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Month: July 2017

Amazing Stories November 1969: A Retro-Review

Amazing Stories November 1969: A Retro-Review

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Amazing Stories November 1969-smallThis is Part 1 of a Decadal Review of vintage science fiction magazines published in November 1969. The articles are:

Amazing Stories, November 1969
Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1969
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November 1969
Worlds of If, November 1969
Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, November 1969

Almost every year I go to a small sci-fi conference in Lawrence Kansas called The Campbell Conference. The people who run the Campbell Conference have a lot of sci-fi magazines and books; boxes and boxes of them. In fact, they have them out in the common area and sell them for like a dollar apiece. I was there last year and pulled out, completely at random, an Amazing Stories from November 1969 — which is remarkable because that was the year and month I was born.

And it occurred to me that, truth be told, I actually haven’t read all that much science-fiction. I read a Larry Niven short story collection in high school, and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1 off and on in early college. The majority of my science fiction reading has been novels; I didn’t really return to the short-form until the early 2000’s — and mostly because that’s when I first started going to the Campbell Conference!

When I saw that ’69 Amazing I was struck with the idea that I’d raid those boxes, gather the magazines from November ’69, read ‘em, and review ‘em. Then, because a decade is a nice number, I figured that I’d add ’79, ’89, and ’99, possibly (depending on how this all goes over) I may do ’09. Yes, a Quatro-Decadal Review!

I’m going to delve fairly deep into these works, so if you’ve got an issue with spoilers for 47 year old stories, you have fair warning! Also, I’m gonna end the reviews with my thoughts on the general ‘vibe’ of the magazine.

And away we go!

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Vintage Treasures: The Hormone Jungle by Robert Reed

Vintage Treasures: The Hormone Jungle by Robert Reed

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Robert Reed is one of the most acclaimed and prolific writers at work in SF today. He was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1987, and won the Hugo Award for his 2006 novella “A Billion Eyes.” He’s sold some 200 short stories to numerous markets, including Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Interzone, Albedo One, Postscripts, F&SF, and Daily Science Fiction, and published over a dozen novels, including Down the Bright Way (1991), An Exaltation of Larks (1995), and Marrow (2000).

But back in 1988 he was a young writer with just one novel under his belt, The Leeshore (1987). His second, The Hormone Jungle, was published in hardcover that year by Donald Fine, and reprinted in paperback a year later by Popular Library with a cover by Luis Royo. Unlike the sophisticated space opera for which Reed is known today, The Hormone Jungle was packaged as a straight-ahead adventure story tailor made for a film treatment staring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Set “on an Earth overrun by a trillion species,” it featured a square-jawed “professional hero,” a beautiful lady android in distress, and a noir edge. That didn’t help it find a market, however… it pretty much vanished without a trace, and has never been reprinted. Copies aren’t hard to find, but it nonetheless took me a while to acquire one. I finally found one on eBay recently for $4.99 (including shipping).

Our previous coverage of Robert Reed includes:

Is Robert Reed the New Century’s Most Compelling SF Voice?
New Treasures: The Greatship

The Hormone Jungle was published by Questar/Popular Library in June 1989. It is 300 pages, priced at $4.50 in paperback. The cover is by Luis Royo. Read more at Reed’s website, and see all our recent Vintage Treasures here.

A Wiscon Reading Report: The Best in Upcoming Fantasy – 2017 Edition

A Wiscon Reading Report: The Best in Upcoming Fantasy – 2017 Edition

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CSE Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar reading at Wiscon 2017-small CSE Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar reading at Wiscon 2017 2-small CSE Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar reading at Wiscon 2017 3-small

CSE Cooney and Guest of Honor Amal El-Mohtar perform Music & Miscellania at Wiscon 2017

Just a few days ago I wrote about Kay Kenyon’s upcoming novel At the Table of Wolves, the tale of a young woman forced to use her budding superpowers to spy on Nazi Germany and prevent the immanent invasion of England. It’s pretty clear to me that this is one of 2017’s breakout novels, and I was thrilled to get a sneak peek at it last year.

