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Month: February 2017

Andrew Liptak on 33 SF and Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2017

Andrew Liptak on 33 SF and Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2017

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The Collapsing Empire John Scalzi-small Luna Wolf Moon-small The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Theodora Goss-small

I don’t know about you, but given the choice between reading the best books of 2017 and the ones everyone’s talking about…. I think I’d go with the latter. Because books that aren’t talked about are soon forgotten, and forgotten books are irrelevant books. And who wants to waste their time on irrelevant books?

Fortunately, we’re here to talk about the 2017 books that are already generating a lot of buzz. Today’s arbiter of excellence is Andrew Liptak who, in an article for The Verge, has compiled a list of 33 SF & fantasy titles that will dominate the conversation over the next year. His list includes novels by Mur Lafferty, Nnedi Okorafor, Kameron Hurley, Chuck Wendig, V. E. Schwab, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ada Palmer, Allen Steele, Timothy Zahn, Cory Doctorow, Brian Staveley, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robin Hobb, Yoon Ha Lee, Max Gladstone, Peter V. Brett, N.K. Jemisin, Ann Leckie, and many others.

Here’s a look at some of the most interesting titles on Andrew’s list, starting with The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi.

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What Black Sabbath Can Teach Us About Writing

What Black Sabbath Can Teach Us About Writing

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Sabs

The world got some sad news last week — Black Sabbath just played their last concert.

OK, that’s small potatoes compared with all the other crap going on, but it was the end of an era. I bet I’m not alone among Black Gate readers and writers in being a Black Sabbath fan. Unfortunately I never got to see them in concert and now I never will.

They did teach me a lot about writing, though. As an author I get tips and inspiration from lots of different sources, not just other writers. Sure, I have a fondness for the great prolific authors and the literary giants, but I often learn more from the greats in different arts. Perhaps that’s because there’s a certain distance that allows you to see what they do more clearly. With other writers I tend to spend a lot of time looking at the nuts and bolts of their work, while with musicians and painters that’s not the case. I know very little about playing the guitar, and nothing about painting a landscape, so I focus more on the philosophy behind the work rather than the techniques of the work itself.

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January/February Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

January/February Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Now on Sale

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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction January February 2017-smallSteve Fahnestalk has been adding magazines to his review column at Amazing Stories, which I greatly appreciate. He’s an astute reader and a fine writer, and he has a talent for piquing your interest without giving away too much of the tale. Here he is on the sole novella in the January/February issue of F&SF.

In “Homecoming,” Rachel Pollack brings us her fourth, and longest, Jack Shade story in F&SF — the previous ones were published in 2012, 2013 and 2015. Jack Shade is a private investigator, occultist, and shaman; I can’t remember having read one before. When Jack gives his business card to someone and they return it with a request for help, Jack is bound to help them, through what he calls a “Guest,” but which sounds like a geas to me. A woman, Carole Acker, comes to Jack to tell him she feels as if part of her soul is missing, and she wants to hire him to help her. Because of the “Guest,” Jack is compelled to acquiesce, and begins tracing the missing part. Several times during the quest, Jack is told by those he encounters that he must stop; that he doesn’t know what he’s doing — but because of the Guest, he has to continue, and eventually brings Carole the missing part. It is then revealed that he shouldn’t have done that… the nay-sayers were right. Jack has three days to undo what he has done, or something extremely bad will happen. Pollack has created a world behind a world; in a New York that sounds just like our New York, there are shamans, night creatures and gangsters of this world and that one. Without being anything like Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden series, this reminds me of that type of fiction. I enjoyed it. Rating: a solid ¤¤¤ plus.

Read Steve’s complete review of the issue (and The CW series Riverdale) here.

The cover of the January/February issue is by Charles Vess, illustrating Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s story, “Vinegar and Cinnamon.” Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Modular: Dungeon Delving Tips – Part I

Modular: Dungeon Delving Tips – Part I

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Delving_partyI’m a big fan of Creighton Broadhurst and his Raging Swan Press. Along with Frog God Games, they make my favorite Pathfinder stuff. And Creighton’s blog is full of great ponderings for players, GMs and even game designers.

