Browsed by
Category: BG Staff

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020, edited by Rich Horton

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020, edited by Rich Horton

The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020,
edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books, June 2021). Cover by Argus

The print version of Rich Horton’s 12th Year’s Best volume was delayed roughly six months by the pandemic, and it finally arrives next week. The delay was a little frustrating for those of us who look forward to this book every year, but considering how deeply the pandemic impacted the publishing world overall, I figure it could have been a lot worse. (The digital version has been available since December, but I remain stubbornly a print guy.)

Rich’s introductions to the early volumes belonged to the get-out-of-the-way-and let-the-fiction-do-the-talking school, but over the years they’ve loosened up a bit, and this year’s is one of his best, a lively and thoughtful look at the impact of this very eventful year on science fiction, and some thoughts on famous genre pandemic fiction. Here’s part of his comments on the tales within.

Read More Read More

Sword & Planet is Back! Scott Oden Presents: The Lost Empire of Sol, edited by Jason M Waltz and Fletcher Vredenburgh

Sword & Planet is Back! Scott Oden Presents: The Lost Empire of Sol, edited by Jason M Waltz and Fletcher Vredenburgh

Cover art by M. D. Jackson

This reviews Scott Oden Presents: The Lost Empire of Sol brought to you by the Rogue Blades Foundation. This is a fine collection that certainly achieved its mission of inserting a jolt into Sword & Planet offeringsWith its interesting premise and cast of authors, The Lost Empire of Sol is destined to become a historic Sword & Planet anthology.

It is edited by two who are well known to the Black Gate community. Firstly, Jason M. Waltz, champion of Rogue Blades Entertainment and the Rogue Blades Foundation, is notorious for rounding up contemporary authors in themed anthologies (perhaps most well known for the 2008 Sword & Sorcery classic Return of the Sword …. and most currently known for Robert E. Howard Changed My Life releasing ~now (appropriately on June 11th, REH’s anniversary of passing). And we also have Fletcher Vredenburgh, well known for his outstanding reviews, who provides the “Foreword”: he explains how discussions on Facebook with Scott Oden (adored author of historical fiction, Conan pastiche, and the Grimnir series) escalated into this collection.  Also, to dimension the genre and set the stage for a revival is the esteemed John O’Neill (our esteemed chief editor of Black Gate Magazine) provides an introductory essay “Sword & Planet is the Genre We Need.” 

Read More Read More

Dinosaurs, Steampunk, and an Indiana Jones-style Adventure: Turn Over the Moon by Ryan Harvey

Dinosaurs, Steampunk, and an Indiana Jones-style Adventure: Turn Over the Moon by Ryan Harvey

Sorrowful and Sorrowless Fear neither Moon nor Sun,

Side by side, we flip the stones…

…Until both can claim we’ve won.

Last October, Black Gate alerted folks to the Turn Over the Moon’s Kickstarter campaign which brought Ryan Harvey’s world of Ahn-Tarqa into novel form (with Dream Tower Media). That journey began a decade prior and we’ll cover the ancillary tales leading up to that. Although a prequel and side stories exist, be assured that the novel feels designed to be the gateway into this Sorrow-laden world. Have no fear (or Sorrow) and enter here (with Turn Over the Moon).

The subtitle “Saga of the Sorrowless Book #1” had me gearing up for an epic fantasy in which (a) most mysteries would resolve in subsequent books and (b) the pace may be slower than the short stories I typically read. That would have been fine, of course, but Harvey (who already has proven himself a master of the short form) pleasantly delivers a cross-breed of short-story style with typical novel form: there are mysteries, but you get to learn them speedily, and the pace is super-charged. The opening chapters will have you wondering (no worries, no spoilers here): (1) who are the Shapers, (2) how the heck does the prevailing Sorrow connect to the heroine, world, and conflict, and (3) who is the mystery woman? I won’t tell you here but rejoice in knowing that the revelations are engaging and explained satisfyingly within the covers.

“The Shapers can reach me in my dreams. I escaped their clutches once, but in the blackness of sleep they tear open the walls of my head and slither inside. In each nightmare they glare down on me as they once glared down on all the land, from the edge of the eastern desert to the dwindling tip of the western peninsula. As they once glared down on my father, bound across his own workbench for their tortures. Even though their eyes are drowned within the dark slits of their masks, I can feel their stares. The robes hiding their bodies flutter around me in a barrier. There is nothing beyond.” — the teenage heroine Belde

Abandon all Sorrow, all ye who enter here!

Read More Read More

Mad Shadows: Andrew Paul Weston reviews the series

Mad Shadows: Andrew Paul Weston reviews the series

As the Black Gate watch warned you, Joe Bonadonna’s Mad Shadows series had a recent release (Book III: The Heroes of Echo Gate). So it is timely to review the entire series, and for that esteemed author Andrew Paul Weston steps up. Incidentally, Mr. Weston is no stranger to Black Gate, or Hell for that matter (check out his Bio below). So I pass the microphone over to him so he can recap each entry.

