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Author: John ONeill

Check out the Latest Issue of Apex Magazine, Available Now

Check out the Latest Issue of Apex Magazine, Available Now

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Apex Magazine #122. Cover by Thomas Tan.

I’m excited to see Apex Magazine return to a regular schedule.

Apex published its first print issue on March 16, 2005, and quickly established a reputation as one of the finest new SF magazines of the new century. It focuses on dark science fiction and fantasy, and has won several Hugo and Nebula Awards. Catherynne M. Valente was the editor for issues #15-29, Lynne M. Thomas for #30-55, and Sigrid Ellis for #56-67. Jason Sizemore has been editor issue #68. The mag took an 8-month hiatus in 2019, and returned with a bi-monthly schedule in January with issue 121.

Issue 122 is packed with great fiction by Sam J. Miller, A.C. Wise, Sheree Renée Thomas, Annie Neugebauer, and others. You can sample individual stories for free; the complete issue is for sale for $4.99.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Future Treasures: The Helm of Midnight by Marina Lostetter

Future Treasures: The Helm of Midnight by Marina Lostetter

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The Helm of Midnight (Tor Books, April 13, 2021)

There’s something about a well-rendered fantasy city that speaks to me of adventure. Maybe it’s the classic tales of Leiber’s Lankhmar, or Gygax’s Greyhawk, Ellen Kushner’s Riverside, Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork, or so many others. When I see a procedural detective novel in a fantastical city, I look forward to a tale of intrigue, action and surprises.

That’s what I’m expecting from The Helm of Midnight, the first novel in a new trilogy from Marina Lostetter, author of the popular Noumenon space opera series that wrapped up last year. It arrives in hardcover from Tor in three weeks. Here’s the description.

In a daring and deadly heist, thieves have made away with an artifact of terrible power—the death mask of Louis Charbon. Made by a master craftsman, it is imbued with the spirit of a monster from history, a serial murderer who terrorized the city.

Now Charbon is loose once more, killing from beyond the grave. But these murders are different from before, not simply random but the work of a deliberate mind probing for answers to a sinister question.

It is up to Krona Hirvath and her fellow Regulators to enter the mind of madness to stop this insatiable killer while facing the terrible truths left in his wake.

K. B. Wagers, author of the Farian War trilogy, calls it “An utterly enthralling mystery of magic, masks, and murder. Marina Lostetter weaves together three stories to a stunning conclusion.” Maybe that’s just a couple of space opera writers sticking together, but I’m willing to take the chance.

The Helm of Midnight will be published by Tor Books on April 13, 2021. It is 456 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover, $13.99 digital, and $27.99 in audio formats. Read a generous excerpt at Tor.com.

See all our recent coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy here.

Vintage Treasures: Star Colony by Keith Laumer

Vintage Treasures: Star Colony by Keith Laumer

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Star Colony (Ace Books, 1983). Cover by Attila Hejja

Keith Laumer was an Air Force officer and a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service before becoming a full-time SF writer in the late 50s. He was a familiar face in the digest SF mags, with four stories nominated for Hugo or Nebula Awards, and A Plague of Demons was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1966. His most famous series, the satirical adventures of the cool-headed galactic diplomat Retief, and the military future-history focused on Bolo super-tanks, were popular for many years.

Laumer famously suffered a stroke in 1971 that left him unable to write for many years; a long rehabilitation eventually enabled him to pick up a pen again, but his work suffered noticeably. As Wikipedia notes:

The quality of his work suffered, and his career declined. In later years, Laumer also re-used scenarios and characters from earlier works to create new books, which one critic felt limited their appeal: “Alas, Retief to the Rescue doesn’t seem so much like a new Retief novel, but a kind of Cuisinart mélange of past books.”

Laumer’s editors and publishers, and many of his readers, remained loyal for many years, publishing, promoting and reading many books that were markedly different from his earlier output. In 1983 Ace put substantial marketing dollars behind the 400-page space opera Star Colony, advertised as “His Long-Awaited Epic Novel.”

Reviews weren’t kind. Kirkus called it,

A disjointed pseudo-docudrama detailing the “”history”” of star colony Omega, with only a few flashes of the old Laumer wit… Less a novel than a set of intermittently amusing stories weakly cobbled together — with lots of comic-book action, silly dialogue and little overall coherence.

