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New Treasures: The Chart of Tomorrows by Chris Willrich

New Treasures: The Chart of Tomorrows by Chris Willrich

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The Chart of Tomorrows-smallBack in May I published a brief head’s up about the latest Gaunt & Bone novel, The Chart of Tomorrows. I finally have a copy in my hot little hands, and I’m impatient to start reading it.

Chris Willrich’s “The Lions of Karthagar,” set in the world of Gaunt and Bone, appeared in the last issue of Black Gate. The first novels featuring the two heroes, The Scroll of Years (2013) and The Silk Map (2014), were both published by Pyr. In this third installment, the two find their plans to retire interrupted when their son becomes the chosen vessel of a powerful spirit…

The poet Persimmon Gaunt and the thief Imago Bone had sought only to retire from adventuring and start a family, but they never reckoned on their baby becoming the chosen vessel of the mystical energies of a distant Eastern land. With their son Innocence hunted by various factions hoping to use him as a tool, they kept him safe at the cost of trapping him in a pocket dimension of accelerated time.

Now free, the thirteen-year-old Innocence has rejected his parents and his “destiny” and has made dangerous friends in a barbaric Western land of dragon-prowed ships and rugged fjords. Desperately, Gaunt and Bone seek to track him down, along with their companion Snow Pine and her daughter A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, who was once trapped with Innocence too.

But as the nomadic Karvaks and their war-balloons strike west, and a troll-king spins his webs, and Joy is herself chosen by the spirit of the very land Innocence has fled to, Gaunt and Bone find themselves at the heart of a vast struggle — and their own son is emerging from that conflict as a force of evil. To save him and everything they know, they turn to a dangerous magical book, The Chart of Tomorrows, that reveals pathways through time. Upon the treacherous seas of history, Gaunt and Bone must face the darkness in each other’s pasts, in order to rescue their future.

The Chart of Tomorrows was published by Pyr Books on July 7, 2015. It is 541 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Kerem Beyit.

Bill Ward on Poul Anderson’s “Thud and Blunder” — Thirty Years Later

Bill Ward on Poul Anderson’s “Thud and Blunder” — Thirty Years Later

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Swords Against Darkness III-smallNearly seven years ago, Bill Ward wrote “On Thud and Blunder — Thirty Years Later,” one of the first articles ever posted at BlackGate.com. Here’s what he said, in part.

It’s been thirty years since Poul Anderson wrote his essay on the need for realism in heroic fantasy, ‘On Thud and Blunder,’ which you can read in its entirety at the SFWA site, and I think it holds up well even though the genre — and the perception of it — has changed greatly. ‘On Thud and Blunder’ originally appeared in the third installment of Andrew Offutt’s classic anthology series Swords Against Darkness; though it was in the excellent, if unimaginatively named, collection of Anderson’s called Fantasy that I first encountered it. But already at the time of my reading a whole generation of writers had made a name for themselves by following the dictates of realism and common sense in designing their fantasy worlds.

The essay begins with a satire of the genre that features a barbarian cleaving through armor with a fifty-pound sword and riding a horse as if it were a motorbike, among other ridiculous things. It’s the kind of thing that gave heroic fantasy and sword and sorcery a bad name, and perhaps the sort of thing that meant it would soon be eclipsed by a rising tide of ‘high fantasy’ in the eighties and nineties. But, in 1978, hf — as Anderson terms heroic fantasy in an abbreviation that seems to have never caught on — was an emerging star.

In the Comments section, James Enge wrote, “Thanks for this: I’m a big Anderson fan and it’s a pleasure to reread this article… it’s still the authentic points of concrete imagination that strike deep, and Anderson was a past master at those.”

Read the complete article here. We’ll be presenting more classic articles from BG‘s rich history over the next few months.

Future Treasures: Bonesy by Mark Rigney

Future Treasures: Bonesy by Mark Rigney

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Bonesy Mark Rigney

Mark Rigney’s Renner & Quist novels — The Skates, Sleeping Bear, and Check-Out Time — feature the unlikely team of Unitarian Reverend Renner and retired investigator Dale Quist, who solve thorny and twisted occult mysteries. The first three novels have been widely praised. As William Patrick Maynard wrote in his review of Check-Out Time:

Rigney builds his fiction around his characters’ faith (or their lack thereof) in the supernatural and preternatural. The series is thought-provoking as much as it is entertaining…

Funny, moving, enlightening, entertaining – Mark Rigney’s Renner & Quist series is in a class of its own. The recommendations come no stronger. Do not pass this up.