He often comes up with some neat lists on wide-ranging topics. One that I liked was his ‘25 Dungeon Delving Tips.’ We’re going to look at the first dozen this week, with the remainder coming in a follow-up post.

Each tip, along with some of Creighton’s commentary, is italicized (as is his brief intro below). My own comments follow underneath in plain text. So, have at it!

25 Dungeon Delving Tips (Part One)

Dungeon delving is a jolly dangerous business. Some adventurers are lucky. Others are stupid while many are unprepared. Thus, the bones of countless adventurers lie mouldering far from the warmth of the sun. 

With that in mind, and in no particular order, here are… tips to make your dungeon delving just a little bit safer.

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Modular: How to Defeat an Ancient Red Dragon in D&D with a Low-Level Party

Modular: How to Defeat an Ancient Red Dragon in D&D with a Low-Level Party

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Red_DragonYou’ve got a huge ancient red dragon that has flipped out. It’s on the rampage. You must stop it or the devastation will be severe and widespread. You have a couple dozen volunteers willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save hundreds or even thousands, but to what avail? What the hell can you do to defeat an ancient red dragon?

Actually, there is a way, even with low-level warriors. But it’ll take some coordination and three necessary components:

  1. You need quite a few volunteers, both the ones who will be in front-line battle and others willing to distract and pre-occupy the dragon (probably by being slaughtered indiscriminately).

  1. You need a new or modified spell. I don’t know if there is already a spell that specifically does something like what I’m about to describe floating around out there in one of the dozens of supplements, but it doesn’t seem like a big leap to make it work in the D&D schools of magic (probably wouldn’t rate more powerful than a fourth or fifth level spell tops). This spell is cast on an item and creates a delayed teleportation effect. Should the owner of that item ever die, the item will immediately pass into the hands of another person (determined at the time of the spell casting).

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New Treasures: Department Zero by Paul Crilley

New Treasures: Department Zero by Paul Crilley

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Department Zero Paul Crilley-small Department Zero Paul Crilley-back-small

I don’t know much about this Paul Crilley fellow. He’s a South African writer who’s written a previous series for Pyr, the steampunk Tweed & Nightingale Adventures, a Daredevil prose novel, several YA titles, and much of the Bioware game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

His newest novel, Department Zero, is a beast of a different stripe, however. It’s the tale of a single dad who works cleaning up crime scenes… and who accidentally stumbles upon universe-hopping gates that connect a hidden multiverse of alternate realities. There he meets Havelock Graves, the top cop in the Interstitial Crime Department…. and discovers that a sinister cult is planning nothing less than to awaken Cthulhu from his slumber in the Dreamlands. (That’s another thing Harry discovers: “Everything H.P. Lovecraft wrote is true, Like, everything.”)

As you can probably tell, the book is not entirely serious. Publishers Weekly says it’s “Fast-paced and fun… The humor is on point… Lovecraft fans might have a lot of fun with this one.” Yeah, I bet I might. Department Zero was published by Pyr on January 24, 2017. It is 301 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cool cover art is by Patrick Arrasmith. Click the images above for bigger versions.

Check Out the Tangent Online 2016 Recommended Reading List

Check Out the Tangent Online 2016 Recommended Reading List

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Analog March 2016-small Black Static 55-small Compelling Science Fiction 3-small

We’re approaching awards season, which means that there will be more and more Recommended Reading lists out there for novels, anthologies, collections, genre non-fiction, and much more. But for my money, the most useful list in the genre is the annual Tangent Online Recommended Reading List.

