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Future Treasures: The Twenty Sided Sorceress, Volume Two: Boss Fight, by Annie Bellet

Future Treasures: The Twenty Sided Sorceress, Volume Two: Boss Fight, by Annie Bellet

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I love omnibus volumes. I did a series on them a while back, looking at inexpensive paperback omnibus (omnibi?) volumes from C.J. Cherryh, Andre Norton, Murray Leinster, James H. Schmitz, Steven Brust, Jack Vance, and others.

But omnibus novel collections aren’t just for classic writers — oh, no. Saga Press is putting the format to good use collecting Annie Belett’s bestselling fantasy series The Twenty Sided Sorceress, which originally appeared from a small press. The first volume, Level Grind, was published in October; the second, Boss Fight, arrives next month and collects three more novels: Heartache, Thicker Than Blood, and Magic to the Bone. Separated from her friends, their fates unknown, and without her magic, Jade must stop fighting on Samir’s terms or else her next battle will be her last.

Level up. Or die.

Jade Crow and her friends faced their worst enemy, her ex-boyfriend Samir, the most powerful sorcerer in the world, and they now lie defeated, and flung across the wilderness.

Samir had trained Jade to be a sorceress, to mold her in his image, until she rejected him and escaped here to Wylde. Jade must stop fighting on Samir’s terms or else her next battle will be her last. Leveled up and wiser, Jade stands a chance this time, if she follows the true calling of her power, and changes the playing field. Everything has been leading up to this… Roll for initiative!

This is the omnibus of the next three volumes in the USA Today bestselling fantasy series, Heartache; Thicker Than Blood; Magic to the Bone, collected together for the first time in print.

The Twenty Sided Sorceress, Volume Two: Boss Fight will be published by Saga Press on January 3, 2017. It is 397 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $15.99 in trade paperback.The cover is by Chris McGrath.

Last of a Series… For Now: The Sea of Time by P.C. Hodgell

Last of a Series… For Now: The Sea of Time by P.C. Hodgell

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Baen finally does right by Jame and Hodgell

Earlier this year I promised myself I would finally finish all the volumes in P.C. Hodgell’s Kencyrath series so far. I did that yesterday, with my completion of The Sea of Time (2014). I’m really enjoying the series and book 7 is a blast. Regular readers will be shocked to read my one complaint: it’s too short. Before I explain that, let me fill you in on the book and tell you all about its good points.

First, one more time, the setup:

Thirty thousand years ago, Perimal Darkling began to devour the series of parallel universes called the Chain of Creation. To fight against it, the Three-Faced God forged three separate races into one: feline-like Arrin-Ken to serve as judges; heavily-muscled Kendar to serve as soldiers and craftsmen; fine-featured humanoid Highborn to rule them. For 27,000 years, the Kencyrath fought a losing battle, one universe after another falling to the darkness. Three thousand years ago, the High Lord Gerridon, fearful of death, betrayed his people to Perimal Darkling in exchange for immortality. Fleeing yet again, the Kencyrath landed on the world of Rathilien. Since then, they haven’t heard from their god and Perimal Darkling has seemed satisfied to lurk at the edges of their new home. Monotheists trapped on an alien world with many gods, the Kencyrath have had to struggle to make a life on Rathilien.

Now, the power of the Three-Faced God seems to be reappearing. The Kencyrath believe that only the Tyr-ridan, three Highborn reflecting the three aspects of their god — destroyer, preserver, and creator — will be able to defeat Perimal Darkling. Jame, raised in the heart of Perimal Darkling, is fated to be the Regonereth: That-Which-Destroys.

At the end of the previous book, Honor’s Paradox, series heroine, Jame, had survived all the tests and trials thrown at her by the curriculum and her enemies at the Kencyrath military academy, and was promoted to second year cadet.  The Sea of Time opens with Jame arriving at the Southern Host. The Host is the main force of Kencyrath soldiers, hired out to the wealthy city of Kothifir.

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New Treasures: Crow Shine by Alan Baxter

New Treasures: Crow Shine by Alan Baxter

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Crow Shine is the debut horror collection from Australian dark fantasy writer Alan Baxter. I’ve never heard of Baxter, but the book is generating a lot of buzz from people I have heard of, like Nathan Ballingrud, who called it “A sweeping collection of horror and dark fantasy stories, packed with misfits and devils, repentant fathers and clockwork miracles.” On his website, Baxter talks about a little about the book.

It’s no news to regular readers here what a fan I am of short stories. Ever since I was about 11 years old and picked up a Roald Dahl book called Switch Bitch, expecting something like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Danny the Champion of the World and got… well, I got my mind blown. I think the short story and novella are a unique art form, one that is incredibly hard to do well, entirely different from novels, but one that is utterly captivating… So to be in a position now where a publisher as respected as Ticonderoga are publishing a book collecting the best of my own short stories? My mind is blown again. It’s amazing. Crow Shine will contain nineteen short stories and novellas, and is named after one of the three stories original to this collection. The other sixteen are drawn across many years of my yarns exploring the dark weird fantastic that I love so much.

