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Author: John ONeill

Vintage Treasures: Maurai & Kith by Poul Anderson

Vintage Treasures: Maurai & Kith by Poul Anderson

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Maurai & Kith (Tor Books, 1982). Cover art by Thomas Kidd

Uber-editor Jason M. Waltz kindly invited me to write the introduction to his new anthology The Lost Empire of Sol: A Shared World Anthology of Sword & Planet Tales, co-edited by Black Gate blogger Fletcher Vredenburgh, a terrific new shared-world volume that contains new stories by Howard Andrew Jones, E.E. Knight, Mark Finn, Keith Taylor, Joe Bonadonna and David C. Smith, and many more. As I was putting it together I realized that my concept of Sword-and-Planet is probably a little displaced from the modern definition. Nowadays it refers very specifically to John Carter-like tales fantasy adventure on far-off planets, as Howard Andrew Jones and I explored in our 2019 column over at Tor.com, Five Classic Sword-and-Planet Sagas (written under my Todd McAulty pseudonym).

But I tend to agree with Gardner Dozois, who used the term far more broadly to refer to old-school science fiction, and especially pulp-inspired tales of adventures in exotic locales. One of my favorite anthologies is his 1998 volume The Good Old Stuff: Adventure SF in the Grand Tradition, which I reviewed for the SF Site way back in 1999, and which is packed with exemplary examples. Here’s what I said at the time.

“Old Stuff” refers here to the spirit of early SF — the grand Space Opera, the planetary romance, what Dozois calls “the lush sword-and-planet” tale. Collected here are a fine assortment of short stories and novellas which celebrated that tradition, and in some cases took it in significant new directions.

There are tales of far exploration into the vastness of the galaxy in the face of hostile opposition (A.E. van Vogt’s “The Rull”), unknowable ancient alien civilizations (“The Last Days of Shandaker,” by Leigh Brackett), mysterious and deadly inter-dimensional invaders (James H. Schmitz’s superb, and oddly pastoral, “The Second Night of Summer”), rites of succession for a Galactic Empire (Jack Vance’s “The New Prime”), and brave men and women faced with terrible peril (just about any of them, really, but most especially Poul Anderson’s swashbuckling novella of intrepid explorers on a post-apocalyptic Earth coming face-to-face with strangely advanced barbarians from the far continent of Nor-Merika, “The Sky People.”)

I’d been a Poul Anderson fan for two decades by the time I read “The Sky People,” but I’d never read anything like that story, and it sent me scrambling to find more. That led me to Maurai & Kith, a 1982 Tor collection that gathers all the short stories in the series, plus two tales in his semi-related Kith series of early interstellar explorers in the 21st and 22nd centuries. It’s a volume that belongs in the collection of every SF fan.

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Strange Alien Invasions and Orbital Salvage Teams: May/June 2021 Print SF Magazines

Strange Alien Invasions and Orbital Salvage Teams: May/June 2021 Print SF Magazines

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Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction & Fact for May/June 2021. Cover art by Shutterstock.com

Sam Tomaino at SFRevu raves over the latest issue of Asimov’s.

The May/June 2021 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction is here and it has two Hugo-worthy novelettes!

“Reclaiming the Stars” by James Gunn. This is the fourth and final story in a series that features the adventures of Harry and Lisa George, who as of the previous story, were physically long dead but survived as personalities in black boxes on an Earth… The story begins with Harry and Lisa working at recreating human life with Lisa more comfortable with that than Harry, who has nightmares about a future Adam being killed by a sea monster. He wonders if there is something wrong with him. But when Lisa has a nightmare of her own about their progeny dying. They speculate that these visions are coming from an outside source. Who or what? Could it be a “ghost” of the AI that they defeated in the first story in this series?

Harry and Lisa have one last adventure and the series concludes in a perfect way. This story will be on my shortlist for consideration for a Best Novelette Hugo Award next year.

The issue concludes with the novelette, “Flattering the Flame” by Robert Reed. The Great Ship has two possible routes, the Prudent or the Impetuous. The Impetuous takes them through a very ancient developed system inhabited by the people known as the Flame. The Flame knows of the coming of the Great Ship and plan to take it for their own, led by their captain, Fierce. But Washen, the Great Ship captain, has other ideas. Another wonderfully rich tale from one of the genre’s most unique writers.

The May/June Dell magazines also contain stories by Neal Asher, Lettie Prell, Dominica Phetteplace, Ray Nayler, David Moles, and many others. Here’s all the details.

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Future Treasures: A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

Future Treasures: A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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A Dead Jinn in Cairo (Tor.com, 2016), The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Tor.com, 2019),
and A Master of Djinn (Tor.com, 2021). Cover art by Kevin Hong (left) and Stephan Martiniere (right two)

I get a lot of email from Black Gate readers. Stuff like, “Hey John, I’m boarding a five hour flight to LA , what should I put on my Kindle?” Seriously? Come on, people. I have a life. I don’t have time to drop everything to be your personal librarian.