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New Treasures: Bone Swans by C. S. E. Cooney

New Treasures: Bone Swans by C. S. E. Cooney

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Bone Swans CSE Cooney-smallBone Swans, the long awaited first collection from C.S.E. Cooney, has just been released, and in the last few days has accumulated some marvelous notices. She received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and over at Tor.com Brit Mandelo had many positive things to say, especially about “Life on the Sun,” originally published here at Black Gate:

Cooney’s approach also brings in a sort of cavalier, witty, and approachable contemporary story-telling, perhaps more closely related to adventure yarns than anything… The result tends to be a fascinating mashup between the tropes and resonances of the mythic tale with the sensibilities of contemporary action-oriented fantasy… “Life on the Sun” is perhaps the best illustration of what I mean…

And the July 1 issue of Library Journal had this to say:

In five beautifully crafted stories, Cooney (Jack O’ the Hills) builds imaginary worlds full of flying carpets, fairy-tale characters, and children confronted with a postapocalyptic Earth. In addition, each tale packs in enough plot for a novel, with adventurous characters who brim with wit. In “Life on the Sun” a young woman’s fate catches up to her. In the title story, Maurice the rat hires the Pied Piper to help out a swan princess. The marvelous “Martyr’s Gem” begins with a marriage and ends with true love. “How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain” is another fairy tale, this time a play on the Rumpelstiltskin story. Cooney’s final piece, “The Big Bah-Ha,” shows her virtuosity with language, as she tells of doomed children striking a bargain with the monster who would eat their bones. VERDICT Short stories… [are] usually not where you find vivid worldbuilding or immersive storytelling, but this gorgeous new collection reveals that both are possible in the short form.

Bone Swans was published by Mythic Delirium Books on July 1, 2015. It is 224 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback and $5.99 for the digital version. Cover art by Kay Nielsen. See the Mythic Delirium website for more details, and the complete Table of Contents here.

Michael Livingston’s “At the End of Babel” Live at Tor.com

Michael Livingston’s “At the End of Babel” Live at Tor.com

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At the End of Babel Michael Livingston-smallMichael Livingston’s short story “At the End of Babel” was published today at Tor.com.

At Michael’s website, he talks a little about the origin of the story, and his own history as a writer, including his first fiction sale, “The Hand That Binds,” published in Black Gate 9.

My path to publishing fiction began in 2003. It was then that a friend (hi, Fred!) suggested I submit some of the stories I’d been kicking around. So I sent out two. One was a retelling of Beowulf that was quickly picked up by John O’Neill at the very awesome (and sorely missed) Black Gate magazine…

On one memorable outing we were able to travel to Acoma Pueblo during one of the traditional festivals. The chance to see Acoma in person, and to see it somewhat behind the scenes due to my mother’s access, was priceless. It was, for lack of a better term, a mystical experience. Strong as those teenage impressions had been, however, I knew I needed a bit more research to get [“At the End of Babel”] right. I needed language.

The entire tale… hinges on language and the power it has to define culture. More precisely said, it depends on the fact that this power has been turned into a way of attacking culture by denying people the right to speak their language. This was the point, but it wasn’t a very good one if I didn’t actually use the language of the pueblo.

I don’t know Keresan, but deep down in the bowels of the library at the University of Rochester I found a small and dust-covered grammar for it. I did my best to absorb the language, to feel it, and then to sprinkle it into my text, to make it real and make it right.

Read the complete story for free at Tor.com here. Art by Greg Ruth.

We last covered Tor.com with Niall Alexander’s salute to Solaris Books.

Adrian Simmons on Pseudopod

Adrian Simmons on Pseudopod

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Pseudopod-smallAdrian Simmons is one of our favorite editors. With his team of cohorts he edits the marvelous Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, which you should be reading.

He’s also a prolific and popular blogger, and his articles for Black Gate — including Fools in the Hotzone and Frodo Baggins, Lady Galadriel, and the Games of the Mighty — are some of the most popular pieces we’ve ever published.

But he’s also a fine fiction writer. This week Pseudopod, the premier horror fiction podcast, has posted his story “A Fan Letter To Joe Landsdale,” alongside the story it’s based on, Joe Landsdale’s “Boys Will Be Boys.”

The reader is Jared Axelrod. Check it out here.

Review of Pathfinder Tales: Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones

Review of Pathfinder Tales: Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones

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Pathfinder Tales Plague of Shadows-smallI just read my second Howard Andrew Jones novel: Plague of Shadows (2011), which was the first of his two Pathfinder novels (I read them out of order). In my review of Stalking the Beast (2013) for Black Gate, I raved that it delivered everything I crave from such a tale. It did so with skill and panache, introducing me to characters who have stayed with me. So I was pleased to go back and read the true introduction to Elyana, the Forlorn elven ranger raised by humans, and Drelm, the half-orc who values honor and loyalty more than most humans (let alone most orcs) do.

Knowing that it was a first outing, I went in expecting it to be not quite as good — not as polished or assured, maybe — as its follow-up (indeed, I gave Stalking the Beast a perfect 5-star rating, arguing that sword-and-sorcery RPG tie-in novels just don’t get any better than that).

