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Author: John ONeill

Vintage Treasures: The Arbor House Treasury of Short Science Fiction Novels edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg

Vintage Treasures: The Arbor House Treasury of Short Science Fiction Novels edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg

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The Arbor House Treasury of Short Science Fiction Novels (Arbor House, 1980). Cover design by Antler & Baldwin

Last Saturday I talked about the highly regarded Arbor House Treasuries, a set of a dozen genre-focus anthologies assembled in the early 80s by a round-robin team of distinguished editors: Robert Silverberg, Martin H. Greenberg, Bill Pronzini, Charles G. Waugh, Barry Malzberg, and John Duning.

Today I want to take a closer look at the one that first caught my eye, The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels, mostly because I find it a really terrific collection of novellas, and a great mix of classics — including Samuel R. Delany’s famous Hugo nominee “The Star Pit,” “The Golden Helix” by Theodore Sturgeon, “The Miracle-Workers” by Jack Vance, and Silverberg’s Nebula winner “Born with the Dead”– and some long-overlooked gems, like Charles V. De Vet and Katherine MacLean 1958 Hugo nominee “Second Game,” Wyman Guin’s “Beyond Bedlam,” and Damon Knight’s “Dio.”

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Saving Pets (and One Human) in a Zombie Apocalypse: The Hollow Kingdom Series by Kira Jane Buxton

Saving Pets (and One Human) in a Zombie Apocalypse: The Hollow Kingdom Series by Kira Jane Buxton

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Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures (Grand Central Publishing,
August 2019 and August 2021). Covers by Jarrod Taylor

Kira Jane Buxton’s debut novel Hollow Kingdom was the sleeper fantasy hit of 2019. The tale of a zombie apocalypse seen through the eyes of a caustic (and foul-mouthed) crow was a finalist for the 2020 Thurber Prize for American Humor, and chosen as a Best Book of the Year by Book Riot, NPR, and Good Housekeeping (And that’s not something you see every day. I challenge you to find another zombie novel with a Good Housekeeping endorsement.)

Jeff Somers at the B&N Blog turned me onto Hidden Kingdom in his list of the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of August 2019, calling it “a darkly hilarious twist” on the zombie formula. The sequel, Feral Creatures, finally arrived last summer, and sees the return of our favorite apocalyptic corvid and his faithful friends as they try to keep the last human alive in a rapidly worsening apocalypse.

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New Treasures: Beyond the Veil edited by Mark Morris

New Treasures: Beyond the Veil edited by Mark Morris

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Beyond the Veil (Flame Tree Press, October 26, 2021). Cover by Flame Tree Studio

Mark Morris has a good thing going with his new series of annual, non-themed horror anthologies from Flame Tree Press. The first, After Sundown, which we covered at the end of 2020, was nominated for both the Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Awards, and the second, Beyond the Veil, arrived right on time last October.

It’s packed with 20 original stories by some of the biggest names in modern horror, including Nathan Ballingrud, Gemma Files, Aliya Whitely, Christopher Golden, Lisa Tuttle, Peter Harness, Lynda E Rucker, John Everson, and many others. Most interesting to me, according to the publisher description only 16 stories were commissioned, while four were “selected from the 100s of stories sent to Flame Tree during a 2-week open submissions window.” A curated mix of modern horror masters and talented newcomers? Yes please.

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A Hearty Library of Genre Fiction: The Arbor House Treasuries edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Bill Pronzini, Robert Silverberg, and Others

A Hearty Library of Genre Fiction: The Arbor House Treasuries edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Bill Pronzini, Robert Silverberg, and Others

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The Arbor House library. Cover designs by Antler & Baldwin, Inc.

Last week I ordered a copy of The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels, a thick anthology from 1980 edited by  Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Silverberg, and when it arrived I was astounded by the rich assortment of treasures within. Novellas both classic and long overlooked (even by 1980), including “By His Bootstraps” by Robert A. Heinlein, “The Golden Helix” by Theodore Sturgeon, “Born With the Dead” by Robert Silverberg, “The Star Pit” by Samuel R. Delany, “Giant Killer” by A. Bertram Chandler, “A Case of Conscience” by James Blish, “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” by James Tiptree, Jr, “On the Storm Planet” by Cordwainer Smith, “The Miracle Workers” by Jack Vance, and many more.

It made me wonder how I’d managed to miss this book for four decades, and sparked an interest in other Arbor House Treasuries. I knew there were a couple others… a mystery volume, and one on noir, or something? Twenty minutes on Amazon, eBay, and ISFDB (my research triumvirate these days) yielded at lot more than I thought — no less than eleven. I keep hoping a little more digging will yield a clean dozen.

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New Treasures: Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen

New Treasures: Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen

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Beneath the Keep (Dutton, February 1, 2022). Cover design by Vi-An Nguyen

Yesterday I made my bi-weekly pilgrimage to Barnes & Noble, in search of the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. No dice; the newsstand still had the old issue. My wife and daughter were shopping next door at J. Jill, and there was no hope they’d be out of there any time soon, so I spent the next hour leisurely browsing the SF and Fantasy sections. I ended up leaving with an armful of books (and a copy of Mad magazine), so I consider it time well spent.

One of my most interesting finds was Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen, which looked like a dungeon-delving tale but read more like a high fantasy with plenty of court intrigue. I’m a sucker for a great cover, so I brought it home. A little homework revealed it’s a prequel to Johansen’s bestselling Queen of the Tearling series, which is probably worth another look.
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“Deeply Weird”: Craig L. Gidney on The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce

“Deeply Weird”: Craig L. Gidney on The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce

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The Darkangel and A Gathering of Gargoyles (Tor Books, 1984 and 1985). Covers by Kinuko Y. Craft

Facebook is a great place to discover vintage fantasy. I know, right? It’s not just old people and Bob Byrne talking about actors he recognizes. Earlier this month Craig L. Gidney (A Spectral Hue, Skin Deep Magic) caught my attention with this short post.

