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New Treasures: The Choice Series by Paul McAuley

New Treasures: The Choice Series by Paul McAuley

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Something Coming Through Paul McAuley-small Into Everywhere Paul McAuley-small

Paul MaAuley was an early contributor to Black Gate, with a review column titled On the Edge. His first novel, Four Hundred Billion Stars (1988), won the Philip K. Dick Award; his 1996 novel Fairyland won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel. His latest is a pair of contemporary SF novels about an enigmatic alien race who make an equally enigmatic gift to mankind… Alastair Reynolds calls the first one, Something Coming Through, “as tight and relentlessly paced as an Elmore Leonard thriller… the freshest take on first contact and interstellar exploration in many years.” Here’s the description for Something Coming Through.

The Jackaroo have given humanity fifteen worlds and the means to reach them. They’re a chance to start over, but they’re also littered with ruins and artifacts left by the Jackaroo’s previous clients. Miracles that could reverse the damage caused by war, climate change, and rising sea levels. Nightmares that could forever alter humanity — or even destroy it.

Chloe Millar works in London, mapping changes caused by imported scraps of alien technology. When she stumbles across a pair of orphaned kids possessed by an ancient ghost, she must decide whether to help them or to hand them over to the authorities. Authorities who believe that their visions point towards a new kind of danger. And on one of the Jackaroo’s gift-worlds, the murder of a man who has just arrived from Earth leads policeman Vic Gayle to a war between rival gangs over possession of a remote excavation site.

Something is coming through. Something linked to the visions of Chloe’s orphans, and Vic Gayle’s murder investigation. Something that will challenge the limits of the Jackaroo’s benevolence …

Something Coming Through was published by Gollancz on June 21, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $12.99 in paperback and $1.99 for the digital edition. The sequel, Into Everywhere, was published in paperback by Gollancz on June 14, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $19.99 in paperback and $5.99 for the digital edition.

Premiere issue of New Pulp Magazine Broadswords and Blasters, Now Available in Print and Kindle

Premiere issue of New Pulp Magazine Broadswords and Blasters, Now Available in Print and Kindle

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Broadswords and Blasters 1-smallEditors Matthew X. Gomez and Cameron Mount have launched a new sci-fi/fantasy magazine into the fray, touting it as a “pulp magazine with modern sensibilities.” The debut issue is available on Kindle for $2.99 or in a print edition for $6.99. They have also been posting regular mini-essays called “Pulp Appeal” on their website, spotlighting seminal pulp authors and characters like Conan, John Carter, Elric, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Here is the back copy from the first issue:

The editors of Broadswords and Blasters are proud to present the first issue in a new line of pulp fiction serial publications. The stories in this issue blew us away when we read them, and the overall response confirms what we’ve always suspected: Action-oriented short fiction is still a hot commodity in the 21st Century.

In this, our debut issue, you will encounter subterranean horrors, time traveling lovers, two-fisted private investigators, space Mafiosi, and torturers turned political rabble-rousers, and that’s just a sampling of the great cast of characters you’ll meet along the way. Join us in celebrating the art that is pulp fiction. And tell your friends.

Here is the complete Table of Contents.

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Guile by Constance Cooper Now Available in Paperback

Guile by Constance Cooper Now Available in Paperback

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Guile Constance Cooper paperback-smallWe’re always proud when a Black Gate author breaks out to wider success in the publishing world. That happened with Constance Cooper’s Guile, her debut novel set in the same world — and drawing on the same characters — as her acclaimed story “The Wily Thing” from Black Gate 12.

Guile was published in hardcover by Clarion Books last year. Here’s Sarah Avery from her BG review.

In the town of Wicked Ford, an orphan girl with a secret claim on high town respectability but a history in a bayou stilt village lives under an assumed name and a false claim. Yonie makes her living as a pearly, an assessor of magical objects… she’s a self-taught antiquarian with a brilliant eye for detail, but to detect and diagnose magic, she needs the help of her business partner the talking cat…

Guile is a remarkable layerwork of mysteries. From the seemingly trivial and isolated mysteries about enchanted lockets and street signs that Yonie and LaRue solve for their daily subsistence, a larger pattern emerges that demands investigation. Mysteries of personal origin run beneath them, and every relationship Yonie has with kin, allies, friends, and suitors will be changed one way or another by the end of the book. Deepest of all runs the mystery of the river’s magic and the fallen civilizations that once understood it.

Constance Cooper’s debut novel delighted me from start to finish. The worldbuilding feels thoroughly lived in, as if we could step ahead of Yonie around any corner or shrub and something amazing would already be there for us to find. The characters are richly imagined individuals, and together they add up to a social world that is both kinder and more dangerous than Yonie ever guessed. The plot runs like the river delta it’s set in, its streams parting and rejoining and braiding around obstacles until it runs clear to its conclusion.

Read Sarah’s complete review here..