Read More Read More

Rakefire and Other Stories’ Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts

Rakefire and Other Stories’ Sum Is Greater Than Its Parts

Rakefire and Other Stories released July 2020 via Pulp Hero Press

Nine weird adventures span the 216 pages of this grimoire. Penned by emerging thaumaturgist Jason Ray Carney, Rakefire promises to corrupt any reader. So let us get this disclaimer out of the way: the mere reading of this tome may thicken your blood with wonder. Red turning to black, your blood will never bleed the same. Read this review at your own risk.

The book blurb labels this “Fever Dreams of Sword & Sorcery in an Eld Realm of Unfathomable Beauty and Cruelty” and it also contains “enigmatic tales of horror and fantasy in the pulp tradition.” That summary is spot on. Most of the tales focus on the sorcery end of the spectrum. Jason Ray Carney’s writing style is reminiscent of Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith (full of pregnant shadows and intellectual skullduggery!). Excerpts throughout this review reinforce what to expect.

The majority of the stories (6/9) have been published in various magazines, but reading them piece-meal is like eating random snacks instead of a five-course meal. The confluence amplifies the lore threading them all together (lore discussed below). Plus, the three newly published tales extend the impact. Each is recapped below, and most have excerpts that emphasize the style and common milieu (while avoiding spoilers). This serves as a tour guide into Jason Ray Carney’s strange world.

Read More Read More

Call for Backers! Dragons by the Yard

Call for Backers! Dragons by the Yard

I’ll confess I have always loved the concept behind Dragons by the Yard. Written by Debbie Daughetee and adapted for comics by Kelly Swails, it’s the story of Anna, a girl who sews dragons to sell at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet. One day she meets a mysterious woman who sells her an unusual fabric, and Anna makes seven little dragons out of it. Then the magic happens.

Currently, four issues of this wonderful tale exist, but Swails has four more scripts ready to go. Kymera Press is currently running a Kickstarter to turn those scripts into finished comics. Most of the money from the Kickstarter will go to the international team of artists, women who’ve worked for Marvel, DC, IDW, Dynamite or other big houses. They are featured in the brief video below.

Read More Read More

Mad Shadows, Book Three: The Heroes of Echo Gate by Joe Bonadonna

Mad Shadows, Book Three: The Heroes of Echo Gate by Joe Bonadonna

Mad Shadows, Book Three: The Heroes of Echo Gate (Pulp Hero Press, February 26, 2021). Cover artist unknown

Joe Bonadonna’s ‘Dorgo the Dowser’ emerges with new content in Mad Shadows Book Three: The Heroes of Echo Gate. It is available now in paperback ($17.95 for the 332-page paperback; $2.99 Kindle). Under the recent charge of Pulp Hero Press, the first two books have been reprinted in glorious style (Book One: Mad Shadows by Joe Bonadonna and Book Two: Dorgo the Dowser and the Order of the Serpent). The release of Book Three: The Heroes of Echo Gate marks the tenth year anniversary of the first book’s publication. The official book blurb clarifies what to expect in the latest installment:

Dorgo’s Greatest Challenge

During an arduous and dangerous trek through the Scarlet Desert in search of the fabled Well of Tears, Dorgo the Dowser and his companions accidentally uncover an ancient artifact buried for eons beneath the blood-colored sand. After a harrowing, action-packed journey through the desert they find the Well of Tears, the repository of God’s tears, and there encounter the ghosts of the Sisters of the Blue Light, the Guardians of the Well. The nuns tell them about the relic of antiquity they found: it is a thing of cosmic evil — a thing not of their world, a thing which must be destroyed. But the answer to destroying that artifact is a riddle Dorgo and his companions must discover for themselves.

When the Spirit trapped inside the artifact is set free by one of their companions, Dorgo and the others learn that the evil now threatens not only their world, but all the Otherworlds of the multi-dimensional Echoverse. The key to destroying this evil is somehow tied in with the demons seeking to control Echo Gate — the master portal that leads not only to every world in the Echoverse, but through Space and Time, as well. As a great battle erupts on the island of Thavarar, where Echo Gate is located, Dorgo and his companions must unravel the mystery of the thing they found in the desert, and discover the means by which it can be destroyed.

Read More Read More

Sunken Realms and a Road of Bones: Tales From the Magician’s Skull #5, edited by Howard Andrew Jones

Sunken Realms and a Road of Bones: Tales From the Magician’s Skull #5, edited by Howard Andrew Jones

Tales From the Magician’s Skull #5 (Goodman Games, December 2020). Cover by Sanjulian

I don’t think there’s a magazine out there I look forward to as much as Tales From the Magician’s Skull, edited by Howard Andrew Jones and published twice a year by Goodman Games.

Yes, partly it’s because it regularly features so many people I consider friends, including James Enge, John C. Hocking, Ryan Harvey, Violette Malan, Adrian Simmons, and of course Howard, who was Managing Editor here at Black Gate for many years. If you’re a Black Gate reader in fact, you’re guaranteed to find a great deal you’ll love about the Skull — and not just because all of those lovely folks have written for BG over the years.

