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Author: John ONeill

Vintage Treasures: The Augmented Agent by Jack Vance

Vintage Treasures: The Augmented Agent by Jack Vance

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The Augmented Agent (Ace Books, September 1988). Cover by Terry Oakes

I need to read more Jack Vance.

It’s not hard to do. Virtually all of his short fiction has been collected over the years, in places like the five-volume The Early Jack Vance, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan, and the massive The Jack Vance Treasury.

Of course, those are small press collections, and if you’re looking for a more affordable way to dip your toe into the fast-moving waters of Jack Vance, then I recommend one of his fine paperback collections, like The Worlds of Jack Vance, The Best of Jack Vance, or today’s Vintage Treasure, The Augmented Agent, which collects eight Vance rarities, chiefly pulp adventures tales from very early in his career.

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Future Treasures: Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry N. Malzberg, edited by Robert Friedman and Gregory Shepard

Future Treasures: Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry N. Malzberg, edited by Robert Friedman and Gregory Shepard

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Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry N. Malzberg
(Stark House, March 8, 2024). Cover by Jeff Jordan

Barry N. Malzberg has had an enormously prolific career. He published his first science fiction story the August 1967 issue of Galaxy magazine, and over the next six decades has produced an astounding 500+ short stories, dozens of novels, eleven anthologies, and nearly two dozen collections. These days he’s well known as a genre historian and critic. That’s him on the back cover above, looking suitably curmudgeonly.

He’s currently enjoying something of a career renaissance, courtesy of editor Robert Friedman and publisher Gregory Shepard at Stark House Press, who together have returned some thirty-five Malzberg books to print. To mark that accomplishment, their latest Malzberg volume is something special. Not a reprint at all, but a brand new volume gathering thirty-five uncollected short stories. Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry N. Malzberg will be available on March 8.

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Make Room For Harry Harrison: Anthony Aycock on a Forgotten SF Master

Make Room For Harry Harrison: Anthony Aycock on a Forgotten SF Master

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Make Room! Make Room! (Berkley Medallion, July 1967). Cover by Richard Powers

Harry Harrison was a true believer. Like Isaac Asimov, Terry Carr, Donald Wollheim, Gardner Dozois, Lin Carter, Damon Knight and a handful of others, he dedicated his life to science fiction, and in a multitude of roles, as writer, editor, critic, and scholar.

His fiction, however, has been largely — and unjustly — forgotten, and in the dozen years since his death in August 2012, all his books have gradually gone out of print, including once-popular novels like Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green in 1973) and The Stainless Steel Rat, one of the top-selling SF novels of the 60s, which spawned a hugely popular series that ran for twelve volumes.

So I was delighted to see Reactor (still known by fans under its secret identity, Tor.com) shine a long-overdue spotlight on our boy Harrison late last year. In “Make Room! Make Room! For Harry Harrison!” Anthony Aycock provides a brief overview of Harrison’s career, and introduces modern readers to his best work.

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Vintage Treasures: The Night Watch by Sean Stewart

Vintage Treasures: The Night Watch by Sean Stewart

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The Night Watch (Ace, September 1998). Cover by Tara McGovern-Benson

Sean Stewart has had a fascinating career. He was Creative Director at Microsoft’s Xbox Studios until the studio closed in 2014, then spent five years at Magic Leap. Today he’s a Managing Partner at Cathy’s Book, LLC, publisher of his alternative reality game/novel series Cathy’s Book, and since 2020 he’s been working at a Generative AI stealth start-up as an Interactive Storyteller.

But he began his career the old fashioned way — writing fantasy novels. His debut book Passion Play (1992) won the Prix Aurora Award for Best Canadian Science Fiction novel, and his follow-up Nobody’s Son won the Aurora Award in 1994. His real success came in in 1995 with the appearance of the magic realist fantasy Resurrection Man, The New York Times Best Science Fiction Book of the Year, and the two books set in the same world, The Night Watch (1997) and Galveston (2000), winner of the World Fantasy Award.

The Night Watch is the one I want to talk about today.

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Vintage Treasures: The Last Man on Earth edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh

Vintage Treasures: The Last Man on Earth edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh

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The Last Man on Earth (Fawcett Crest / Ballantine, August 1982). Cover by Wayne Barlowe

I continue to dip into the (seemingly endless) supply of anthologies from the three amigos of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh. I’m not sure how many they actually produced together, but I’ve managed to track down around 80. They began collaborating in the 80s, and averaged over half a dozen books a year, until Asimov’s death in 1992.

This time I’ve set aside their popular series in favor of a fine standalone book: The Last Man on Earth, a collection of post-apocalyptic tales that present a wide range of imaginative scenarios built around a popular SF trope. They include William F. Nolan’s “The Underdweller,” the tale of a man living in the sewers of San Francisco, trying desperately to salvage mankind’s most important texts while avoiding the new rulers of the city; Gordon Eklund’s “Continuous Performance,” which sees a man struggling to survive by putting on magic shows for androids; Roger Zelazny’s “Lucifer,” the haunting story of the world’s last man and his visit to the mysterious ruins of a long-dead city, and many others.

