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Month: May 2017

Future Treasures: Nebula Awards Showcase 2017, edited by Julie E. Czerneda

Future Treasures: Nebula Awards Showcase 2017, edited by Julie E. Czerneda

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Nebula Awards Showcase 2017-small Nebula Awards Showcase 2017-back-small

I attended the Nebula Awards ceremony here in Chicago last year, where Black Gate bloggers C.S.E. Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar were both nominated for awards, and got to see the gorgeous Nebula trophies (surely one of the most beautiful awards in the business) given out in person. So you can understand that I’ve been looking forward to Nebula Award Showcase 2017, which collects all of the winning stories — including “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong (Best Short Story), “Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker (Best Novelette), and Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (Best Novella) — as well as excerpts from all the nominees for Best Novel (including the winner, Naomi Novk’s Uprooted) and all the nominees for Best Short Story.

Believe it or not, the Nebula Awards have been given out by SFWA for 50 years, and this is the 50th anthology collecting the winners and runners-up. That’s a lot of great fiction packed into a highly collectible series of hardcover and paperback volumes (that’s a subtle tip for you collectors.) Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 will be published by Pyr on May 16, 2017. It is 336 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition — a bargain, considering it includes Binti (priced at $9.99 all on its own) in its entirety. The cover is by Maurizio Manzieri.

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Spacial Delivery by Gordon R. Dickson

Spacial Delivery by Gordon R. Dickson

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oie_84350M5i9fCBeSpacial Delivery (1961), a slight and slender book, is a relic of a past age when not every new book by an author had to be some sort of masterpiece. The same year this book came out, Dickson published two other novels and ten short stories. Over the course of fifty years of published writing, he wrote 55 novels and nearly 200 short stories. I can’t say for sure, but that sort of volume seems to have given him the freedom to write whatever sort of stories he wanted, whether high-concept space opera like his Childe Cycle, pulp fare like Hour of the Horde, comic stories like his Hoka collaborations with Poul Anderson, or middle-of-the-road standalones like this book.

When my friend Carl tossed me this back in the early eighties, he told me it was a comedy. I trusted him and gave it a read. It was funny, not in the laugh-out-loud style of the Hoka stories (which if you haven’t read, are about teddy bear-like aliens who have trouble distinguishing fact from fiction, and act out human stories, including Sherlock Holmes and The Jungle Book), but good for a chuckle or two. On rereading, the humor’s a little thin, but it’s a decent enough way to spend a couple of hours.

Out in a crucial sector of space between regions of human and Hemnoid hegemony, lies Dilbia, a planet of high mountains and deep forests. The Dilbians have a rugged, frontier-style civilization, with people living in small towns or with their clans in forests. The Dilbians themselves, well, the cover gives it away. They sort of look like bears — very big bears.

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Modular: Black Gate Exclusive – Two New Starfinder Starships

Modular: Black Gate Exclusive – Two New Starfinder Starships

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I’ve been looking forward to seeing what Paizo ends up putting together for their upcoming space fantasy game, Starfinder RPG, blending the worlds of science and magic to create a cosmic-scale adventure setting and game system. I’ve spoken with Starfinder Creative Director James L. Sutter a couple of times (available here and here) about the project, and his sincere enthusiasm for the project is certainly contagious.

Black Gate has been fortunate enough to acquire information on two new starships that will be available for the Starfinder RPG. Pay close attention… many space goblins died to bring you this information …

Atech Immortal Starfinder

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The May Fantasy Magazine Rack

The May Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Apex-Magazine-April-2017-rack Broadswords-and-Blasters-1-rack Grimdark Magazine April 2017-rack Skelos-2-rack
Adventure-House-Thrilling-Wonder-rack Lightspeed-April-2017-rack Sword & Sorcery Magazine April 2017 Uncanny-magazine-March-April-2017-rack

