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Indrajit and Fix Up

Indrajit and Fix Up

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In the Palace of Shadow and Joy, Between Princesses and Other Jobs, and Among the Gray Lords
(Baen Books, July 2020, July 2023, and January 2024). Covers by Don Maitz and Kieran Yanner

Dave Butler first came to my attention with the Witchy Eye series. It was pitched to me as epic fantasy set in Colonial America. I took this to mean Alternative History, which is interesting but not really my cup of tea. After several rounds of recommendations from people I trust, I finally took the leap. And that’s when I read this line right here:

Not since St. Martin Luther nailed the skin of the Eldritch ’eretic Cetes to the church door in Wittenberk an’ cried ‘’ere I stand!’ ’as such powerful preachink been ’eard by Christian ears, I trow!

Saint Luther? Nailing the skin of a heretic to the door of Wittenberk, rather than the Theses? Brother, if you know me, you know how all in I am at this point. By the time I was done with the book, David Butler had entered the hallowed halls of authors whose books I buy the day they drop.

Which brings us to the Indrajit and Fix novels.

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New Treasures: Gods of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker

New Treasures: Gods of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker

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Gods of the Wyrdwood (Orbit, June 27, 2023). Cover design by Duncan Spilling

RJ Barker is the author of The Wounded Kingdom trilogy (Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins, and King of Assassins), and The Tide Child trilogy (The Bone Ships, Call of the Bone Ships, and The Bone Ship’s Wake). His newest novel Gods of the Wyrdwood, published by Orbit last month, kicks off — you guessed it — a new series, The Forsaken Trilogy.

I’m intrigued by this one because it seems very different from many of the fantasy novels cluttering the shelves. Paste Magazine calls it “A unique spin on the traditional Chosen One trope… one doesn’t turn out anything like you expect.”

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Package Blue, the Second Novel by Todd McAulty, Now Available Free

Package Blue, the Second Novel by Todd McAulty, Now Available Free

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Artwork for Package Blue by Pixel Vault

In May of last year I was contacted by director Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate). I’d been doing some work for Tim’s Blur Studios for a few months, writing story ideas for upcoming streaming projects, with a pool of talented authors that included John Scalzi, Tamsin Muir, and others. Tim had just been hired to help develop an ambitious property set in the Inhabitants Universe owned by the NFT company Pixel Vault, and he was looking for a writer to dive into the project.

Tim had first reached out to me after reading my first novel The Robots of Gotham, published under the name Todd McAulty in 2018, and we’d become friends over the years. I ended up doing a bunch of work on the Inhabitants project for Tim, and when he left the project in June, Pixel Vault put me on a weekly retainer, mostly to assist with creating background lore. When I was fired from my day job in November, Pixel Vault offered me an 8-month contract to write a series of linked stories set in their colorful Inhabitants Universe.

The first was Package Blue, written as a web-novel and published online in weekly installments. Illustrated by the talented team at Pixel Vault, Package Blue is the tale of a team transporting a mysterious cargo through a raging Iowa snowstorm that loses contact with the rest of their convoy, and discovers they’re being pursued by something inhuman. Each of its 12 Acts is meant to be read in 10-15 minutes. Total length is 42,000 words.

You can read the whole thing here. I’m already halfway done with the second book, which we hope to launch online in September. I hope you’ll give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Vintage Treasures: Phaid the Gambler by Mick Farren

Vintage Treasures: Phaid the Gambler by Mick Farren

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Phaid the Gambler (Ace Books, August 1986). Cover by Jim Gurney

Mick Farren was a fascinating guy.

He was the singer for the UK band The Deviants in the 60s, and released two solo albums in the late 70s, and a live album in 2005. He began his writing career in the early 1970s as a journalist for the UK Underground press, and eventually the mainstream New Musical Express. By the end of the 70s he was supporting himself as a full time writer, and over a 30-year career he published 23 novels before his death in 2013 at the age of 69. He died after collapsing on stage during a Deviants concert in London in July 2013.

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Fantasy Detectives and an Ancient Mystery Cult: The Five Penalties Trilogy by Marina Lostetter

Fantasy Detectives and an Ancient Mystery Cult: The Five Penalties Trilogy by Marina Lostetter

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The Helm of Midnight and The Cage of Dark Hours
(Tor, April 2021 and February 2023). Covers by Sam Weber and Reiko Murakami

Marina Lostetter has had a heck of a career in just the last ten years. She started publishing in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show in 2012, and quickly followed up with sales to Galaxy’s Edge, Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, Shimmer, Uncanny Magazine, and many other fine outlets. Her first three novels, all part of the Noumenon space opera trilogy (published 2017-2020) won wide acclaim from major outlets (“Brilliant… the genre at its very best.” — Kirkus Reviews; “Lostetter remains at the forefront of innovation in hard science fiction.” — Publishers Weekly).

Last year Lostetter released her first fantasy novel, The Helm of Midnight, and five months later followed up with the aliens-vs-robots adventure Activation Degradation. She’s only published one book this year, The Cage of Dark Hours (sequel to Helm of Midnight, and the second book of The Five Penalties trilogy), but it’s still early.

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New Treasures: A Book of Blades Vol. II from the Rogues in the House Podcast

New Treasures: A Book of Blades Vol. II from the Rogues in the House Podcast

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 A Book of Blades Volume II (Rogues in the House Podcast, July 2023; ISBN: 9798396947771). Cover by Jesus Garcia.

In January 2022, Black Gate spotlighted Rogues in the House Sword & Sorcery podcast covering the folks/rogues behind the show and highlighted episodes (Go Rogues! link). In that post, we shared their podcast guest list that included S&S authors like Howard Andrew Jones, Scott Oden, John R. Fultz, and Jason Ray Carney, and even Morgan King & Phil Gelatt (creators of the movie The Spine of Night), Peter D. Adkison (founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast and owner of GenCon, the world’s largest board game convention), and Sara Frazetta (granddaughter of the fantasy master painter, an artist herself, and CEO of Frazetta Girls).

