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Djinn, Disguises, and Dangerous Desert Quests: The Sandsea Trilogy by Chelsea Abdullah

Djinn, Disguises, and Dangerous Desert Quests: The Sandsea Trilogy by Chelsea Abdullah

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The Stardust Thief and The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah (Orbit,
May 17, 2022 and February 20, 2024). Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

Arabian fantasy with a true One Thousand and One Nights feel is rare these days, which is why we celebrate it when it comes along. And Chelsea Abdullah’s debut novel The Stardust Thief, opening volume in The Sandsea Trilogy, has indeed been celebrated, with a bevy of enthusiastic reviews.

The Stardust Thief is a rousing tale of adventure, featuring a young thief with a djinn bodyguard, midnight assassins, dangerous desert quests, ancient lamps, magical disguises, a cruel prince and his softhearted younger brother, the Forty Thieves, and much more. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a beautifully crafted adventure,” and the sequel, The Ashfire King, is already on the schedule for early next year. I bought copy of the first volume last weekend I’m looking forward to diving into it.

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Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part II

Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part II

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David C. Smith and Steven H Silver find priceless treasures in the Dealers Room at Windy City Pulp & Paper

A month ago I wrote a short convention report on the 2023 Windy City Pulp & Paper Show, which took place Friday April 21st to Sunday, April 23rd in Lombard, Illinois. In that article I mostly rubber-necked at the gorgeous Weird Tales pulps and other rare magazines sold during the evening auctions, and took covetous pictures of the pre-auction displays.

Here in Part II, I’ll share a few more photos of the vendors and personalities I met, and showcase a few of the many treasures I dragged home in seven heavy boxes — including vintage comics, science fiction digests, graphic novels, new releases, and of course lots of great old paperbacks. Assuming you enjoy cautionary tales of disastrous self control, it should be an entertaining read.

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Vintage Treasures: Chronicles of the Twelve Kingdoms by Esther M. Friesner

Vintage Treasures: Chronicles of the Twelve Kingdoms by Esther M. Friesner

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Mustapha and His Wise Dog and Spells of Mortal Weaving
(Avon, July 1985 and May 1986). Cover art by Richard Bober

Esther M. Friesner is one of the most prolific and popular writers of modern fantasy, with dozens of novels and over 200 short stories to her credit. She’s been nominated for a Hugo Award, and won two Nebula Awards for her short fiction. Her debut novel, Mustapha and His Wise Dog, appeared in July 1985, and the following year she was named the Outstanding New Fantasy Writer of 1986 by Romantic Times. It kicked off a popular series that ran for four volumes and came to be known as the Chronicles of the Twelve Kingdoms.

Mustapha and His Wise Dog is an entertaining fantasy in the style of the Arabian Knights, about a young man cast out by his bothers and destined to wander the world with only his faithful talking dog Elcolog for company. Fortunately for Mustapha, Elcolog turns out to be significantly smarter than anyone he meets on his encounters and, fortunately for readers, the wisecracking Elcolog turns out to be one of the most entertaining and lovable characters in modern fantasy.

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Worldbuilding in Witch King

Worldbuilding in Witch King

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Witch King by Martha Wells (Tor.com, May 30, 2023). Cover art by Cynthia Sheppard

I think people tend to talk about worldbuilding as if it’s one static process that is the same every time you do it. But I think it actually varies a lot based on the preferences of the writer and their method of work. It’s different for each writer, and for me at least it’s different for every book.

In the Ile-Rien books, I wanted to show a secondary world fantasy setting, centered around the city Vienne, that realistically aged and changed over time. Not just in politics and government and fashion, but in physical layout, with the city changing to accommodate the development of trains, automobiles, and electric light. I also used a lot of historical sources to create the material culture of the world.

In Witch King I wanted to do something a little different. I’ve done secondary worlds with a wide range of different, distinctive cultures in the Books of the Raksura series, but in Witch King I wanted to show more about the interactions between cultures.

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Goth Chick News: One from the Vaults, The Egyptologist Remains One of My Favs

Goth Chick News: One from the Vaults, The Egyptologist Remains One of My Favs

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The Egyptologist (Random House paperback edition, May 2005). Right: Canadian edition

You might assume that with stacks of books waiting patiently in every corner of GCN’s Black Gate offices, I shouldn’t have time to read something twice. And that assumption would be a correct one if I could consistently maintain a reasonable amount of self-discipline. However, I am a firm believer in the benefits of comfort food, no matter how nutritionally deficient it is, and that goes double for the mental comfort food that is a remarkable story. So yes, when I’m having a lousy week, I grab a cinnamon PopTart and one of my favorite stories off the bookshelf. The beauty of the re-read is that you can generally plow through the entire tale in roughly the same amount of time it takes to eat an entire box of PopTarts.

With that background in mind, I want to tell you about The Egyptologist. A quick peruse through the Black Gate archives confirmed my suspicion that I never wrote about this book when I first read it, probably because back then, we were still in print, and I wrote only one article per issue. First published in hardcover in 2004, I purchased The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips, to take with me on one of my dream trips; a three-week tour through Egypt in the company of Medu Hassan, a researcher from the Cairo Museum. This pre-dates e-books being a thing, as the Sony Libre wouldn’t hit the market until later that year. So back then, traveling with reading material meant packing books and this particular hardcover was a last-minute addition, added to my bag primarily due to the title and my destination, and not because I knew what I was getting into.