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Domestic Gods, Cannibal Toys, and Sherlock Holmes in Tombstone: January-February 2024 Print SF Magazines

Domestic Gods, Cannibal Toys, and Sherlock Holmes in Tombstone: January-February 2024 Print SF Magazines

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January-February 2024 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction.
Cover art by Julie Dillon, and Maurizio Manzieri (for “Burning Grannies”)

It’s February 10th, and I’m a little concerned to see there’s no sign of the January/February issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Not on their website or Facebook Page, both of which still show the November-December issue, and not on Twitter/X or Amazon. I can’t even find a copy of the cover, which I usually receive from publisher Gordon Van Gelder. The only news I can find online is from Sam Tomaino, who shares this Note From the Publisher (and an advance review) in his excellent Zines & Short Fiction column at SFRevu.

Due to a set of unfortunate circumstances, this Jan/Feb 2024 issue was delayed by more than a month. For the sake of our newsstand readers, we re-named the issue “Winter 2024.” Subscribers should not worry about being shorted an issue.

Fingers crossed this is just a temporary glitch. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the new issues of Analog and Asimov’s Science Fiction, both of which are packed with intriguing new fiction from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Greg Egan, R. Garcia y Robertson, Sean McMullen, Jeffrey Ford, Ian McDonald, Rory Harper, Michael Cassutt, Stanley Schmidt, Robert Friedman and Barry N. Malzberg, Martin L. Shoemaker, Raymund Eich, and lots more. See all the details below.

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New Treasures: Beyond Enemies by Marisa Wolf

New Treasures: Beyond Enemies by Marisa Wolf

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Beyond Enemies (Baen, February 6, 2024). Cover by Sam R. Kennedy

I was Capricon 44 here in Chicago over the weekend and, as usual, brought home a bag full of books. I picked up the latest from local author R.J. Howell (including the Wicked West anthology), and found a bunch of treasures at Sally Kobe’s delightfully well-stocked booth, including debut SF novel Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings, the new volume of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror from Paula Guran, Sunny Moraine’s creepy novella Your Shadow Half Remains, and lots more.

But the book that really leaped into my hands was Beyond Enemies, the debut novel by Marisa Wolf, who’s appeared in a couple of Baen anthologies and co-authored a number of titles from Seventh Seal Press. Beyond Enemies is the story of a girl and her tank on a backwater planet that becomes the pivot point in an interstellar war. Just what I’m in the mood for.

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Vintage Treasures: Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury

Vintage Treasures: Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury

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Courtship Rite (Timescape/Pocket Books, September 1983). Cover by Rowena Morrill

I still remember the buzz of excitement in Ottawa fandom when a young local writer named Charles de Lint sold his first novel to Ace Books. Riddle of the Wren wasn’t particularly groundbreaking —  not like the breakout books soon to come from Charles — but everyone read it, and it was passed around and enjoyed with the kind of hometown pride that quickly catapulted Charles into literary stardom, at least on the local Ottawa scene.

The kind of thing didn’t happen often in Ottawa in those days. In fact, the only thing like it was the fuss made about Donald Kingsbury, a math professor at McGill University in Montreal, who burst out of the gate in the late 70s with a series of major award noms for his early fiction. His first novel Courtship Rite won the Locus and Compton Crook Awards for Best First Novel, and was shortlisted for the Hugo Award. In 2016 it won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. That’s the sort of thing that got Canadian fans worked up — and that hasn’t changed much over the years.

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New Treasures: The Soulfire Saga by Matthew Ward

New Treasures: The Soulfire Saga by Matthew Ward

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The first two books in The Soulfire Saga: The Darkness Before Them and The Fire
Within Them (Orbit, November 7, 2023 and June 11, 2024). Covers by Joe Wilson

I spent the Christmas break working on a number of projects, and not doing any of the catch-up reading I promised myself. I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I did grit my teeth on January 1st and resolve to read more this year. Especially books from new writers.

I have a break coming up as I complete a big writing project, and as a reward I have my eye on the new fantasy series from Matthew Ward. He’s the author of the Legacy Trilogy, and this new project — featuring a thief caught up in a failed heist, on her way to the capital to be turned into an animated skeleton — sounds like just what I need. Adrian Collins at GrimDark Magazine says it’s “full of action, heart, betrayal, and set in a dark, engaging world,” and that’s all the recommendation I need.

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Learn the ABC’s of Horror with Mark Morris

Learn the ABC’s of Horror with Mark Morris

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The first four volumes of the ABCs of Horror anthology series, edited by Mark Morris
and published by Flame Tree Press. Covers by Nik Keevil and Flame Tree Studio

I miss the days of the paperback horror anthology. The great horror anthologists of the late 20th Century — Peter Haining, Sam Moskowitz, Charles L. Grant, Karl Edward Wagner, David Hartwell, and others — curated dozens of volumes of top-notch fiction that kept me thrilled and entertained many a late night, and introduced me to countless new authors in the process.

Mark Morris has been working hard to recapture that old-school magic with a brand new series of anthologies, all of which feature new work from the top names in horror today — including Ramsey Campbell, Grady Hendrix, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, Nathan Ballingrud, Christopher Golden, Seanan McGuire, Steve Rasnic Tem, Alison Littlewood, Josh Malerman, Tim Lebbon, Angela Slatter, Michael Marshall Smith, Simon Bestwick, Robert Shearman, Stephen Volk, Catriona Ward, Paul Finch, Priya Sharma, Aliya Whiteley, Lisa Tuttle, Lynda E. Rucker, Nina Allan, Brian Evenson, Peter Atkins, Mark Gatiss, Simon Clark, Helen Marshall, and many, many more.

Mark Morris posted his first article at Black Gate on Sunday (a rave review of the Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher, which he calls a masterpiece,) and while we were chatting I asked him about his inspiration and plans for the series. His response was interesting enough that I thought I’d share it with you here.

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