The paperback edition of Guile is now avaiable from HMH Books. It was published on March 14, 2017. It is 384 pages, priced at $9.99 for both the trade paperback and digital editions.

Future Treasures: A Tyranny of Queens, Book 2 of The Manifold Worlds, by Foz Meadows

Future Treasures: A Tyranny of Queens, Book 2 of The Manifold Worlds, by Foz Meadows

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An-Accident-of-Stars-medium A Tyranny of Queens-small

Foz Meadows, who’s been nominated for a 2017 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, wraps up her 2-volume Portal Fantasy The Manifold Worlds with A Tyranny of Queens, arriving in mass market paperback from Angry Robot next month. When she signed a 2-book deal with Angry Robot in 2015, Foz wrote,

After years of quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) obsessing over magic portals, feminism and adventuring ladies, I’m delighted to announce that Angry Robot has decided to enable me in these endeavours. An Accident of Stars is the book I desperately wanted to read, but couldn’t possibly have written, at sixteen – and, as you may have guessed, it features (among a great many other things) magic portals, feminism and adventuring ladies. I’m immensely excited to share it with you, and I look forward to collaborating in its production with our glorious Robot Overlords, who only asked in exchange a very small blood sacrifice and part ownership of my soul.

A Tyranny of Queens arrives on May 2.

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: Robert E. Howard, Master of Sword & Sorcery: A Conversation with Author Howard Andrew Jones

Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: Robert E. Howard, Master of Sword & Sorcery: A Conversation with Author Howard Andrew Jones

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Show Howard Andrew Jones

I have thoroughly enjoyed the last two audio shows from Robert Zoltan’s Dream Tower Media, a lively conversation with Black Gate blogger Ryan Harvey on Edgar Rice Burroughs, and a fascinating discussion with Scott Oden on the history and writing of J.R.R. Tolkien. So I was very excited to see that for Episode #4 the subject was the distinguished Howard Andrew Jones, author of the beloved Dabir & Asim Arabian fantasy tales, and the future bestseller For the Killing of Kings, out next year from St. Martin’s Press. The topic this time was none other than Robert E. Howard, the legendary creator of Conan, and perhaps the greatest Sword & Sorcery author of all time.

As usual, calling this a podcast doesn’t do it justice, as it’s really a professionally-produced radio show set in the dimension-hopping Dream Tower (with a talking raven). I’ve had plenty of lengthy discussions with Howard — who is the Managing Editor of Black Gate — over the years, and here he’s at the peak of his form, entertaining and highly informative. The podcast opens with a animated discussion of life in small town Texas, Robert E. Howard’s substantial gifts as a storyteller, and why he added whipping scenes to so many pulp tales. It looks at REH’s enduring creations — including Conan, Solomon Kane, and Dark Agnes — before exploring our fascination with ruins, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and the influence of gaming on modern fantasy.

My only criticism is the host’s tendency to wander off topic, and repeatedly cut off his guests to talk about himself. Robert Zoltan is a fascinating guy, and I enjoy his opinions, but that doesn’t mean that a 1-hour podcast on Robert E. Howard is the right place for a 3 minute monologue on Van Gogh, or a 7-minute monologue on narcissism and how hard it is to make a living as a musician. Future podcasts should focus more on his guests, or maybe just do away with the pretense of an interview entirely. That might set better expectations with listeners.

Check out Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: Robert E. Howard, Master of Sword & Sorcery: A Conversation with Author Howard Andrew Jones, and all the episodes of the Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast, here.

Rich Horton on the 2017 Hugo Nominations

Rich Horton on the 2017 Hugo Nominations

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All the Birds in the Sky Charlie Jane Anders-smaller Ninefox-Gambit-smaller A-Closed-and-Common-Orbit-smaller

The 2017 Hugo Award Nominees were announced earlier this month, and there’s lots of great stuff on the ballot this year. Over at his website Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton has a look at the results, and compares them to his predictions. Here’s his thoughts on the nominees for Best Novel.

I think this shortlist looks very impressive indeed. I had already read All the Birds in the Sky and Too Like the Lightning before my previous article, and I had suggested that I’d nominate All the Birds in the Sky (which I did). I also praised Too Like the Lightning… Since then I’ve gotten to Ninefox Gambit, and I very enthusiastically support its nomination. (I’m working on a review post about it.) Ninefox Gambit is complicated Military SF, which sort of teaches you how to read it as you go along. It’s got a fierce moral core, which is slowly revealed, and it opens up beautifully at the end, so that I don’t think the second book in the trilogy will be a “middle book.” And – this novel is reasonably speaking complete in itself.

I haven’t read the other three. But everything I’ve seen about A Closed and Common Orbit suggests I’ll like it – and also suggests that I really need to get to Chambers’ previous novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. The other two novels are sequels to the past two Hugo winners, and I have no reason to doubt their quality as well. This is probably the Best Best Novel shortlist in at least 5 years.