How did that happen? By attending a small, intimate reading at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio. In fact, convention readings have tipped me off to countless breakout books over the years, including works from Guy Gavriel Kay, N.K. Jemisin, Ian Tregillis, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Cory Doctorow, and many others. I even attended a reading by George R.R. Martin many years ago, in which he read from an unpublished novel titled A Game of Thrones — and then stuck around afterwards to chat to the small audience, and sign my advance copy of the book.

Any convention worth its salt will have a decent reading program. But the best conventions showcase a wide range of writers, and have multiple reading tracks. And after decades of attending cons, I can say without hesitation that the one with the best record for introducing me to stellar new talent — and tipping me off to fantastic new books — through its reading program is Wiscon, held every May in Madison, Wisconsin. And this year’s con was no exception.

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New Treasures: Shattered Minds: A Pacifica Novel by Laura Lam

New Treasures: Shattered Minds: A Pacifica Novel by Laura Lam

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Laura Lam is the author of the Micah Grey series (Pantomime, Shadowplay) from Pan, and the self-published Vestigial Tales (The Snake Charm, The Fisherman’s Net, The Tarot Reader, The Card Sharp). Last year Tor published her first Pacifica novel False Hearts, which A. M. Dellamonica called “A taut futuristic thriller, set in a San Francisco where everybody is beautiful… Two unusual sisters are caught in a war for control of a society that quietly suffocates its outsiders, rebels, and the damaged.” Last week Tor released the sequel in hardcover.

Carina used to be one of the best biohackers in Pacifica. But when she worked for Sudice and saw what the company’s experiments on brain recording were doing to their subjects, it disturbed her ― especially because she found herself enjoying giving pain and contemplating murder. She quit and soon grew addicted to the drug Zeal, spending most of her waking moments in a horror-filled dream world where she could act out her depraved fantasies without actually hurting anyone.

One of her trips is interrupted by strange flashing images and the brutal murder of a young girl. Even in her drug-addicted state, Carina knows it isn’t anything she created in the Zealscape. On her next trip, she discovers that an old coworker from Sudice, Max, sent her these images before he was killed by the company. Encrypted within the images are the clues to his murder, plus information strong enough to take down the international corporation.

Carina’s next choice will transform herself, San Francisco, and possibly the world itself.

My interest in the book was piqued by Liz Bourke’s Tor.com review, in which she called it “A tight, tense and nail-biting science fiction thriller, informed by cyberpunk influences like Nicola Griffith’s Slow River and Melissa Scott’s Trouble and Her Friends as much as by the near-future extrapolatory science fiction tradition. It’s damn good.” (David B. Coe reviewed Slow River for us earlier this year.)

Shattered Minds was published by Tor Books on June 20, 2017. It is 386 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition.

An Original and Unpredictable Interstellar Romp: Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray

An Original and Unpredictable Interstellar Romp: Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray

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Defy the Stars Claudia Gray-smallThe action starts right away in New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray’s latest novel, Defy the Stars. Teenage fighter pilot Noemi Vidal only has twenty days to live, since she has volunteered for a suicide mission to protect her world. But time runs out when evil mechs – robot warriors from Earth – burst through the intergalactic Gate and start shooting at Noemi’s squadron while they’re still training.

One of the deadly machines attacks her best friend, Esther, who was never supposed to see combat. Noemi rushes to defend her and successfully beats off the mech. Still, Esther will die if Noemi doesn’t get her medical care fast. The only prospect of first aid is an enemy starship drifting nearby, abandoned during a previous assault.

What Noemi doesn’t know is that Earth’s most advanced mech, Abel, has been trapped in that mothballed hulk, all alone, for thirty years. Docking her fighter in the ship from Earth, Noemi reactivates its systems and frees Abel, whose first priority is to kill her.