What’s makes Tangent‘s list so special? For one thing, it’s massive — 19 reviewers contributed to it, combing dozens and dozens of magazines and original anthologies to produce a comprehensive list of the top short stories, novelettes, and novellas of the year. And Tangent‘s editor, the tireless Dave Truesdale, has organized the list into one, two, and three star selections, and copiously illustrated the list with magazine and book covers — with live links to publishing websites. It’s a really terrific resource for anyone interested in learning what’s going on in short fiction markets, and I guarantee you’ll make some new discoveries. I cover over 40 magazines every month for Black Gate, and I still managed to find a few new ones. Thanks Tangent!

Here’s a handy set of links to all of their recent lists, including this year’s:

Tangent Online 2016 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2015 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2014 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2013 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2012 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2011 Recommended Reading List
Tangent Online 2010 Recommended Reading List

A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison

A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison

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oie_701145jxuo14zKNine years, another novel, and ten short stories after the publication of The Pastel City (read last week’s piece on that here), M. John Harrison returned to the world of the city of Viriconium in A Storm of Wings (1980). Its title taken from a line in the previous book, A Storm of Wings largely recycles the plot of the that novel as well. Once again, alien forces are threatening the city of Virconium and only a ragtag band of heroes has a chance of staving off destruction. Other than setting and basic similarity of narratives, this second novel in the series exists on a whole different plane of storytelling, both in style and intent.

A new religion has risen up in and around the city of Viriconium, the Brotherhood of the Locust. Its origins are a mystery and its teachings appear to have arrived from beyond mortal thoughts.

Who knows exactly where it began, or how? For as much as a century (or as little as a decade: estimates vary) before it made its appearance on the streets, a small group or cabal somehwere in the city had propagated its fundamental tenet — that the appearance of “reality” is quite false, a counterfeit or artefact of the human senses.

This creed stands at the nucleus of A Storm of Wings, both the story on the page, and at what Harrison has to say about fiction. As the “world” of Viriconium comes under attack from a force that twists and alters its “reality,” we are, page by page, reminded any stability the “land” has comes from its creator and can be wiped away with a tap of the backspace key.

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Lawrence Ellsworth’s New Translation of Dumas’ The Red Sphinx

Lawrence Ellsworth’s New Translation of Dumas’ The Red Sphinx

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Dumas The Red Sphinx

Lawrence Ellsworth (known to gaming fans as Lawrence Schick, creator of White Plume Mountain, and the lead writer for The Elder Scrolls Online), has written many popular articles for Black Gate over the years, including one of our top posts of 2015, “The “Known World” D&D Setting: A Secret History,” and more recently his fabulous Silent Screen Swashbucklers series.

In addition to his renowned gaming work, Lawrence is also a popular author and translator in his own right. His most recent release is a brand new translation of a nearly forgotten novel by the great Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. (That’s Lawrence above, showing off both his new book and his dashing wardrobe.)

The Red Sphinx, a sequel to The Three Musketeers that picks up where that book ended, is a massive 837-page tome that Michael Dirda calls “As fresh as ever… excellent, compulsively readable” in the Washington Post. It was published in hardcover by Pegasus Books on January 3.

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Lock ‘n Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy

Lock ‘n Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy

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Heroes of Normandy-smallLock ‘n Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy was one of my favorite purchases last year. I loved it so much that I made sure it was something I played on my birthday (my son enjoyed it too).

I’ve held off reviewing the game, though, because shortly after it arrived on my doorstep last year it went out of print. With a reprint due at the end of the first quarter of 2017, likely in March, and because those who place pre-orders receive a substantial discount, I thought it high time to alert Black Gate readers to the game, and the entire Lock ‘n Load Tactical series. (If this little intro is enough to convince you the game’s worth a look, feel free to skip all my prose and drop right down to the end where there’s a link to order a demo copy of the game.)

Overview

Lock ‘n Load Tactical is a revision and representation of Mark Walker’s excellent Lock ‘n Load system. The new publisher has clarified, re-organized, and revised the rules, printed them in full color with additional examples, and eliminated the need for purchases of unrelated games to play certain settings. For example, you might once have needed to own several modules before you could play some of the Lock ‘n Load World War II games. That’s no longer necessary — Lock n’ Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy is complete unto itself.

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