Black Gate

One of the great joys of buying original fiction is seeing the talented writers you found in the slush pile finally get wider recognition. The very first story I ever purchased for Black Gate, a delightful piece called “Stitchery’ by Devon Monk, gradually evolved into the House Immortal fantasy trilogy, as Devon explained on her blog last year…

[House Immortal] isn’t a “standard” urban fantasy, but more like a science-fiction-y urban fantasy. But even though it’s set in the future a bit, it still (I hope) reads like urban fantasy, with a strong female lead character, some butt kicking, some humor, some trouble that could spell out the end of a world or two, and a host of interesting people and places.

Publisher and Editor John O’Neill at Black Gate noted here, that it reminded him of “Stitchery” the first short story he bought from me for Black Gate. I’m so happy he noticed! The series is based off of that short story, (albeit loosely) and Matilda, Neds, and Grandma were all first introduced in that short.

The first novel in the series was House Immortal, followed by Infinity Bell. Now Devon completes the trilogy with the final novel, Crucible Zero, on sale this month from Roc. The truce between the ruling Houses has shattered and chaos now reigns. Only one woman has the power to save the world — but she could also destroy it…

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Martha Wells’s Books of the Raksura trilogy — The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, and The Siren Depths — have captivated readers around the world. In Stories of the Raksura, Volume One: The Falling World & The Tale of Indigo and Cloud (details here), she returned to the world of Raksura with a pair of exciting novellas. With the second volume, Stories of the Raksura, Volume Two: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below, now available from Night Shade Press, Moon, Jade, and other favorites from the Indigo Cloud Court return in two more powerful novellas in the same setting.

Martha Wells continues to enthusiastically ignore genre conventions in her exploration of the fascinating world of the Raksura. Her novellas and short stories contain all the elements fans have come to love from the Raksura books: courtly intrigue and politics, unfolding mysteries that reveal an increasingly strange wider world, and threats both mundane and magical.

“The Dead City” is a tale of Moon before he came to the Indigo Court. As Moon is fleeing the ruins of Saraseil, a groundling city destroyed by the Fell, he flies right into another potential disaster when a friendly caravanserai finds itself under attack by a strange force. In “The Dark Earth Below,” Moon and Jade face their biggest adventure yet; their first clutch. But even as Moon tries to prepare for impending fatherhood, members of the Kek village in the colony tree’s roots go missing, and searching for them only leads to more mysteries as the court is stalked by an unknown enemy.

Stories of Moon and the shape changers of Raksura have delighted readers for years. This world is a dangerous place full of strange mysteries, where the future can never be taken for granted and must always be fought for with wits and ingenuity, and often tooth and claw. With these two new novellas, Martha Wells shows that the world of the Raksura has many more stories to tell…

The book also includes the short stories “Trading Lesson,” “Mimesis,” and “The Almost Last Voyage of the Wind-ship Escarpment.” Stories of the Raksura: Volume Two: The Dead City & The Dark Earth Below was published by Night Shade Books on June 2, 2015. It is 232 pages, priced at $15.99 in both trade paperback and digital. The cover is by Matthew Stewart. Read an excerpt here.

David B. Coe’s adventure fantasy tale “Night of Two Moons” appeared in Black Gate 4. His three-book LonTobyn Chronicle (1997-2000) and five-volume Winds of the Forelands series (2002-07) were both published by Tor. He currently has two series on the go — under the name D.B. Jackson he writes the Thieftaker Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy, and under his own name he writes The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, a contemporary urban fantasy featuring a hardboiled, magic-using private detective.

His Father’s Eyes, the second book in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, in which Fearsson faces off against dark sorcerers in Phoenix, Arizona, was released earlier this month by Baen Books.

Justis Fearsson is a weremyste. He wields potent magic, but every month, on the full moon, he loses his mind. He’s also a private detective, who can’t afford to take time off from his latest investigation while his sanity goes AWOL.

A legion of dark sorcerers has descended on Phoenix, wreaking havoc in the blistering desert heat. With the next moon phasing approaching, Jay has to figure out what connects a billionaire financier and a vicious drug kingpin to an attempted terrorist attack, a spate of ritual killings, and the murder of a powerful runemyste. And he has to do it fast. Because these same dark sorcerers have nearly killed the woman he loves and have used their spells to torment Jay’s father. Now they have Jay in their crosshairs, and with his death they intend to extend their power over the entire magicking world. But Jay has other plans, and no intention of turning his city, or those he loves, over to the enemy.

David’s most recent blog post for Black Gate, in which he discusses the ongoing Hugo Award controversy, was Enough, Part II.

The Case Files of Justis Fearsson began with Spell Blind (2014). His Father’s Eyes was published by Baen on August 4, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $25 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Alan Pollack. Read more — including a lengthy excerpt — at the Baen website.