In July 2022, they released A Book of Blades Volume I, with 15 stories by as many Sword & Sorcery authors as featured on Black Gate.

And now, this July 2023, Rogues in the House Podcast brings us A Book of Blades Volume II!  Order now (link).
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New Treasures: Vagrant Gods by David Dalglish

New Treasures: Vagrant Gods by David Dalglish

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The first two novels of the Vagrant Gods trilogy: The Bladed Faith and The Sapphire Altar
(Orbit Books, April 5, 2022 and January 10, 2023). Cover art by Chase Stone

David Dalglish is the author of more than two dozen fantasy novels, including the Seraphim trilogy, the 6-volume Shadowdance series, and The Keepers trilogy. His Vagrant Gods trilogy, which opened last year with The Bladed Faith, takes place in a brand new setting, a world in which an usurped prince dons the skull mask of a legendary assassin to reclaim his kingdom and his slain gods.

Booklist says “This dark adventure will hook genre fans with its detailed world building, strong characters, and gory, action-packed scenes,” and BookPage calls it “beautiful, grandiose and expansive.” The second volume in the series, The Sapphire Altar, arrived in January, and the third book, The Slain Divine, is due on January 9, 2024.

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Future Treasures: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Future Treasures: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

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The Saint of Bright Doors (Tor.com, July 11, 2023)

Vajra Chandrasekera is a Sri Lankan author who has published over 40 stories in many of the top genre markets, including Nightmare Magazine, Clarkesworld, Analog, PodCastle, Fireside Quarterly, and many others. His debut novel arrives in two weeks from Tor.com.

The Saint of Bright Doors is the tale of Fetter, raised as a child soldier by his mother in her war against his father. He learns to walk among devils and anti-gods, loses his shadow, and finally escapes to the big city, where divine destinies are a dime a dozen and the inhabitants are caught up by the mystical locked doorways that have appeared throughout the city. Max Gladstone calls it “A breathtaking achievement,” and Sam J. Miller says it “keeps on dropping bombs and surprises and brilliance and heartbreak to the very end.”

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Talking Tolkien: The Singularity of Vision in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth – By Gabe Dybing

Talking Tolkien: The Singularity of Vision in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth – By Gabe Dybing

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Talking Tolkien took a break last week so my annual Summer Pulp series, A (Black) Gat in the Hand, could pop in. But we’re back to the Professor this week. Gabe Dybing and I talk about RPGing on the side – we even started a short-lived Conan campaign. So I was thrilled when I conned him into…I mean, he agreed to contributed a post on MERP. If you don’t know what MERP is, read-on. Those were some terrific RPG books.

 

I have decided to take “Discovering Tolkien,” the title of this series, as my means of entry into the subject. By doing so, I can only hope that I happen to make (if not “new”) interesting or sideways observations about Tolkien’s awe-inspiring achievement. And this approach moreover gives me the opportunity to address a subject that this series’s editor has wanted me to handle, which is the nature of Iron Crown Enterprises’s (I.C.E.’s) Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP), specifically the 1987 edition that I purchased at Waldenbooks in the Eden Prairie Center in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a game that, incidentally, also introduced me to roleplaying in general.

Some may feel that I add too much detail, by citing precisely where I bought MERP, but I expect that I may find some sympathy with others who are perhaps about my own age – this year I am approaching age 48. These details, the milieu in which I discovered Tolkien, are inextricably bound together with the experiences of reading and re-reading this masterwork of English Language and Literature. They also inform the ways in which I continued and continue to explore this achievement through other media.

Let me pause for a moment on “incomparable.” I don’t want to be misunderstood: of course I can compare all manner of worlds and works to Tolkien’s Middle-earth, but, in my view, none will “measure up.” In many ways, my discovery of Tolkien in the fifth grade began a lifelong and – to this day – never ending quest to discover it again, and I don’t think I ever shall.

That’s not to say that some works haven’t come close. I don’t intend to be “critical” in this essay, so please let me deal glancingly with the productions that most obviously were meant to imitate Tolkien.

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Rogue Blades Entertainment presents Neither Beg Nor Yield!

Rogue Blades Entertainment presents Neither Beg Nor Yield!

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“This anthology is the winning epitome of my career whether another reader sees it or not.” – Jason M Waltz

Jason M Waltz is well known amongst adventure fiction readers, especially the Swords & Sorcery crowd. With his Rogue Blades Entertainment and associated Foundation, he’s brought us the epic Return of the Sword (BG review) and then Rage of the Behemoth, and Demons.  He’s edited/published a variety of other anthologies with themes of Weird Noir, Pirates, and Sword & Planet with Last Empire of Sol (BG review), and splendid nonfiction like Writing Fantasy Heroes (BG review) and recently Robert E. Howard Changed My Life (BG review). Jason M Waltz has contributed a number of Black Gate posts too (link). While I write this, Waltz just got a story published in Whetstone S&S Magazine #7 that caps the set with an emotive tale, both heroic and tragic.

Waltz is a wizard at crafting Introductions to anthologies (his and those published by others); they usually evoke a call to arms to be heroic. He consistently makes me feel like a hero just by reading the forewords.

Today he broadcasts exciting news. Prepare for another Sword and Sorcery extravaganza this fall called Neither Beg Nor Yield (NBNY)!  Jason M Walts calls for our aid to make this a reality via a Kickstarter campaign scheduled to run August 22 through Sept 19th. Sixteen authors are already engaged, and their identities are being revealed as teasers via various venues.

This post reveals 2 more of the 16 Vanguard Authors!

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