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Vintage Treasures: Fire Time by Poul Anderson

Vintage Treasures: Fire Time by Poul Anderson

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Fire Time by Poul Anderson (Ballantine Books, November, 1975). Cover by Darrell Sweet

Poul Anderson was a terrifically prolific and popular science fiction writer, in a way I don’t think it’s possible to be today. I mean that in the sense that, yes, he wrote a lot of books — a ridiculous number of books, really. He published hundreds of novels and short stories in his lifetime. (How many, exactly? I have no idea. No one knows. Modern counting methods have failed us. Though there are studious attempts online, and I find this one at Book Series in Order particularly handy.)

But more meaningfully, I mean that every visit to the science fiction section of a well stocked bookstore for the first few decades of my life presented you with dozens of titles by Poul Anderson. Yes, he wrote a lot of books, but unlike most writers his books remained in print — often for decades. He was a reliable presence on bookstore shelves the way Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein were, or J.R.R. Tolkien and Stephen King are today. In other words, he was a midlist writer who was treated like a bestselling author, and that never happens any more.

I read a lot of Poul Anderson as a result (a lot of folks did). But one book that escaped me, though I was always interested, was his 1974 SF novel Fire Time.

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New Treasures: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

New Treasures: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

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The Spear Cuts Through Water (Del Rey, May 30, 2023). Cover by Simón Prades

I always seem to be late with Simon Jimenez. Last year I found his acclaimed debut novel The Vanished Birds buried in the bottom of my TBR file, and three weeks ago I nabbed his follow up The Spear Cuts Through Water the instant I spotted it. Which turned out to be nearly a year after it was published, in August of last year. Some people arrive just as the party’s getting started, and some of us show up when the hors d’oeuvres are all gone and the cops have already raided the place.

Well, it’s still new to me, I guess. This looks like the last weekend of summer weather we’ll get in Chicago, and this book will keep me company on the porch. The Spear Cuts Through Water is the story of two warriors who must guide a dying goddess across a dangerous land, to bring an end to the rule of a tyrannical family. Paul Di Filippo at Locus compares it to Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light (high praise in my book), calling it “utterly individual… A wild chase and odyssey which you must read to believe,” and Polygon included it in their list of Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2022, calling it “mesmerizing… a love story unlike anything you’ve read before.”

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Future Treasures: The Big Book of Cyberpunk edited by Jared Shurin

Future Treasures: The Big Book of Cyberpunk edited by Jared Shurin

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The Big Book of Cyberpunk (Vintage, September 26, 2023). Cover by Ociacia

While you and I have been spending our time talking about old paperbacks, Jared Shurin has been toiling away, making a rep for himself as an anthologist. The two volumes of original fantasy he assembled with Mahvesh Murad, The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories and The Outcast Hours, were both nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and his most recent books are two volumes of The Best of British Fantasy from NewCon Press.

His latest effort, on sale next week from Vintage Books, is an entirely different beast. The Big Book of Cyberpunk is a feast of a book, 1136 pages of fiction from the biggest names in science fiction. It belongs on your shelf next to the most monumental and groundbreaking anthologies of the last few years, including Jeff and Ann Vandermeer’s Big Book of Science Fiction, The Weird, and Lawrence Ellsworth’s Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure.

I was very pleased to see The Big Book of Cyberpunk is also the first appearance in print of Isabel Fall’s famous Hugo nominee “Helicopter Story” (2020), originally published in Clarkesworld under the title, “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter,” until that title generated such a furor of rage and resentment that the story was withdrawn after three days and the author entered a psychiatric hospital. Hopefully this will give that story more much-deserved exposure.

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Ancient Castles and All-Night Parties: The Collected Macabre Stories by L.P. Hartley

Ancient Castles and All-Night Parties: The Collected Macabre Stories by L.P. Hartley

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The Collected Macabre Stories
By L.P. Hartley
Tartarus Press (Two volumes in slipcase, £80, 2023)

LP Hartley (1895-1972) was a British novelist (author of The Go-Between just to mention one title) and a prolific author of short stories, some of which have a distinctive dark vein.

Tartarus Press has collected his macabre stories in a new edition consisting of two hardcover volumes sold together in a slipcase, featuring thirty-seven stories.

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Howard Andrew Jones and Todd McAulty on Exploring the Fine Art of Short Epic Fantasy

Howard Andrew Jones and Todd McAulty on Exploring the Fine Art of Short Epic Fantasy

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Image by Tor.com

It’s been three years since I’ve had the chance to partner with Black Gate‘s first managing editor, the ever-creative Howard Andrew Jones, on a feature article for Tor.com. Back in 2019-2020 we wrote a series of pieces showcasing overlooked fantasy authors and games, including Five Forgotten Swordsmen and Swordswomen of Fantasy, Five Classic Sword-and-Planet Sagas, and Traveller: A Classic Science Fiction Simulator. (I co-wrote those articles as ‘Todd McAulty,’ the byline I use for writing fiction.)

In honor of the publication of Howard’s breakout novel Lord of a Shattered Land, we looked back at some of the greatest fantasy sagas of all time — in particular, those that began as humble series of short stories, before they exploded into novels. They include Karl Edward Wagner’s classic Kane, Michael Moorcock’s groundbreaking Elric, and Stephen King’s bestselling The Dark Tower. Special shout-out to our Black Gate regulars who braved the trip to Tor.com to read and comment, including Rich Horton (ecbatan), Eugene R, NOLAbert, James Enge, and Joe Hoopman. Thanks team!

Check out the complete article at Tor.com, and don’t forget to grab a hardcover copy of Lord of a Shattered Land while they’re still available!