Modern readers haven’t been much more generous. Star Colony has a 3.06 rating at Goodreads; this review by James is fairly typical.

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New Treasures: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis

New Treasures: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis

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I’m hearing a lot of buzz about this book.

I first heard about it in Andrew Liptak’s March newsletter (the “15 science fiction and fantasy books to check out this March” installment), in which he wrote:

I’m a big fan of military fiction, especially stuff that’s close to the horizon when it comes to predicting the future, like P.W. Singer and August Cole’s Ghost Fleet. This new novel comes from Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, and is set nearly a decade from now, chronicling how a world war between the US and China might occur.

I’ve been reading an advance copy of this, and it’s a chilling read, one that looks at the plausible future when it comes to cybersecurity, military hardware, and geopolitics.

Wired devoted an entire issue to an excerpt of the novel, which includes the first six chapters.

Wired in fact calls it “A rippingly good read… even cautionary tales can be exciting, when the future we’re most excited about is the one where they never come true.” Kirkus says it’s “A frightening look at how a major-power showdown might race out of control… This compelling thriller should be required reading for our national leaders.”

2034 is written by two former US military officers, and the publisher describes it as

A chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034 — and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.

2034: A Novel of the Next World War was published by Penguin on March 9, 2021. It is 320 pages, priced at $27 in hardcover, $14.99 digital, and $24.99 in audio formats.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

Vintage Treasures: Invaders of Earth edited by Groff Conklin

Vintage Treasures: Invaders of Earth edited by Groff Conklin

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Invaders of Earth (Tempo, September 1962). Cover artist unknown

Before his untimely death in 2016, Bud Webster was Black Gate‘s poetry editor and one of our finest columnists. He wrote a number of Who? columns on forgotten SF writers for our print issues, and thoughtful pieces on selling books at conventions for our website. In his paean to the science fiction anthologies of his youth, Anthopology 101: Reflections, Inspections and Dissections of SF Anthologies, Bud wrote fondly about the great SF anthologies of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Here’s an excerpt from Above the Rest, the chapter dedicated to editor Groff Conklin.

I kept noticing that the stories I liked best, the ones I’d remember from one week to the next, the ones I thrust on my friends with the words “You GOTTA read THIS one!”, all seemed to come from the Conklin anthologies. So, I began pulling his books off the library shelves before I picked Bleiler’s, or Pohl’s, or the others, and when I found (joy of joys!) a dingy little shop near my school that sold ratty old paperbacks for a dime, Conklin’s were the ones I looked for first.

In a note to me about Conklin, Jack Williamson said, “His anthologies…. were landmarks, and I think they had a good deal to do with a wider acceptance of SF…”

In compiling this beast, I’ve read reviews, looked at web pages, and talked to long-time SF readers, fans and pros over and over. When anthologies are discussed, certain names are always mentioned: Pohl, Merril, Bleiler and Dikty, Healy and McComas…. and their relative merits discussed at length. But when Conklin’s name comes up, they invariably nod and say, “Oh, yeah, anything by Groff Conklin.”

Like Bud, my early exposure to adult science fiction was in SF anthologies I found in school libraries, in my case edited by Terry Carr, Robert Silverberg, and Isaac Asimov. But I discovered Conklin soon enough, and one of my favorites was his 1952 anthology of alien invasion tales, Invaders of Earth.

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Future Treasures: Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley

Future Treasures: Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley

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Skyward Inn (Solaris, March 16, 2021)). Cover by Dominic Forbes

Aliya Whiteley is the author of The Beauty (which I described as “dystopian horror filled with cosmic weirdness, strange fungi, and terrifying tales told around post-apocalyptic campfires” three years ago), The Arrival of Missives, and Skein Island. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed that Whiteley is accumulating a rep for SF on the weird side.

Her newest certainly fits that mold. SFX calls Skyward Inn “A melancholy and compellingly weird tale of identity in crisis,” and Publisher’s Weekly says it’s a “deeply weird story of missed chances, invasion, and assimilation.” I don’t know about you, but those sound like compelling endorsements to me. Here’s the publisher’s description.