And, hey, three first novels! Is that the first time that’s ever happened?

See Rich’s complete piece here, and his preliminary Hugo Nomination Thoughts for 2017 here.

Black Gate on the List for the 2017 REH Foundation Awards

Black Gate on the List for the 2017 REH Foundation Awards

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Howard_FoundationPlaqueWell, the Preliminary List. There may well not be a more respected organization in Robert E. Howard circles than that of the REH Foundation. Black Gate and a few of its bloggers were on the final 2016 Awards ballot. Last week, the Foundation released the preliminary list for the 2017 Awards. It will be winnowed down to a final ballot soon.

Typing ‘Robert E. Howard’ or ‘Conan’ in the BG search engine (or just clicking on the Conan Category at left) will definitely establish that we love Howard and his works here at Black Gate. And several Black Gaters, including the site itself, are in the running for the 2017 final ballot. I’ll also point out that many of the nominees contributed to our ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series: some of the best Howard scholars came to Black Gate to share their thoughts. The Black Gate contingent:

The Cimmerian—Outstanding Achievement, Essay (Online)

(Essays must have made their first public published appearance in the previous calendar year and be substantive scholarly essays on the life and/or work of REH. Short blog posts, speeches, reviews, trip reports, and other minor works do not count.)

ADAMS, FRED – “Esau Cairn – A Man Outside His Epoch” – Black Gate
BYRNE, BOB – “Steve Harrison: REH’s Private Detective” – REH: Two Gun Raconteur Blog
JONES, HOWARD ANDREW – “The Ne’re-do-well Hero of “Gates of Empire” – REH: Two Gun Raconteur Blog
MAYNARD, WILLIAM PATRICK – “Steve Harrison Reconsidered” – REH: Two Gun Raconteur Blog

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Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin by Erika M. Szabo and Joe Bonadonna

Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin by Erika M. Szabo and Joe Bonadonna

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oie_44152suEVDGo2 (1)And now for something completely different: Only two weeks into my sci-fi excursion, I’m sidetracked by Three Ghosts in a Black Pumpkin, a new young adult fantasy from Black Gate’s own Joe Bonadonna and Erika M. Szabo. Although written for readers a couple of decades my junior, I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Somewhere in space and time, across from Halloween, is the world of Creepy Hollow. It used to be protected from evil by the Trinity of Wishmothers. Now, though, they are dead, and their ghosts have been trapped by Hobart T. Hobgoblin in a pitch-black pumpkin. The wicked Hobart (and his sidekick, Ebenezer Rex, the Tasmanian Devil) is now free to work evil on the land.

On Halloween, twelve-year-old Nikki Sweet and her eleven-year-old cousin, Jack Brady, find a black pumpkin. Their immediate reaction is to bring it home and turn it into a jack-o’-lantern. Just as they prepare to fetch a knife, their grandmother’s silver skeleton wind chime, Mr. Bonejingles, warns them not to do it.

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The Poison Apple: Have Long Sword Will Battle, An Interview with Martin Page

The Poison Apple: Have Long Sword Will Battle, An Interview with Martin Page

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Martin Page demonstrating German Longsword at Compulsion

Martin Page demonstrating German Longsword at Compulsion

Martin Page is a regular contributor to Black Gate and writes novels, such as the alternate history mash-up Swords versus Tanks and non-fiction books like Storyteller Tools, under the pen name, M. Harold Page. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland and teaches Medieval German longsword at Edinburgh’s Dawn Duellists Society.

Martin, what have you been working on?

I’ve been taken a break from blogging while working on a space opera series. I’ll shortly return with a series of articles on the new edition of Traveller, the famously gritty Science Fiction roleplaying game.

Traveller?

Massively influential game from the same era as Dungeons and Dragons but still going strong. Traveller has been around so long at this point that people recommend books or TV series that are strangely like the game, because they were probably heavily influenced by it!

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In the Hot Seat: The Reviewer Gets Grilled: An Interview with Fletcher Vredenburgh

In the Hot Seat: The Reviewer Gets Grilled: An Interview with Fletcher Vredenburgh

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Fletcher Vredenburgh-small

Fletcher is no stranger to the readers and fans of Black Gate. His articles and reviews are not only well-written, insightful and entertaining, they are extremely popular, as well. He is the “reviewer extraordinaire,” and his reviews have led me to read many books. I trust his opinion and his taste in what makes for a good novel. Fletcher is also one of the most voracious readers I have ever met; even in my prime, when I was reading about 2 books a week, I couldn’t top him. Tireless and energetic, Fletcher amazes me with his wonderful reviews, which are also very well written. He is not a “book critic,” however, as you’ll find out when you read my interview with him. He is a reviewer of books. A Master Review Writer. I’m happy I met him through social media, proud to call him my friend, and grateful to him for his great reviews of my books.

So let’s begin, shall we? Let’s see if we can find out what makes him tick, what he likes to read and his whole process for reviewing a book.

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