novel, set in the same universe as her children’s book The Book of Heroes. It goes on sale in hardcover in two weeks. Here’s the description.

A series of murders shocks Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward, but Shigenori, a retired police detective, is instead obsessed with a gargoyle that seems to move. College freshman Kotaro launches a web-based investigation of the killer, and comes to find that answers may lie within an abandoned building in the center of Japan’s busiest neighborhood, and beyond the Gate of Sorrows. In this adult sequel to Miyabe’s The Book of Heroes, you will meet monsters from other worlds and ordinary horrors that surpass even supernatural threats.

The Gate of Sorrows will be published by Haikasoru on August 16, 2016. It is 600 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital version. It is translated by Jim Hubbert. Click the images above for bigger versions.

Beau Geste: Myth vs. Reality

Beau Geste: Myth vs. Reality

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Beau_Geste_novelOn my last trip to Tangier I purchased a 1925 edition of Beau Geste, one of those classic novels that I’ve always intended on reading but never had. It’s a swashbuckling tale of three brothers who join the French Foreign Legion a few years before the start of the First World War.

The novel opens with a mystery. Mild spoilers follow. A French officer in the Legion leads his troops to an isolated fort, responding to a call for help. Once there, he finds all the legionnaires dead inside, apparently shot by the warlike Tuareg. The commanding officer, however, has a French bayonet sticking out of his chest and the private beside him, although shot, has been carefully laid out with his hands across his chest. The private’s hat rests nearby, torn open. In the hands of the dead officer is a mysterious letter in English that contains a confession. . .

From that tantalizing beginning we cut to England, where three rich brothers have to flee home and end up in the French Foreign Legion. Add a cruel officer, hordes of Tuaregs, and some boon companions and you have the recipe for adventure. Author P.C. Wren writes in a breezy, wry style halfway between pulp pulse pounders and more highbrow literature. The style never feels dated although Wren’s worldview certainly does. There’s a definite hierarchy in this book, with the aristocratic Englishmen firmly at the top, the various Europeans and Americans they meet ranged further down depending on their social class, and the Arabs and Tuaregs right at the bottom. Women hardly figure in this book at all which, considering how agonizingly maudlin the one love scene comes off, is probably for the best.

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Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Two

Blogging Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu, Part Two

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MOKF19Master of Kung Fu #19 was the final issue scripted by Shang-Chi’s creator, Steve Englehart. While the idea of a guest appearance from Marvel’s swamp creature, Man-Thing was an offbeat idea, the issue is more notable for the influence of the television series, Kung Fu. This influence is felt strongest in the philosophical discourse on pacifism conducted throughout the issue by Shang-Chi and his fellow Chinese visitor to  the Everglades, Lu Sun (a character clearly based on Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu). Shang-Chi admires the pacifist philosophy but the unremitting pursuit of a pair of Si-Fan assassins, (an Asian and Arab double act known as Jekin and Dahar) make it impossible to put it into practice.

Shang-Chi’s memories are colored by the realization of his father’s immorality. The childhood flashback (a familiar conceit from the Kung Fu television series) employed here serves to underscore the point that as the pieces of the puzzle come together for Shang-Chi, he is left more fragmented than before. This conundrum is one that Steve Englehart was leaving for future issues to build upon.

An intriguing sub-plot sees Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Black Jack Tarr launch an assault on Fu Manchu’s convoy of trucks as he abandons Florida following Shang-Chi’s successful sabotage of his operations in the preceding issue. While the casualties on the side of the Si-Fan are heavy, the mastermind makes his escape in the Everglades leaving Sir Denis facing another hollow victory. The Man-Thing is almost superfluous to the plot, but his position as an unwitting pawn in others’ games mirrors Shang-Chi’s own place as a man who strives for peace on a battleground.

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Forbes on the World’s Highest-Paid Authors in 2016

Forbes on the World’s Highest-Paid Authors in 2016

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Along Came a Spider James Patterson-smallForbes magazine is out with its annual round-up of top-paid authors. There aren’t a lot of surprises — but they also estimate the earnings for each writer on the list, and there are some eye-popping numbers. Here’s the top names on the list, as compiled by Natalie Robehmed:

  1. James Patterson – $95 million
  2. Jeff Kinney – $19.5 million
  3. JK Rowling – $19 million
  4. John Grisham – $18 million
  5. Stephen King – $15 million
  6. Danielle Steel – $15 million
  7. Nora Roberts – $15 million
  8. EL James – $14 million
  9. Veronica Roth – $10 million
  10. John Green – $10 million
  11. Paula Hawkins – $10 million
  12. George RR Martin – $9.5 million
  13. Rick Riordan – $9.5 million
  14. Dan Brown – $9.5 million

Robehmed also notes which authors dropped off the list this year… and who may be on their way out:

Newly off the list are Gone Girl‘s Gillian Flynn, The Hunger Games‘ Suzanne Collins and mystery novelist Janet Evanovich, who all saw sales of their catalogs take a dive.

Even George R. R. Martin may be on his way out: HBO has confirmed its Game of Thrones series will conclude after next season. Martin has already spent a half-decade writing the hotly anticipated sixth installment of A Song of Ice and Fire and without a new book, his earnings may falter next year.

See the complete article here.