Anyone who says the online genre short fiction market isn’t thriving isn’t paying attention. We track 47 different fantasy magazines here at Black Gate, and one or two new ones pop up every quarter. This month the newcomer is Broadswords and Blasters, a modern pulp magazine edited by Matthew X. Gomez and Cameron Mount, with a issue that includes stories by BG alums Nick Ozment and Josh Reynolds. For pulp fans we have some special treats — including a look at the Adventure House Pulp Reprints (such as Thrilling Wonder and Startling Stories), and Rich Horton’s review of Jack Williamson’s The Reign of Wizardry, which first appeared in the March 1940 issue of Unknown.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our April Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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New Treasures: Deadmen Walking by Sherrilyn Kenyon

New Treasures: Deadmen Walking by Sherrilyn Kenyon

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Deadmen Walking-smallThis looks like fun… a novel of curses, demons, pirates, and a sentient ship on the Spanish Main from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Dark-Hunter novels. Of course, it had me at pirates and curses, but the rest of it sounds pretty good too. It arrives in hardcover from Tor tomorrow, and is the opening volume of a promised series.

Hell hath no fury as a demon caged…

To catch evil, takes evil.

Enter Devyl Bane — an ancient warlord who has absolutely no love of humanity. Yet to return to the human realm as one of the most notorious pirates in the Spanish Main for the sake of vengeance, he makes a bitter bargain with Thorn — an immortal Hellchaser charged with battling the worst monsters the ancient gods ever released into our world. Monsters and demons Bane himself once commanded against Thorn and the humans.

For eons, those demons have been locked behind enchanted gates… which are starting to buckle. Now, Bane, with a vicious crew of Deadmen at his command, is humanity’s last hope to restore the gates and return the damned to their eternal prisons.

But things are never so simple. And one of his biggest vexations, aside from keeping his crew from killing each other before they have a chance to save humanity, is the very ship he sails upon. For Mara, the Sea Witch isn’t just a vessel, she’s also a woman born of an ancient race Bane helped to destroy. And sister to the possessed creature who is one of the worst of those trying to break through to claim his soul, and retake the world.

Mara’s innate hatred of him makes the very fires of hell look like a sauna — not that he blames her. Centuries of war and betrayal divide them. But if Mara can’t find the humanity inside the Devyl and the Devyl can’t teach Mara to embrace her darker side for the good of their crew and the world, the two of them will go down in flames and take us all with them.

Deadmen Walking will be published by Tor Books on May 9, 2017. It is 384 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Stephen Youll.

Support the Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume II Kickstarter!

Support the Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume II Kickstarter!

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Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Volume 2

In his review of Volume One of The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Fletcher Vredenburgh wrote:

Regular readers of my monthly short story roundup know how great I think Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is, ranking it the most consistent forum for the best in contemporary swords & sorcery. Some may think I’m laying it on a little thick, but The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly: Volume 1, 2009-2011, a distillation of the mag’s first three years, should prove that I’m not.

It’s too late to get in on the ground floor and support the creation of Volume One — but you can help support the publishers and editors of HFQ in their noble effort to produce a second volume. I asked editor Adrian Simmons to give us the scoop, and here’s what he told me.

At Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, we swore we wouldn’t be one of those sites constantly begging you for change. But we’ve swallowed our pirde (one bite at a time, which is why it has taken so damn long) and come to you, our readers and fans, for support so we can get our best-of anthologies moving again.

If you only support Kickstarters that are clear winners, you’re in luck — as of early Monday morning, the campaign has already surpassed $700 on a $500 goal, with roughly seven weeks to go. Check it out here.

Self-published Book Review: The Seventh Colour by Will Davidson

Self-published Book Review: The Seventh Colour by Will Davidson

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Seventh_ColourI’m still running behind on book reviews, but I’ve started to receive submissions again. Please keep them coming–see the instructions here.

The Seventh Colour by Will Davidson is the tale of a society in stagnation. A thousand years ago, the elves departed, and the dwarves’ slow decline led to their eventual extinction, leaving the humans alone in the world. But magic faded with the elves, and the humans were never able to match the dwarves’ technical ingenuity, so all they had were the technology and social structures left by their departed allies. And whether they worked for the dwarves and the elves or not, human society is dying trying to cling to those things.

