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Author: John ONeill

Future Treasures: Gunfight on Europa Station edited by David Boop

Future Treasures: Gunfight on Europa Station edited by David Boop

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Gunfight on Europa Station (Baen Books, January 25, 2022). Cover Art by Dominic Harman

I’ve been enjoying David Boop’s weird western anthologies for Baen (Straight Outta Tombstone, Straight Outta Deadwood, and Straight Outta Dodge City). His newest takes the series in a different direction — deep space! — but keeps the six shooters and saddle spurs. That’s different. But what the hell — I’m on board.

Gunfight on Europa Station arrives on January 25, and comes packed with new fiction by an impressive list of contributors: Alan Dean Foster, Jane Lindskold, Wil McCarthy, Gini Koch, Martin Shoemaker, Cat Rambo with J.R. Martin, Alastair Mayer, Alex Shvartsman, Patrick Swenson, Elizabeth Moon, and Michael L. Haspil. These books are a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the newest with anticipation.

I’m especially excited to see Alex Shvartsman’s contribution. I was at his reading at Worldcon last month (from his upcoming novel The Middling Affliction), and it was easily the most entertaining of the dozen or so I attended, a raucous and funny tale of an exorcist/con man who winds up over his head in a tangled supernatural mystery. It’s always a pleasure to discover a new writer, and it’s doubly so when you have the chance to hear a skilled entertainer perform their own work.

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Learn RuneQuest by playing an Online Solo Adventure: The Battle of Dangerford

Learn RuneQuest by playing an Online Solo Adventure: The Battle of Dangerford

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The Battle of Dangerford (Chaosium, 2021)

Happy New Year, fantasy gamers! If you’re like me, all your resolutions this year involve trying new games. At least two dozen. And maybe a truckload of snack foods.

Yeah, but which games? There’s a ton to choose from. Fortunately Chaosium has made it a little bit easier — by publishing their newest RuneQuest solo adventure online completely free. And also structuring it so that you can learn the rules as you play! The title is The Battle of Dangerford, and it really is a simple as it sounds:

Learn to play RuneQuest in the best way possible — by playing! The Battle of Dangerford is a single-player scenario designed to teach you the rules of the game as you play. Take on the role of Vasana as she joins her Sartarite brothers and sisters in an epic clash against the invading Lunar Empire.

Get all the details below — or jump right in here!

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Vintage Treasures: The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith

Vintage Treasures: The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith

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The City of the Singing Flame (Timescape, 1981). Cover by Rowena Morrill

We’ve written a lot about Clark Ashton Smith at Black Gate. Like, a lot. Over two dozen articles over the last decade or so by my count, by many of our top writers, including Brian Murphy, Matthew David Surridge, Fletcher Vredenburgh, Thomas Parker, James Maliszewski, M Harold Page, Steven H Silver, John R. Fultz — and especially Ryan Harvey, who’s penned a third of our coverage all on his own.

I’m not an expert on Smith — far from it. Although he published in the pulp magazines I was obsessed with as a teen, I didn’t discover him until relatively late. He had no novels to his name, and was virtually ignored by the editors who assembled the ubiquitous science fiction anthologies I devoured in my youth (I know Isaac Asimov, whose name was on every second anthology I read, strongly disliked Smith’s work, and that was pretty much the kiss of death for SF writers in the 80s).

It wasn’t until David Hartwell, editor of the ambitious Timescape imprint at Pocket Books, reprinted much of Smith’s back catalog in a trio of handsome paperbacks that I corrected this injustice. And specifically, it wasn’t until I laid eyes on Rowena Morrill’s beautiful cover for The City of the Singing Flame in 1981 that I was finally introduced to the rich and fascinating work of Clark Ashton Smith.

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The Universe Under Attack: The Protectorate Trilogy by Megan E. O’Keefe

The Universe Under Attack: The Protectorate Trilogy by Megan E. O’Keefe

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The Protectorate trilogy by Megan E. O’Keefe (Orbit, 2019-2021). Covers by Sparth

Megan E. O’Keefe’s debut novel Steal the Sky was nominated for the 2017 David Gemmell Morningstar award, and became the opening book in the Scorched Continent trilogy, which author Beth Cato called “An epic steampunk Firefly.” Not a bad way to kickstart a writing career.

But it was her second trilogy, the space opera The Protectorate, that really launched her into the big time. Opening volume Velocity Weapon (2019) was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, and Kirkus Reviews called it “edge-of-your-seat space opera with a soul; a highly promising science-fiction debut.” Chaos Vector was published last year, and the trilogy wrapped up in June of this year with Catalyst Gate. If you’re looking for modern SF filled with with twists and far-future political intrigue, you’ve definitely come to the right place.

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New Treasures: The Art of Space Travel by Nina Allan

New Treasures: The Art of Space Travel by Nina Allan

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The Art of Space Travel (Titan Books, September 2021). Cover by Vince Haig

I had the chance to wander the Dealer’s Room at Worldcon last week — and if you’ve never had that pleasure, I encourage you to do it at least once. If there’s a worthy pilgrimage for science fiction and fantasy readers, it’s the peerless Dealer’s Room at Worldcon. The only things in my experience that come close are the vast Dealer’s Room at Windy City in Chicago, and the endless Great Exhibit Hall at Gen Con.

As I wandered starstruck between the cramped aisles of booksellers, painfully aware that I couldn’t return to Chicago with more than I could carry onto the plane, my eyes lighted on numerous wonders. Virgil Finley art books, out of print for decades. Stacks of vintage paperbacks from the 1970s. Handsome sets of limited edition books from Centipede Press, Subterranean Books, and numerous others. A wall of press clippings about Worldcon, some dating back to the very first in 1939. Joshua Palmatier’s table, heavily laden with more anthologies than I could count.