A Young Adult novel, Defy the Stars will please both young and old science fiction fans with an original, engaging, and unpredictable interstellar romp. In the universe Gray has created, Earth has degenerated into a dystopian, post-apocalyptic husk, and its citizens are desperate to immigrate to Noemi’s lush colony world, Genesis. Fearing that humanity will only repeat its past mistakes and ruin Genesis’s environment just like Earth’s, the authorities on Genesis have long sent warriors like Noemi to prevent such an influx. Accordingly, when Noemi learns it’s possible to destroy the Gate between the two star systems, she seizes the chance to do so. Acquiring the necessary tools, however, requires her not just to partner with Abel, but also to become the first Genesis citizen in generations to pass through the Gate and visit other star systems, where she witnesses the plight of others.

In addition to Noemi’s mission to destroy the Genesis Gate, her relationship with Abel drives the book forward. Love stories often take two people who are supposed to hate each other, throw them together, and turn the screws until love blooms. Gray’s version goes beyond this, taking two sworn enemies in an interstellar war and adding an even more unlikely twist: What if the protagonist’s love interest isn’t recognized as a person? What if he’s only supposed to be a machine?

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Occult Detective Quarterly #2 Now Available

Occult Detective Quarterly #2 Now Available

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Occult Detective Quarterly 2-small Occult Detective Quarterly 2 contents-small

Stop the presses! The new issue of Occult Detective Quarterly is here.

This one looks even more impressive than the last issue, and that’s saying something. Here’s the description.

Enter the dark world of the occult detective, where heroes and fools risk their lives facing strange, occult and supernatural phenomena. Occult Detective Quarterly‘s second issue offers you a wealth of new fiction from some of the best creators, with award-winning talent on both the writing and illustration sides. Horror, crime – and punishment. Meet a demon-marked girl, a native American cop, an occult adventurer between the wars, and a psychologist who already knows the Dark. Or explore Edwardian Paris, visit haunted Scotland, and have a worrying trip into the back-street markets of sixties Hong Kong. The classic occult detective Carnacki makes an appearance, as does a hoodoo PI in Harlem – nine original stories by Tim Waggoner, Steve Liskow, Tricia Owens, Edward M Erdelac, Brandon Barrows, Kelly A Harmon, Joshua M Reynolds, Mike Chinn, and Bruno Lombardi. Plus detailed reviews, and features on John Constantine and Occult Physicians.

If you didn’t pick up the first issue, you missed out on the launch of one of the most important new fantasy magazines of the decade. But don’t fret… it’s not too late to catch up.

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Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection edited by Gardner Dozois

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The Year's Best Science Fiction Thirty Fourth Annual Collection Dozois-smallI look forward to Gardner’s Year’s Best volume every year. It was the first science fiction Year’s Best I read regularly — starting way back in 1989, with the Sixth Annual volume, while I was in grad school. And while I didn’t always make time to read every volume cover to cover, year after year, I always read Gardner’s summation, the indispensable annual report card that captures all the relevant news, industry trends, hot books, overlooked gems, and of course Gardner’s cranky observations and ruminations on the future of the field.

A few years ago I noticed that Gardner lists my name in the “Acknowledgements” section every year, and that he has every year since 2004. I’m not sure why. But I’m always surprised and delighted to see it.

Gadrner’s Year’s Best Science Fiction is by far the largest and most comprehensive of the annual Year’s Best volumes. The Thirty-Fourth — thirty-fourth! — arrives in hardcover and trade paperback from St. Martin’s Press in ten days. Here’s a taste of Gardner’s Summation, in which he comments on an unwelcome trend I’ve noticed myself: the gradual disappearance of the mass-market paperback.

Like last year, 2016 was another relatively quiet year in the SF publishing world, although there were some changes down deep… One such effect that may eventually become noticeable to the average reader is the dwindling of mass-market paperback titles, once the most common way (at one point, almost the only way) for SF books to be published, from bookstores shelves. The publishing industry has been trying to find the right balance between traditional print publishing and the publishing of titles as e-books for a number of years now, and one area where publishers seem to be switching away from print publication to e-book only publication is in the mass-market paperback market niche. At least in the science fiction/fantasy publishing world, the number of mass-market paperbacks published was down for the eighth year in a row, hitting a new record low, down 11 percent since 2015. I think this may be a mistake, myself.