Ha-ha-ha-ha. I know, right? Like I have a life, outside of being your personal librarian. So let’s get to this. Got five hours? Here’s what you do: You download P. Djèlí Clark’s novelette “A Dead Djinn in Cairo,” (originally published at Tor.com), and his Locus, Nebula, and Hugo-nominated novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015, set in the same alternate fantasy Cairo.

And then when you land, you can pre-order the next book in the series, Clark’s debut novel A Master of Djinn, on sale from Tor.com on Tuesday. Here’s the details.

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New Treasures: Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

New Treasures: Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

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Rivers Solomon’s debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts was one of the breakout books of 2017, listed as a best book of the year in The Guardian, NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and others, a finalist for the Locus, Lambda, Tiptree, and John W. Campbell Awards. Faer latest novel Sorrowland was published this week, and Bookpage calls it “terrifying… a truly powerful piece of storytelling.” Here’s the publisher’s description.

Vern — seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised — flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.

But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future — outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

Sorrowland was published by MCD on May 4, 2021. It is 368 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover, $13.99 in digital formats, and $50.99 in audio formats.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

Vintage Treasures: The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein

Vintage Treasures: The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert A. Heinlein

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The Past Through Tomorrow (Berkley Medallion, January 1975). Cover uncredited

I’ve never been a big Heinlein fan. Not my fault. I enjoyed Starship Troopers well enough, but the next two novels I tried — The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and especially Friday — I bounced off pretty hard. I never tried again.

It didn’t help that I made most of my discoveries through short fiction in those days, and Heinlein almost never showed up in anthologies. Sometimes editors would apologize for omitting him, admitting (with some frustration) that they just couldn’t get the rights to the Heinlein tales they wanted. The problem was that by the mid-70s Heinlein was a star, the top-selling author in the field, and his entire short fiction catalog was locked up in his own bestselling collections.

I read collections, of course. Lots of them. But the seminal Heinlein collection, the one containing virtually all of his really important short work — including classics like “The Roads Must Roll,” “Blowups Happen,” “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” “Gentlemen, Be Seated,” “The Green Hills of Earth,” “Logic of Empire,” “The Menace from Earth,” “If This Goes On —”, and the short novel Methuselah’s Children — was the massive The Past Through Tomorrow. And that 830-page beast was just a bridge too far for a traumatized veteran of the first 100 pages of Friday.

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A Uniquely Terrifying Voice: To Drown in Dark Water by Steve Toase

A Uniquely Terrifying Voice: To Drown in Dark Water by Steve Toase

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To Drown in Dark Water (Undertow Publications, April 2021). Cover by Stefan Koidl

Undertow Publications, one of the finest small press publishers on the continent, just announced Open Submissions for novels and novellas. It’s caused a huge swell of excitement among many of the writing circles I keep tabs on — and a flurry of folks asking, “Wait, what kind of books do they want?”

Read the guidelines, people. Even better, pick up one of their excellent previous releases, including Simon Strantzas’s Nothing is Everything, V. H. Leslie’s Skein and Bone, Grotesquerie by Richard Gavin, or their top-notch magazine Weird Horror.

Or you could buy their latest, Steve Toase’s debut collection To Drown in Dark Water, just released this week with a magnificently creepy cover by Stefan Koidl. It’s already accumulated strong notices. Nathan Ballingrud calls it “an outstanding first collection,” and Bram Stoker winner Sarah Read says:

There are masters of folk horror and masters of weird horror; there are masters of cosmic horror and masters of psychological horror. But on the Venn diagram where all those intersect, there is only Steve Toase. To Drown in Dark Water is a masterpiece.

Here’s a quote from the rave review at Booklist.

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New Treasures: Wings of Fury by Emily R. King

New Treasures: Wings of Fury by Emily R. King

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Wings of Fury (47North, March 2021). Cover by Ed Bettison

Emily R. King is the author of the popular Hundredth Queen series. For her latest fantasy series she mines Greek Mythology to tell a tale of titans, gods, oracles, and an 18-year old girl who takes them all on. This one looks like a lot of fun. Publishers Weekly says “King ably weaves Greek mythology into a cat-and-mouse spectacle… This is a winner.” Here’s an excerpt from the full review.

Set in ancient Greece, this sumptuous adventure from King (the Hundredth Queen series) sees a fierce heroine contending with brutal Titans, suspicious vestals, and a petulant Boy God. Eleven-year-old Althea Lambros witnesses her mother die while giving birth to a half-Titan baby after having been raped by the god Cronus, the most powerful Titan. At her dying mother’s request, Althea vows to protect her older sisters, Cleora and Bronte. But when Althea is 18, Cronus’s goons kidnap Cleora. Althea seeks advice on how to defeat Cronus from the oracle Clotho, who tasks Althea with retrieving the 15-year-old Boy God Zeus from the island of Crete, where he’s been hidden from Cronus…. King ably weaves Greek mythology into a cat-and-mouse spectacle. Readers will cheer for Althea as she upholds her family’s honor and fights belligerent gods with determination and confidence. This is a winner.

The second and final book in the series, Crown of Cinders, will be released on October 5th.

Wings of Fury was published by 47North on March 1, 2021. It is 301 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback, $4.99 in digital formats, and $14.99 for the audio CD. The cover was designed by Ed Bettison. See all our recent New Treasures here.