Drink down the brew and dream of a better Earth.

Skyward Inn, within the high walls of the Western Protectorate, is a place of safety, where people come together to tell stories of the time before the war with Qita.

But safety from what? Qita surrendered without complaint when Earth invaded; Innkeepers Jem and Isley, veterans from either side, have regrets but few scars.

Their peace is disturbed when a visitor known to Isley comes to the Inn asking for help, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future.

Did humanity really win the war?

Skyward Inn will be published by Solaris on March 16, 2021. It is 336 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover, $6.99 in digital format, and $24.99 for the audiobook. Read an excerpt at SciFiNow.

See all our coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy here.

Lovecraftian Horror, Robot Musicians, and Alien Monsters: March/April 2021 Print SF Magazines

Lovecraftian Horror, Robot Musicians, and Alien Monsters: March/April 2021 Print SF Magazines

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Covers by NASA, Maurizio Manzieri, and Warwick Fraser-Coombe

My regular trips to Barnes & Noble to pick up the latest print magazines are usually a fun affair. But it was bittersweet last month as, due to the ongoing uncertainty surrounding Interzone (and the planned retirement of its editor, Andy Cox), I assumed the Nov-Dec 2020 edition currently on the stands would be the final print issue of Interzone. Fortunately the magazine appears to be continuing, as least for the short term.

First up — the latest Asimov’s SF, with stories by Greg Egan, James Patrick Kelly, Kali Wallace, Michael Swanwick, and Black Gate‘s Saturday night blogger Derek Künsken. Here’s the highlights from Victoria Silverwolf’s review at Tangent Online.

The magazine opens strongly with “Glitch” by Alex Irvine. The setting is a future in which one’s consciousness can be recorded and then downloaded into a new body after death, if one can pay the price. People can also swap minds, using similar technology, or hitch rides inside the bodies of other persons. The story begins with the protagonist in a new body, after being killed in a bombing. The terrorists tried to block the minds of their victims from being resurrected, but a technical problem caused the main character to share his body with the mind of the bomber, who also died during the attack. He struggles to prevent the terrorist from taking over completely, while evading the authorities and fighting to stop another bombing. The author creates a vivid and suspenseful tale…

“Mrs. Piper Between the Sea and the Sky” by Kali Wallace is a tale of alternate history set in the 1940s. Aliens arrive on Earth, ending the Second World War when they destroy both Germany and the Soviet Union for refusing to cooperate with them. The protagonist is a British secret agent, sent to the United States to capture a former war hero who chose to work with the aliens. If necessary, she is ready to kill to accomplish her mission. She witnesses the devastating effect the arrival of the aliens has on plants and animals, and learns something about the relationship between the married couple. The premise is intriguing… The story’s mood ranges from Lovecraftian cosmic horror to spy thriller to domestic drama…

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Vintage Treasures: H. Beam Piper’s Paratime Tales

Vintage Treasures: H. Beam Piper’s Paratime Tales

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Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (Ace, 1977) and Paratime (Ace Books, 1981). Covers by Michael Whelan

H. Beam Piper was one of my favorite science fiction writers in my formative years. I adored his Fuzzy novels — Little Fuzzy (1962), Fuzzy Sapiens (1964), and the “long lost” novel Fuzzies and Other People (1984), published twenty years after Piper died by suicide in 1964 — and they were one of the first science fiction novels I passed along to my children when they were old enough to read (they were a huge hit). Piper was also well known for his Federation/Empire future history stories, chiefly published in Astounding.

Piper was also a pioneering writer in the field we now call Alternate History, with his entertaining tales of the Paratime police, who patrol alternate timelines to both keep their existence secret and protect them from those who’d exploit or destroy them. They were collected in Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, a fix-up novel composed of the long novella “Gunpowder God” and novelette “Down Styphon!”, and Paratime, which gathers five tales published in Astounding between 1948 and 1955.