The Thirty-fourth volume of The Year’s Best Science Fiction contains 39 stories — more than 300,000 words of fiction — from Alastair Reynolds, David Gerrold, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Paul McAuley, Aliette de Bodard, Rich Larson, Geoff Ryman, Sam J. Miller, Shariann Lewit, Gregory Benford, Nina Allan, James Patrick Kelly, Ken Liu, Eleanor Arnsason, Paolo Bacigalupi, Charlie Jane Anders, and many others. I was especially pleased to see contributions from Black Gate authors Derek Kȕsken and Bill Johnson.

Here’s the complete TOC.

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The Man of Legends by Kenneth Johnson: Q&A with the Author, Part 1

The Man of Legends by Kenneth Johnson: Q&A with the Author, Part 1

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Man-of-Legends-Cover-Kenneth-Johnson-Q-and-AThe Man of Legends is now available at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook.

The title of the novel The Man of Legends refers to its central character and one of its numerous narrators: an enigmatic figure with a history stretching back to the ancient world. But the title can also apply to the book’s author, Kenneth Johnson. Although not as much a household word as Gene Roddenberry or Rod Serling, Johnson has left an indelible mark on a generation who grew up watching the shows he produced, developed, wrote, and directed: The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, V: The Original Miniseries, Alien Nation…

Basically, for people of my generation, Kenneth Johnson was our secret Gene Roddenberry, our hidden-in-plain-sight Rod Serling.

The Man of Legends feels like a declaration that Johnson’s legacy is no longer secret or hiding. Although he’s published novels before (most recently V: The Second Generation, a 2008 continuation of the 1983 miniseries), The Man of Legends is an original story that reads as a collation of the humanism in Johnson’s television and movie work. If a story about a cursed man forced to wander the world, helping people along the way even if it backfires on him, instantly calls up Bill Bixby as David Banner in The Incredible Hulk television show, it’s no coincidence. Johnson even tucks in a few direct references to the TV series. (“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”)

But The Man of Legends isn’t a retread. It’s a summation and expansion. This is unmistakably the work of the author who brought emotional power to David Banner’s lonely quest to be the best person he could while coping with an unconquerable rage and a relentless pursuer. But it’s also unmistakably the work of the author who crafted an anti-fascist epic about a panorama of people struggling against an abusive power (who also happened to be zoophagous alien reptiles). If you recall Kenneth’s Johnson’s brand of humanism and science-fiction excitement from his television work, The Man of Legends may be the best new novel you read in 2017.

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Angels, Demons, Necromancers and a Badass Heroine: The Hellhound Chronicles by Caitlin Kittredge

Angels, Demons, Necromancers and a Badass Heroine: The Hellhound Chronicles by Caitlin Kittredge

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Black Dog Caitlin Kittredge-small Grim Tidings Caitlin Kittredge-small

Just two weeks ago we were talking about the death of the paranormal romance. When it was 60% of what was on the shelves, I frankly didn’t have much time for it. But now that it’s virtually vanished, I admit I’m curious… at least about some of the quirky stuff that appeared at the edges of the genre.

What’s guiding my interest? Sometimes it’s the author, sometimes it’s recommendations from reviewers I trust. Sometimes it’s just the cool covers. And sometimes, like with Caitlin Kittredge’s Hellhound Chronicles, it’s the fact that brand new copies of the opening volume are available for just $1.45 at Amazon.com (and Bookoutlet is selling the second one for just $4.79.)

The Hellhound Chronicles is more urban fantasy than paranormal romance (although the two are frequently indistinguishable.) It follows the adventures of the “hellhound” Ava, an indentured servant of an angel of death who tracks down errant souls and sends them to hell. When Ava meets up with a necromancer who tells her there’s a way out of her servitude, it leads to unforeseen consequences… and a series of misadventures involving the demon Lilith, the Walking Man, and zombie vampires. Melissa de la Cruz calls it “A riveting, fun and dangerous ride with angels, demons, necromancers and a badass heroine,” and Kirkus Reviews says it’s “A fast-paced read perfect for lovers of dark fantasy.” Here’s the back covers.

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