And in the middle of it all was Sally Kobee’s island of tables, all piled high with new books. I wasn’t at Worldcon to buy new books — but you can’t help it when one catches your eye. And the first one to do so was Nina Allen’s new collection The Art of Space Travel and Other Stories.

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Vintage Treasures: Galactic Empires, Volumes One & Two, edited by Brian Aldiss

Vintage Treasures: Galactic Empires, Volumes One & Two, edited by Brian Aldiss

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Galactic Empires Volume Two (Avon, 1979). Cover by Alex Ebel

It’s the Christmas break, I finally have some serious reading time, and I know I should be trying some recent stuff. There are many promising new authors I’ve been looking forward to sampling, and I’m reasonably sure I even made a resolution or two in that direction a while back.

But here I am enjoying some old Brian Aldiss anthologies, and I don’t even have the decency to feel guilty. I’ve wanted to read these books for a while — somewhere around 40 years, give or take — and that’s a long time to be staring longingly at them on my bookshelf.

The titles in question are Galactic Empires, Volumes One and Two, both published in 1979, a fine curation of classic science fiction. They’re the second and third books in a very handsome four-book set of SF anthologies reprinted in paperback by Avon, with gorgeous wraparound covers by legendary artist Alex Ebel (best known for his classic Ursula K. Le Guin covers, including The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed). The other two anthologies include Evil Earths (1978) and Perilous Planets (1980).

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Merry Christmas from Black Gate

Merry Christmas from Black Gate

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It’s evening in the O’Neill household, the sounds of Christmas music and video games have finally subsided (a little), and it’s almost… quiet. I’m finally in front of my computer, looking out over our backyard, with a peaceful minute to compose my annual Christmas message.

It’s been a helluva year. Plagues and pandemics. Economic uncertainty. Climate change. Endless political rancor. I suppose this is what being an adult is all about: seeing the world as it truly is, with all its dangers and uncertainties. I can see why so many people my age yearn for “a simpler time” — meaning the years when the world’s problems seemed vastly smaller, because they were too young to pay attention.

The world has always has problems, and I guess they’ve always seemed unsurmountable. When we first launched this site over two decades ago, I was consumed with traffic numbers, page views, and deadlines. In the intervening years we’ve achieved the kind of success I never dreamed of, easily surpassing two million pages views a month at our peak. But running Black Gate has taught me that true success isn’t captured in traffic metrics.

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Weird Horror #3 Now Available

Weird Horror #3 Now Available

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Weird Horror #3 magazine (Undertow Publications, October 12, 2021). Cover by Fernando JFL

Merry Christmas weird horror lovers!

I don’t know about you weirdos, but when it’s cold and snowy and the house is quiet I love to curl up by the fireplace with a cat in my lap and a creepy tome in my hand. The always reliable Undertow Publications have launched a brand new twice-yearly magazine, Weird Horror, edited by a man who’s demonstrated an excellent nose for the weird over the past decade, the distinguished Michael Kelly. The magazine is quickly becoming one of my favorite sources for wintry scares.

The first two issues appeared last October and in May, with stories by John Langan, Steve Toase, Suzan Palumbo, Stephen Volk, Catherine MacLeod, Mary Berman, and many more — plus reviews and non-fiction by Lysette Stevenson, Simon Strantzas, Orrin Grey, and others. The third issue was published right on time for Halloween this year, and it was near the top of my Christmas wish list.

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Vintage Treasures: Modern Classics of Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

Vintage Treasures: Modern Classics of Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

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Modern Classics of Science Fiction (St. Martin’s Press, 1992). Jacket illustration courtesy of NASA

Back in October I wrote about Gardner Dozois’ 1994 anthology Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction, saying it was one of my favorite fall reads. I noted at the time that it was part of a trilogy of books Gardner did for St. Martin’s that also included Modern Classics of Fantasy (1997), which I called “a book that makes you yearn to be stranded on a desert island.” But I’ve never discussed its sister volume, and first in the sequence, Modern Classics of Science Fiction (1992), and so today I thought I’d correct that egregious oversight.

Modern Classics of Science Fiction is a fabulous collection. Like the books that followed, it’s an eclectic and personal volume, filled not with the most famous and acclaimed short science fiction, but instead Gardner’s highly personal selection of some of the best SF of the 20th Century. It includes 26 stories published between 1956 and 1989, by Theodore Sturgeon, Richard McKenna, Jack Vance, Edgar Pangborn, Roger Zelazny, R. A. Lafferty, Samuel R. Delany, Brian W. Aldiss, Gene Wolfe, James Tiptree, Jr., Ursula K. Le Guin, Howard Waldrop, Lucius Shepard, Michael Swanwick, and many more.

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Relive the Glory Days of BattleTech with Shrapnel Magazine

Relive the Glory Days of BattleTech with Shrapnel Magazine

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Shrapnel magazine, issues 4-6 (InMediaRes Productions, March, June & September 2021).
Covers by Florian Mellies (left) and Ken Coleman (middle and right)

I bought a few issues of the new Warhammer paperback magazine Inferno! last year, and was impressed enough to start looking around for similar publications. It wasn’t long before I found Shrapnel, the Official BattleTech Magazine published by InMediaRes Productions, and I picked up the first three issues.

Shrapnel is edited by John Helfers and Philip A. Lee, and published four times a year. In many ways it’s a spiritual successor to the old BattleTechnology print mag from the early 90s, edited by William H. Keith, Jr. and Hillary Edith Ayer. Shrapnel began life as a stretch goal for Catalyst Games’ 2019 Clan Invasion Kickstarter; organizers committed to four issues if they hit the goal. The campaign raised a whopping $2,580,000, and Shrapnel has been with us ever since.

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