The opening story “He Walked Around the Horses, originally published in 1948, offers an SF explanation for the centuries-old mystery surrounding the true-life disappearance of British diplomatic envoy Benjamin Bathurst during the Napoleonic Wars. Many of the tales are considered some of the finest to appear in Astounding, and have been anthologized numerous times, in The Best of Astounding (1978), Analog: The Best of Science Fiction (1985), Damon Knight’s Science Fiction Argosy (1972), and many other places. The 1950 novella “Last Enemy” was nominated for a retro-Hugo in 2001. (It lost out to “The Man Who Sold the Moon” by Robert Heinlein.)

Writing in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, John Clute claims, “Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen remains the most successful and enjoyable of all these tales.” It was published in 1965, just after Piper died. As Clute notes, “He died in his prime.”

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Revealing the Cover — and an Excerpt — from Robert V. S. Redick’s Sidewinders

Revealing the Cover — and an Excerpt — from Robert V. S. Redick’s Sidewinders

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We’re big fans of Robert V. S. Redick here at Black Gate. I’ve lost count of how many of his books our staff has enthusiastically reviewed over the years but… whew, it’s a lot. That’s why we’re so excited at the impending release of Sidewinders, the second volume in The Fire Sacraments series (following Master Assassins, which we covered — you know it! — right here back in 2018).

As if we weren’t excited enough already, Black Gate website editor emeritus C.S.E. Cooney sent us this blurb for the book and I have to tell you, it wound us up pretty good. Have a look.

Sidewinders. I love this book, goddamnit. Robert V. S. Redick gives a fantasy reader everything her fiendish heart craves: plagues, prophets, demonic possessions, a desperate dash through desert dunes, giant spiders, giant cats, creepy children, plenty of vulgarity and sex, and an all-too-brief glimpse of paradise. So sure, if you like that kind of thing, go for it. Read this book. It’s for you. But wait, there’s more. For your not-so-average fantasy reader, your not-so-run-of-the-mill genre-lover, I beg you, look to Sidewinders. For it will give you ambiguity and delicacy. It will not spare you of its irony — and, oh, such irony! Its pages will impart so profound and aching an empathy that it just might leap off the page and follow you into your daily life. There is such courage in Robert V. S. Redick’s Sidewinders — such courage and fury and passion and hope. Truly a breathtaking work.

—C.S.E. Cooney, author of the forthcoming Saint Death’s Daughter, on Sidewinders

Talos Press will be publishing Sidewinders on July 6, 2021. Wunderkind PR were kind enough to send us a high-resolution sneak peek of the cover to share with you — and also a tasty excerpt from Chapter One of the book.

Without further ado — check out the gorgeous cover, featuring artwork by Mack Sztaba!

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Future Treasures: The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst

Future Treasures: The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst

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Sarah Beth Durst has been nominated three times for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and the Andre Norton Award. Her most recent work for adults is the 4-volume Queens of Renthia series, which opened with The Queen of Blood (2016).

Her latest, arriving from Harper Voyager next week, is a standalone epic fantasy in which a band of aging warriors have a second chance to defeat dark magic and avenge a haunting loss. This is one of my most highly-anticipated March releases, and I’m looking forward to finally having a copy in my hands.

Twenty-five years ago, five heroes risked their lives to defeat the bone maker Eklor — a corrupt magician who created an inhuman army using animal bones. But victory came at a tragic price. Only four of the heroes survived. 

Since then, Kreya, the group’s leader, has exiled herself to a remote tower and devoted herself to one purpose: resurrecting her dead husband. But such a task requires both a cache of human bones and a sacrifice — for each day he lives, she will live one less.

She’d rather live one year with her husband than a hundred without him, but using human bones for magic is illegal in Vos. The dead are burned — as are any bone workers who violate the law. Yet Kreya knows where she can find the bones she needs: the battlefield where her husband and countless others lost their lives.

But defying the laws of the land exposes a terrible possibility. Maybe the dead don’t rest in peace after all.  

Five warriors — one broken, one gone soft, one pursuing a simple life, one stuck in the past, and one who should dead. Their story should have been finished. But evil doesn’t stop just because someone once said, “the end.”

The Bone Maker will be published by Harper Voyager on March 9, 2021. It is 496 pages, priced at $17.99 in trade paperback, $10.99 digital, and $44.99 for the audio CD. 

See all our recent coverage of the best upcoming SF and fantasy here.