But then I finished the book: And I felt that peculiar sense that only certain works of art engender, as the last sentence echoes away or the curtain falls or the credits roll. It has impressed itself upon you, and you feel enriched but tinged with a bittersweet sadness — the characters have left, and you miss them. The characters have, in some sense, become more real; they have joined your own personal pantheon. With this second visit, Elyana and Drelm grew from being fun, engaging characters in a standalone book into characters about whom I want to read many books!

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Future Treasures: Frostgrave: Tales of the Frozen City edited by Joseph McCullough

Future Treasures: Frostgrave: Tales of the Frozen City edited by Joseph McCullough

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Frostgrave Tales of the Frozen City-smallJoseph McCullough is the author of one of the most popular articles in Black Gate history, “The Demarcation of Sword and Sorcery,” which today is considered one of the defining texts on the genre. He’s published fiction in BG and elsewhere, and is currently Project Manager for Osprey Adventures.

His latest project is the wargame Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City, coming in July from Osprey. In support of the new game, Osprey is also publishing Frostgrave: Tales of the Frozen City, a new anthology edited by Joe which contains ten original stories telling the tale of wizards and other adventurers, as they venture into the ruins of the Frozen City.

Long ago, the great city of Felstad sat at the centre of a magical empire. Its towering spires, labyrinthine catacombs and immense libraries were the wonder of the age, and potions, scrolls and mystical items of all descriptions poured from its workshops. Then, one cataclysmic night, a mistake was made. In some lofty tower or dark chamber, a foolish wizard unleashed a magic too powerful to control. A storm rose up, an epic blizzard that swallowed the city whole, burying it deep and leaving the empire as nothing more than a vast, frozen wasteland. The empire shattered, and the magic of the world faded. As the centuries came and went, Felstad passed from history to legend and on into myth. Only a few wizards, clinging to the last remnants of magical knowledge, still believed that the lost city had ever actually existed. But their faith was rewarded.

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July 2015 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale

July 2015 Asimov’s Science Fiction Now on Sale

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Asimovs-Science-Fiction-July-2015-smallBlack Gate blogger Derek Künsken has a big novella in Asimov’s Science Fiction this month, and it’s already getting great reviews. Clancy Weeks at Tangent Online had this to say about it:

I love a good mystery, and “Pollen From a Future Harvest” by Derek Künsken is indeed a good mystery. Some of that mystery is in parsing the twists and turns related to time travel, along with the prose itself, but it is rewarding nonetheless. Major Okonkwo, of the Sixth Expeditionary Force of the Sub-Saharan Union, is a military auditor — a bookkeeper — and she has been given the open-ended task of auditing the entire base. There are layers, sub-plots, and twists here, but the main issue is dealing with a possible “grandfather paradox” associated with time travel… Something has happened up the line, and Okonkwo needs to find out why, and if it is related to the recent death (some would say murder) of her senior husband. There is an amazing amount of backstory we learn along the way, and rich, multi-layered world-building… a very good and entertaining read.

Derek made the cover this month, for the second time (the first was for his novelette “Schools of Clay” in the February 2014 issue.) I had the chance to meet Derek for the first time at the Nebula Awards weekend here in Chicago from June 4-June 7, where we talked space opera, writing, and conventions. He’s a remarkably astute observer of the field, and has a very keen eye on short fiction markets. He also brought me up-to-date on the state of fandom in my home town of Ottawa, which I greatly appreciated. His detailed summary of the Nebula weekend is here.

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C.S.E. Cooney Gets a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly

C.S.E. Cooney Gets a Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly

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Bone Swans CSE Cooney-smallC.S.E. Cooney, Black Gate‘s website editor emeritus, signed with Mythic Delirium Press for her first short fiction collection, Bone Swans, and it’s already gathering rave reviews in advance of its July release. Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying:

Cooney’s brilliantly executed collection of five stories is a delicious stew of science fiction, horror, and fantasy, marked by unforgettable characters who plumb the depths of pathos and triumph. In “Life on the Sun,” sacrifice and rebirth are explored in a fantastical desert where future tech and wizardry mingle, as a mystical pharaoh-like figure forces a young rebel fighter to stoically embrace her fate. Children bravely battle to survive an adult-free, post-apocalyptic Earth in “The Big Ba-Ha,” even though they know their demise — hungrily anticipated by the ghoulish creatures that now share their world — is inevitable… Cooney’s magical prose elicits laughter even as gruesome scenes induce shudders, and her expert pacing breathlessly buoys the reader to each story’s conclusion. All of these stories could easily serve as the foundation for novels while also working beautifully at their current length. These well-crafted narratives defiantly refuse to fade from memory long after the last word has been read.

Bone Swans will be released next month, but if you can’t wait you can read some of the stories in their original online appearances, including right here at Black Gate: “Life on the Sun,” (from Black Gate), “Martyr’s Gem” (from Giganotosaurus) and “How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One” (from Giganotosaurus).

Bone Swans will be published by Mythic Delirium Press on July 7th, 2015, with an introduction by Gene Wolfe. It is 224 pages, priced at $5.99 for the digital edition. Get more details on their website.