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Tales of Unease: Riding the Nightmare by Lisa Tuttle

Tales of Unease: Riding the Nightmare by Lisa Tuttle

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Riding the Nightmare (Valancourt Books, August 22, 2023). Cover by Vince Haig

Lisa Tuttle was born in USA, but relocated to the UK many years ago. She is a successful novelist, but especially a great short story writer, the author of numerous collections of dark fiction.

Her latest collection, forthcoming from the small but excellent imprint Valancourt Books, collects twelve previously published stories and is introduced by Neil Gaiman who, very aptly, emphasizes the Aickmanesque nature (meaning it somehow recalls the atmosphere of Robert Aickman) of some tales.

As a short fiction lover, a Lisa Tuttle fan, and a long time admirer of Aickman, my expectations for this book were high. And I was not disappointed.

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The Legacy of a Legendary Collector: Denny Lien, September 26, 1945 – April 15, 2023

The Legacy of a Legendary Collector: Denny Lien, September 26, 1945 – April 15, 2023

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A handful of items from Denny Lien’s incredible collection I was able to save from the dumpster

On Wednesday May 3, I drove 379 miles from St. Charles to Minneapolis, to help clean out the last of the legendary collection of the late Denny Lien. I’d been reliably informed that it was the final week his estate would have access to the house; the following Monday, Habitat for Humanity would take possession, and everything left would go in the dumpster.

Denny had the most incredible collection of magazines I’ve ever seen. During the scant few hours I had in the house I found virtually complete runs of Amazing Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Worlds of If, Galaxy, Fantastic, Astounding/Analog, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Locus, Cemetery Dance, and many, many more — far more than I could ever pack and fit in the minivan I’d rented for the trip. Most were unread, in pristine condition.

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Vintage Treasures: The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard

Vintage Treasures: The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard

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The Drowned World, first edition (Berkley Medallion, August 1962). Cover by Richard Powers

I’m criminally undereducated in J.G. Ballard. I came to most of my favorite science fiction writers through short fiction, and the first Ballard short stories I read (such as “The Terminal Beach”) were lush and impressively written, but also a far cry from the adventure tales I craved in SF and fantasy.

But as I’ve grown older, I found I’m much more interested in Ballard. I wrote a Vintage Treasures piece on The Crystal World last November, and tracked down his monumental Complete Short Stories, Volumes One & Two in 2019. But the roots of my interest trace back (as they often do) to an article at Black Gate. In this case, Thomas Parker’s terrific piece A Prophet Without Honor: J.G. Ballard, published here in 2015.

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Skullduggery in the Imperium: The Deep Man by Michael Mersault

Skullduggery in the Imperium: The Deep Man by Michael Mersault

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The Deep Man and The Silent Hand (Baen Books,
January 4, 2022, and October 3, 2023). Covers by Kurt Miller, unknown

I was at Barnes & Noble on Saturday, browsing the science fiction section, when an honest-to-god novelty caught my eye. A brand new mass market paperback! I thought they were virtually extinct, wiped out in the industry-wide shift to trade paperbacks and digital formats. It was titled The Deep Man, the debut novel by newcomer Michael Mersault, and was a reprint of a trade paperback released in January of last year.

It sounded pretty good, too. Something about “It Takes a Warrior to Relight the Galaxy!,” plus some breathless back cover copy about a Galactic Imperium, Myriad Worlds, mysterious nonhumans, mighty clans, an Honor Code, a hero in command of an outmoded, underequipped frigate, spies and assassins, and uncovering a “chilling plot to extinguish humanity’s light from the galaxy.”

Slow down there, deep dude. You had me at “It Takes a Warrior.” Am I the only one who misses paperbacks that fit in one hand? Time to kick the cats out of my big green chair, and read about relighting the galaxy! With humanity’s light, plain old laser fire, or whatever. Honestly, I’m not picky.

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Lin Carter’s Forgotten Anthologies: Kingdoms of Sorcery and Realms of Wizardry

Lin Carter’s Forgotten Anthologies: Kingdoms of Sorcery and Realms of Wizardry

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Lin Carter’s anthologies of Adult Fantasy: Kingdoms of Sorcery and
Realms of Wizardry (Doubleday, 1976). Covers by John Cayea and Robert Aulicino

Lin Carter was an exceptional editor, and one of the most important figures in 20th Century American fantasy. As Managing Editor of the seminal Ballantine Adult Fantasy imprint, he was responsible for publishing virtually one new title every month — and he did exactly that, tirelessly producing 83 volumes between August 1965 and April 1974. In the late 70s and early 80s he became one of the most important anthology editors in the genre, helming three major anthology series: Flashing Swords! (five volumes, 1973-1981), The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories (six volumes, 1975-1980), and the paperback incarnation of Weird Tales (four volumes, 1980-83).

But the early 70s was really Carter’s heyday, at least in terms of anthologies. In those days he was producing two to three every year, including terrific books like Golden Cities, Far (1970), Discoveries in Fantasy (1972), and Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy (1972), all of which were original paperbacks.

In 1976 Carter published his final anthologies of adult fantasy, Kingdoms of Sorcery and Realms of Wizardry. Unlike virtually every other anthology he published, these were hardcover originals — and in fact were never reprinted in paperback. But like the others they were assembled with exacting care, crammed full of dozens of entertaining and informative short essays introducing the tales. While they are much less talked about than his later titles, these are delightful books, with plenty to enchant modern readers — those few who know about them, anyway. I’m here to do what I can to correct that.

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