A British Country Mystery in Space: Murder on Usher’s Planet by Atanielle Annyn Noël

A British Country Mystery in Space: Murder on Usher’s Planet by Atanielle Annyn Noël

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Murder on Usher’s Planet (Avon, April 1987). Cover by Jill Bauman

I’m going to be reviewing a few novels, of ‘70s/’80s vintage, that were foisted on me generously given to me by Black Gate’s panjandrum, John O’Neill. For his sins, he gets to publish these reviews here in Black Gate!

I exaggerate – I bought some of these novels of my own volition (though often because John alerted me to their existence with a Black Gate Vintage Treasures article!) and I am sincerely grateful to John for those he did give to me, and those he made me aware of, either by pointing them out at a convention, or by writing about them. The novels I’m looking at now do cluster in the ‘70s and ‘80s – a period James Davis Nicoll likes to call the “Disco Era.” And I think it’s worthwhile to consider books from that period – when I was a teenager or a newly hatched adult – especially the more obscure books. But this does mean a good many of these reviews might not be, er, entirely positive!

The first review to fit this paradigm might be my look at Mick Farren’s The Song of Phaid the Gambler (1981). And now we come to Murder on Usher’s Planet, by Atanielle Annyn Noël, published by Avon in 1987 (just as the Phaid the Gambler books appeared in the US.) This actually was a gift from John – we were wandering through the dealers’ room at the Chicago Pulp and Paper convention a few months ago, and I noticed this book, largely I think because of the author’s unusual name; and John grabbed it (along with a few others for himself, as I recall), and having bought it, pressed it on me – suggesting that if I read it I should review it for Black Gate. And here we are!

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New Treasures: Dead Water by C.A. Fletcher

New Treasures: Dead Water by C.A. Fletcher

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Dead Water (Redhook, June 13, 2023). Cover design by kid-ethic

C. A. Fletcher is a Scottish writer, and the author of the popular post-apocalyptic novel A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World. I’m unfamiliar with his work, but I decided to pick up his latest when it was released in paperback in June.

Dead Water is described as ‘Folk Horror,’ which I think means it’s a tale of horrible stuff that happens to people who live in the country. As someone who’s tired of all the terrible stories told about my home town of Chicago, this has immediate appeal to me. It’s the story of a waterborne pathogen that afflicts a remote Scottish Isle, and the dark secrets the rapidly-spreading plague uncovers. The Library Ladies calls it “a creeping, dread-filled story,” and Ancillary Review of Books says that “horror fans will enjoy the misty, desolate atmosphere interspersed with moments of genuine fear… individual scenes are paced to perfection.”

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Goth Chick News: Kicking Off Spooky Season with a Ghost Story

Goth Chick News: Kicking Off Spooky Season with a Ghost Story

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Ghost Story (Pocket Books paperback reprint, September 1, 1989)

When fall finally starts descending on Chicagoland there are a few rituals which are essential to getting me in the mood for Spooky Season. Granted, this time of year isn’t dramatically different from the rest of the year around here, considering. But there are certain things that ramp up the countdown to October 31st.

For example, a more than average quantity of gothic elements appears in the décor, the sweatshirts come out, and the scent of pumpkin candles permeates every room along with the music of Midnight Syndicate. September also finds me revisiting quite a few literary favorites as nothing sets the fall tone better than a good ghost story, and in this case, I mean that literally. Ghost Story by Peter Straub remains to this day, the only novel that scares the snot out of me every time I read it.

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A World of Sand and Sorrow: The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi

A World of Sand and Sorrow: The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi

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They say there is no water in the City of Lies. They say there are no heroes in the City of Lies. They say there are no friends beyond the City of Lies. But would you believe what they say in the City of Lies?

In the City of Lies, they cut out your tongue when you turn thirteen, to appease the terrifying Ajungo Empire and make sure it continues sending water. Tutu will be thirteen in three days, but his parched mother won’t last that long. So Tutu goes to his oba and makes a pact — she provides water for his mother, and in exchange he will travel out into the desert and bring back water for the city. Thus begins Tutu’s quest for the salvation of his mother, his city, and himself.

Tor.com’s greatest service to the SFF world has been the return of the novella. (OK, it’s greatest service has been Murderbot, but since all but one of Murderbot’s adventures have been novellas, I’m going to call them one and the same.) Arguably the true format of SFF since the 1920s, the novella does what the short story cannot, in terms of world-building and plot, while never losing focus — as so many doorstop fantasies do today.

The clever folks at Tor.com saw that and seized on it; and have also been good at bringing interesting new voices to market. With Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi, they’ve done both.

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To Violate the Prime Directive: West of the Sun by Edgar Pangborn

To Violate the Prime Directive: West of the Sun by Edgar Pangborn

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West of the Sun (Dell, July 1980). Cover by Richard Corben

Edgar Pangborn is remembered now as a writer for his postapocalyptic series Tales of a Darkening World, which began in 1962 with “The Golden Horn,” later turned into the first part of Davy, one of the nominees for the 1965 Hugo Award for Best Novel. But he began writing science fiction a decade earlier, with his novelette “Angel’s Egg,” and two years later, his first science fiction novel, West of the Sun, which I’ve just reread.

Even this early, Pangborn was already doing the kind of writing that came to be called humanistic science fiction. There is advanced technology in West of the Sun: It takes place on a planet of Alpha Centauri, arrived at after a decade of space travel, which implies speeds nearly half the speed of light; and the starship Argo carries various useful small devices. But all of them are lost, or stop working, during the events of the novel. The Argo is — in the literary sense — a vehicle: It exists to get the characters into the story, which is about something else entirely.

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