Before there was Twilight, there was The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce, the original teenage vampire romance novel. The Darkangel was a deeply weird novel. It’s set on the moon, a locale which adds an extra eerie element. The moon is full of strange creatures, including gargoyles and a lorelei that lives in a pool of the moon. The heroine has agency, though she isn’t an Action Girl. The plot of the first book owes a great deal to the Bluebeard legend. The entire trilogy is dream-like. I wish more people knew about it. The novel turned me on to the dark fairytale fiction of Tanith Lee and Patricia McKillip.

He’s absolutely right. The Darkangel was nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and won the International Reading Association’s annual Children’s Book Award. It was followed swiftly by a sequel A Gathering of Gargoyles; both were published in paperback from Tor. A third novel, The Pearl of the Soul of the World, eventually appeared five years later to complete the trilogy.

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Future Treasures: Azura Ghost, Volume II of The Graven by Essa Hansen

Future Treasures: Azura Ghost, Volume II of The Graven by Essa Hansen

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Nophek Gloss and Azura Ghost (Orbit, 2020 and 2021). Covers by Mike Heath

I seem to have increased the amount of space opera in my diet. I think it’s because there happen to be so many good series on the go — from Becky Chambers Wayfarers books to Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, from Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space to James S.A. Corey’s Expanse, Derek Künsken’s Quantum Evolution to Megan E. O’Keefe’s Protectorate trilogy.

But the one I’m excited about at the moment is Essa Hansen’s The Graven, the tale of one man and his sentient starship. Mostly because the second book, Azura Ghost, arrives next week. We covered the first volume, Nophek Gloss, last year. Not only has Hansen created an exciting space opera series, but she’s also mixed in the other hot SF theme de jour — the concept of the multiverse — spreading her tale across a rich canvas of parallel universes.

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Occult Detective Magazine #8 Now Available

Occult Detective Magazine #8 Now Available

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Wraparound cover for Occult Detective Magazine 8. Cover art by Stefan Keller

Occult Detective Magazine is back on the racks! With an overstuffed issue — 227 whopping pages! — and brand new fiction from Rhys Hughes, Robert Guffey, Rebecca Buchanan, Uche Nwaka, C L Raven, Christina White, and many more. Here’s the issue summary from their website.

ODM #8 – packed with more fiction and reviews than ever before, 230pp of dark deeds and daring detection. Fourteen new stories – moorland hags, necromancy, rogue angels in Japan, Ley lines, period mysteries, Nigerian demons, serial killers, ghostly trains, surreal puzzles, and judgement in Haiti.

Whew! That’s a promising line-up, and I’ve already ordered my copy. Read on for complete details, including sample art and the fiction Table of Contents.

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Vintage Treasures: The Dominions of Irth Trilogy by Adam Lee (A. A. Attanasio)

Vintage Treasures: The Dominions of Irth Trilogy by Adam Lee (A. A. Attanasio)

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The Dominions of Irth Trilogy by Adam Lee (Avon Eos, 1998-2000). Covers uncredited

The first science fiction website I ever launched was the SF Site, way back in 1995. I partnered with Rodger Turner, Neil Walsh, and Wayne MacLaurin to start Canada’s first big SF book blog, and it was a big success, with plenty of early traffic and award nominations. Best of all, we were soon on a first-name basis with the publicity departments at most of the big publishing houses. That’s how I met Andy Heidel at Avon, who helped me understand their big relaunch as they morphed from Avon Nova into Avon Eos in 1998 — including why they jettisoned cover art in favor of purely design-focused covers (“We’re trying to be the next big thing,” Andy explained).

I loved Avon Eos, and their dedication to quality SF and exciting new authors, but I didn’t love those covers. Frankly, I think readers didn’t know what to make of all the abstract shapes and colors, and especially the lack of identifiable heroes or storytelling elements, and they stayed away in droves. Eos eventually reverted to traditional covers, but I don’t think it ever recovered, and it is no longer a functioning imprint.

I think that misfire hurt most of Avon’s authors in the late 90s. Including “Adam Lee,” the pseudonym A. A. Attanasio adopted to publish his critically acclaimed Dominions of Irth trilogy in the US. The series appeared with a series of generic cover designs, and pretty much sank like a stone. “Adam Lee” died a lonely death, and Attanasio returned to publishing under his own name.

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New Treasures: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

New Treasures: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

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The Vanished Birds (Del Rey, January 26, 2021)

January is that time of year when I browse BEST OF THE YEAR lists, wondering what I missed (it’s usually a lot). One title that shows up repeatedly is Simon Jimenez’s debut novel The Vanished Birds, which I picked up in paperback last January, and which promptly vanished into the towering to-be-read stack next to my big green chair. I need a filing system that’s more like a library, and less like a geological rock formation.

Anyway. While I didn’t make time to read the book, I didn’t fail to notice all the breathless notices. Kirkus Reviews, which called it “The best of what science fiction can be,” listed it as one of the Best Debut Fiction and Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the year; Martin Cahill at Tor.com proclaimed it “brilliant,” and Paul Di Filippo at Locus called it “not only the best debut novel I’ve read in ages, but simply one of the best SF novels in recent memory.” Here’s a slice from Martin’s enthusiastic review.

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