The story is told in multiple ways. The first, and most straightforward, is the view of Tomas, an investigator in Rivertop looking into the disappearance of a number of individuals whom his boss, Victor, believes were involved in an incident that injured Victor and killed his wife. Interspersed with Tomas’s perspective is the redacted confession of subject T187356, who recounts his harrowing encounters with highwaymen and orks and the criminal rebellion that his aunt and uncles are involved with. These converge when Tomas meets the vanished individuals, and we recognize the interrogated subject as one Alyster Trale. He and his sister, Elyssa, are currently under the protection of their parents’ friends. Far from arresting his suspects, Tomas joins them on their journey to find someplace safe for Alyster and Elyssa, and he hears them out as they travel.

Merson, Forba, Rauor, Lias, Lariad, and Pepina were all good friends at University, and like many University students, they held many long discussions about the ills of the world, and what could be done about them. They hit upon the idea that they should seek out the vanished elves, and went about learning what they could of them. Much of the novel is their account to Tomas of their quest, twenty years before this new journey he’s joined them on.

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Getting to Know Your Omniscient Narrator

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Getting to Know Your Omniscient Narrator

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sky god

With the exception of “Folksy Narrators” we often think of omniscient narrators as omnipotent sky-gods who are so vast and powerful that they’re unknowable entities. But looking at them that way hides away a helpful tool in crafting and revising our fiction.

(My blog on folksy narrators is here.)

On Friday, I was leading a seminar for Myth-Ink, the Columbia College genre writing student group, on how to do public readings. They were gearing up for when they’ll be the featured readers at my Gumbo Fiction Salon reading series next week. One of the young women was practicing the first two pages of a story about dragons. Her first read-through was fairly lifeless. She didn’t have confidence in her own vocal skills, and it didn’t sound like she had confidence in the story. We had already gone over many of the basic tips, so I took another tack. I asked her some questions.

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The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 4

The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 4

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SSoC-Vol4-CvrThis series explores the Savage Sword of Conan collections from Dark Horse reprinting Marvel Comics’ premiere black-and-white fantasy mag from the 1970s. Previous installments: Volume 1 / Volume 2 / Volume 3.

In volume 4 the superb team of John Buscema (pencils) and Tony DeZuniga (inks) continues to dominate the magazine’s “Golden Age” (i.e. the late 70s). However, this volume begins with John’s talented brother Sal Buscema stepping in for issue #37, ably inked by Rudy Nebres.

It’s a good issue, but things really take off when the regular (John) Buscema/DeZuniga team returns in #38 to adapt the story “Road of Eagles” by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague DeCamp. This is a landmark issue: Conan has never looked more fierce, and his world hasn’t been this fully realized since Alfredo Alcala’s hyper-detailed inks in the mag’s early days.

I’ve read that Buscema didn’t care much for DeZuniga’s inks — but he didn’t really like anyone’s inks over his pencils except his own. That’s fairly common for the Great Pencillers of comics history — yet they were usually too busy with deadlines to do their own inks.

Personal taste aside, Roy Thomas obviously realized the greatness of the Buscema/DeZuniga pairing. He made sure this team worked together as often as possible: 7 out of these 12 issues feature John Buscema pencils with DeZuniga inks. Roy even tapped DeZuniga to ink two more great issues penciled by Sal Buscema (i.e. #39 and #44).

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A Tale of Magical Apocalypse: The Ley Trilogy by Joshua Palmatier

A Tale of Magical Apocalypse: The Ley Trilogy by Joshua Palmatier

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Shattering the Ley-small Threading the Needle-small Reaping the Aurora-small

Joshua Palmatier’s Ley Trilogy is one of the more original fantasy series out there. Set in Erenthrall, a vast city of light and magic fueled by a ley line network, the series follows a sprawling cast of rebels, traders, assassins, guardsmen, and magic wielders through a series of shattering events that bring apocalyptic change to their world, including quakes, magical distortions, and creatures beyond nightmare. The first novel is available in paperback from DAW, and the second in hardcover; the final volume arrives this August.

Shattering the Ley (484 pages, $25.95 in hardcover/$9.99 paperback/$7.99 digital, July 1, 2014)
Threading the Needle (453 pages, $27 in hardcover/$13.99 digital, July 5, 2016)
Reaping the Aurora (464 pages, $26 in hardcover, August 1, 2017)

All three covers are by Stephan Martiniere. Here’s the description for the opening volume.

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