Vintage Treasures: Judgment Night by C.L. Moore

Vintage Treasures: Judgment Night by C.L. Moore

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Judgment Night (Dell, 1979). Cover uncredited

Every new generation of SF readers has to put up with old timers lecturing them about how much better science fiction was decades ago. I had to endure it when I was growing up, my kids sure as hell did, and I expect twenty years from now my grandkids will have to cope with the same annoyance, as they try to peacefully enjoy their favorite manga by the pool while grandad angrily shouts at them to read a damn book once in a while. I hope they ignore him.

From time to time some curious young reader will ask me for a recommendation from the pulp era of science fiction I’m always going on about, “You know, something actually good.” It’s a fair enough request. Sometimes I point them towards Charles Tanner’s Tumithak stories, or Robert E. Howard, or Clark Ashton Smith. But recently I’ve been suggesting C.L. Moore. And especially her 1979 paperback Judgment Night, which collects five tales from the pulp era of Astounding. Here’s Paul Di Filippo’s review of the title story, published here at Black Gate a decade ago,

A primal space opera, it concerns the star empire of the Lyonese, whose central world is Ericon, where ancient patron gods live, remote from day-to-day affairs of the empire.

But now the vast holdings of the Lyonese are crumbling under the assault of a younger race, the H’vani. The Emperor’s heir is Juille, a daughter, and she’s determined her dynasty will continue. She wages a one-woman campaign against the wishes of her doddering father to save all that her ancestors built.

But she doesn’t count on falling in love with the H’vani ruler — or the machinations of Ericon’s living deities.

“Judgment Night,” published in the August 1943 issue of Astounding, is a complete short novel in itself, but that lovely paperback also contains the novella “Paradise Street” and three long novelettes. It’s a delightful introduction to what pulp science was all about — and one of its finest practitioners.

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Future Treasures: The Alien Stars And Other Novellas by Tim Pratt

Future Treasures: The Alien Stars And Other Novellas by Tim Pratt

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Tim Pratt has been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Stoker, and Mythopoeic Awards, and he won the Hugo Award for his short story “Impossible Dreams.” His latest — and most ambitious — work is the Axiom space opera trilogy, which Tor.com called “a witty, heartfelt sci-fi romp.” The first volume, The Wrong Stars, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award; we covered the whole series back in 2019.

His latest is a collection of three previously unpublished novellas set in the Axiom universe, and they sound terrific. The Alien Stars and Other Novellas was originally funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign, but the end result was successful enough that Angry Robot picked it up for reissue in paperback. Locus calls the collection a “Compelling, fun, explosive work of space opera pulp. It’s delightful,” and Publishers Weekly said,

With these three exciting novellas, Pratt explores and expands the lively pulp world of his Axiom space opera trilogy… “The Augmented Stars” finds cyborg engineer Ashok captaining his own wormhole generator–equipped vessel. He and his crew contend with ancient alien artifacts from Axiom facilities and cosplaying space pirates… In the epistolary title story, alien Lantern risks her life to prevent her own treacherous people from destroying humanity and save the human woman she loves… each of these tales delivers the buoyant humor and adventure of the Axiom novels.

The book arrives in paperback next week. Here’s the publisher’s description.

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New Treasures: The Complete Ivy Frost by Donald Wandrei

New Treasures: The Complete Ivy Frost by Donald Wandrei

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The Complete Ivy Frost (Haffner Books, December 2020). Cover by Raymond Swanland

No one else is doing the kind of superb work Stephen Haffner is, bringing pulp authors back into print in gorgeous archival-quality hardcovers that are within reach of the average collector. His latest release is The Complete Ivy Frost, which gathers together all eighteen stories of Donald Wandrei’s pulp supersleuth Professor I. V. “Ivy” Frost, one of the most popular characters to ever appear in Clues Detective Stories.

Are these classic tales still of interest to modern readers? Don’t take my word for it — here’s an excerpt from Steven R. Harbin’s Amazon review of Frost, the 2000 Fedogan and Bremer collection that gathered the first eight stories.

Donald Wandrei was one of the great pulp writers of the late 20’s and early 30’s. He’s best known for his cosmic science fiction and his macabre horror stories, and indeed was a Weird Tales Magazine and Astounding Stories regular. The eight stories in this collection show that he could also write pulp detective fiction with the best of them. His investigator Professor I. V. “Ivy” Frost is a mix of supersleuth, inventor, scientist, and master fighter all rolled into one. Deadly, logical, courageous, and stoic like the more famous denizen of Baker Street, he is also a man with a super gadget or two up his sleeve. In addition he just happens to have a beautiful, brainy, gutsy, blonde assistant named Jean Moray, who has her own advanced degrees AND a garter belt thigh holster complete with pearl handled .25. The slyly humorous romantic/sexual tension between Frost and Moray made the stories as far as I was concerned.

The editors of Clue Magazine asked Wandrei to develop a series character in an effort to compete with the more well known hard boiled fiction of Black Mask Magazine. Wandrei’s ratiocinative adventurer quickly became one of the most popular series characters in Clue‘s history…

Here’s publisher Stephen Haffner’s book description.
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