But I think the real reason I enjoy it is because the magazine is a tremendous amount of fun, and everything about it radiates an abiding love of adventure fantasy and sword & sorcery. Want an example? Here’s an excerpt from Howard’s introduction to the brand new issue — beginning with the welcome news that the magazine is open to submissions for the first time!

We will throw the gates wide on a trial basis for a limited time…. The Skull has decreed that we shall accept electronic manuscripts beginning on the anniversary of the birthday of the sacred genre’s father, Robert E. Howard, January 22, 2021, and close upon that date sacred to mortal fools, April 1, 2021…

Get more details on the Call for Submissions here.

Read More Read More

Crimson Mists and Uncrowned Kings: Savage Scrolls, Volume One, edited by Jason Ray Carney

Crimson Mists and Uncrowned Kings: Savage Scrolls, Volume One, edited by Jason Ray Carney

Savage Scrolls, Volume One (Pulp Hero Press, 2020). Cover uncredited.

Last summer there was an ugly incident involving the long-awaited publication of Flashing Swords #6 from Pulp Hero Press, the spiritual successor to Lin Carter’s legendary sword-and-sorcery series from the 70s. Editor Robert M. Price’s introduction, which read to me like an incoherent right-wing rant against feminism, proved toxic enough that four contributors pulled their stories immediately, and publisher Bob McLain made the decision to de-list and kill the book before it even went on sale.

That left plenty of good tales without a home, though Bob did promise that some would find a home in “a new anthology series – no politics, no drama, just sword-and-sorcery! – that I’d like to release later this year.” So I was especially intrigued to see the first volume of Savage Scrolls, a new Swords & Anthology series edited by the distinguished Jason Ray Carney, arrive from Pulp Hero in November. I ordered a copy last month, and I’m delighted to say it’s a thoroughly professional production.

And what a list on contributors! In addition to two tales salvaged from Flashing Swords (Adrian Cole’s Elak of Atlantis tale “The Tower in the Crimson Mist,” and Steve Dilks’s sword & sorcery “Tale of the Uncrowned Kings”), Savage Scrolls includes names that will be intimately familiar to Black Gate readers, including Howard Andrew Jones (with a new Hanuvar tale), James Enge (a new Morlock the Maker story), David C. Smith (a new Oron adventure) and D.M. Ritzlin (with a tale of Avok the Cytheran). In a Publisher’s Note at the back, Bob McLain teases readers with a promise that

The cover art will tell a story, spread over four volumes of Savage Scrolls. On the cover of this volume we have our characters on the cusp of battle: the barbarian, the cultist, and the sorceress. On the cover of the next volume we will have those same characters, with the barbarian, well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

A bold promise! Though why he’d draw such attention to the intriguing cover and then completely neglect to credit the artist, I have no idea. The artist isn’t credited anywhere, far as I can find. Maybe that’s part of the mystery.

Jason Ray Carney’s first blog post for Black Gate was Bran Mak Morn: Social Justice Warrior, and he’s promised us a behind-the-scenes peek at Savage Scrolls in the coming weeks.

Vintage Treasures: Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley

Vintage Treasures: Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley

Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley. Cover by Bruce Jensen

Paul J. McAuley was one of our earliest contributors, with a book review column in the very first issue of Black Gate magazine. His writing career was taking off at the same time — his debut novel Four Hundred Billion Stars won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988, and Kirkus Reviews raved about his 1995 novel Red Dust, calling it “An extraordinary saga… Superb.”

But his breakout book was Fairyland, an early nanotech novel set in a ruined Europe where bioengineered dolls are used as disposable slaves. It won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel, and was eventually reissued as part of Gollancz’s SF Masterworks series. In his SF Site review Matthew Cheney wrote:

Fairyland was first published in 1995; it dazzles still. Though some of the props of its future have been churned into clichés by many subsequent novels and movies, few of those props have gathered dust in the intervening years… even more remarkable is that, at least for its first two thirds, the novel succeeds as much on the strengths of its structure, characters, and themes as it does on its whizz-bangs and gosh-wows…

The basic plot is a simple thriller-quest: a man goes in search of a woman who bewitched him with something he considers love (though it might be the residual effect of being sprayed with nanobots)… Along the way, McAuley gives us a vision of EuroDisney that is as disturbing as the visions of its American counterparts in Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom and Carl Hiaasen’s Native Tongue. The chapters set here are among the most compelling and vivid in the book, a posthuman primordial ooze fueled by excesses of capital and biology in the ruins of a labyrinth built by corporate “Imagineers”….

It is a story propelled at its best moments by ideas, and yet it doesn’t neglect to present characters who are, more often than not, individual and unpredictable, and so it helps break down the supposed barriers between the novel of ideas and the novel of psychology in the same way that it breaks down the more intractable barriers between hard science fiction and high fantasy.

Fairyland was published in the UK by Gollancz in 1995, and reprinted in mass market paperback in the US by Avon in July 1997. The Avon paperback is 420 pages, priced at $5.99. The cover is by Bruce Jensen.

See all our recent Vintage Treasures here.