Baxter’s short fiction has been published in F&SF, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Postscripts, Daily Science Fiction, Midnight Echo, Pseudopod, and in more than twenty anthologies. He is the author of the dark fantasy trilogy, Bound, Obsidian, and Abduction (the Alex Caine series) from by HarperVoyager, and the dark urban fantasy novels RealmShift and MageSign from Gryphonwood Press.

Crow Shine was published by Ticonderoga Publications on November 11, 2016. It is 296 pages, priced at $29.99 in hardcover, $22.99 in trade paperback, and $4.99 for the digital edition. I don’t know who did the excellent cover, but I’m trying to find out.

Explore the Dark Side of Dreams in Nightmare’s Realm: New Tales of the Weird & Fantastic

Explore the Dark Side of Dreams in Nightmare’s Realm: New Tales of the Weird & Fantastic

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nightmares-realm-new-tales-of-the-weird-and-fantastic-smallDark Regions Press is offering a deluxe signed limited edition hardcover edition of their upcoming anthology Nightmare’s Realm: New Tales of the Weird & Fantastic, edited by S. T. Joshi. It contains original fiction from Ramsey Campbell, Steve Rasnic Tem, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, John Shirley, Darrell Schweitzer, Gemma Files, and many others, all focusing on the theme of dreams and nightmares.

The striking cover artwork is by Samuel Araya (click the image at right for a bigger version). The limited edition is well out of my price range at $150, but there’s a trade paperback and digital edition promised for early next year as well.

Dreams and nightmares — what Ambrose Bierce called “visions of the night” — are the basis of some of the greatest weird fiction in literary history. The unruly images that torment us in sleep are usually dispelled by the coming of day — but can they be dismissed so easily? Do nightmares have some impalpable reality that can affect our daily lives, the lives of those around us, and perhaps the very fabric of the universe?

This volume contains seventeen original stories by some of the leading contemporary writers of weird fiction. Each tale probes the relation of nightmares to the real world, and to the human mind, in ways that are baffling, intriguing, terrifying, and poignant. Are we dreaming or are we awake? Can dreams gain a kind of quasi-reality and affect the workings of the real world? Can technology enhance or even create a dream-realm?

All all-star cast has contributed stories long and short … David Barker … Jason V Brock … Ramsey Campbell … Gemma Files … Richard Gavin … Caitlín R. Kiernan … Nancy Kilpatrick … John Langan … Reggie Oliver … W. H. Pugmire … Darrell Schweitzer … John Shirley … Simon Strantzas … Steve Rasnic Tem … Jonathan Thomas … Donald Tyson … Stephen Woodworth … The volume is edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading critic and anthologist of weird fiction.

Who can say that the nightmare is merely a wisp of fancy engendered by our own minds? After all, it was Edgar Allan Poe who said: “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Future Treasures: The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova

Future Treasures: The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova

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perf5.500x8.500.inddElise Kova is the author of the bestselling Air Awaken series, and its prequel, the Golden Guard Trilogy, all from Silver Wing Press. Her newest novel, The Alchemists of Loom, is the opening volume in the Loom Saga. The second volume, The Dragons of Nova, arrives in July from Keymaster Press. I’ve never heard of Kaymaster, but I’ll grant them this — they produce attractive books.

Her vengeance. His vision.

Ari lost everything she once loved when the Five Guilds’ resistance fell to the Dragon King. Now, she uses her unparalleled gift for clockwork machinery in tandem with notoriously unscrupulous morals to contribute to a thriving underground organ market. There isn’t a place on Loom that is secure from the engineer-turned-thief, and her magical talents are sold to the highest bidder as long as the job defies their Dragon oppressors.

Cvareh would do anything to see his sister usurp the Dragon King and sit on the throne. His family’s house has endured the shame of being the lowest rung in the Dragons’ society for far too long. The Alchemist Guild, down on Loom, may just hold the key to putting his kin in power, if Cvareh can get to them before the Dragon King’s assassins.

When Ari stumbles upon a wounded Cvareh, she sees an opportunity to slaughter an enemy and make a profit off his corpse. But the Dragon sees an opportunity to navigate Loom with the best person to get him where he wants to go.

He offers her the one thing Ari can’t refuse: A wish of her greatest desire, if she brings him to the Alchemists of Loom.

The Alchemists of Loom will be published by Keymaster Press on January 10, 2017. It is 380 pages, priced at $23.99 in hardcover and $4.99 for the digital edition.

No Adaptations?

No Adaptations?

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bondLately I’ve been looking at adaptations, both novel-to-movie, and novel or movie to TV series. I been talking about them in terms of what I thought was successfully done, and occasionally pointed at my favourites. In their comments people observed that while they agreed, for the most part, with my suggestions, they had suggestions of their own. All of us had to admit, however, that we were sometimes unfamiliar with either the source work, or the adaptation, or even both.

Have a look for yourself, here, and here.

One of the things I didn’t look at was movies or TV series adapted from story cycles, or from book series. The most successful of the latter has to be the Bond franchise, from the novels by Ian Fleming. How many movies have been made? 26? 27? Edgar Rice Burroughs’ character Tarzan has appeared in both movies and TV series. It seems there’s a new Tarzan film every 20 years or so, but none have been as successful as the Johnny Weismuller/Margaret O’Sullivan films of the 1930’s and 40’s. Do we need to mention Perry Mason?

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: At the Earth’s Core

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: At the Earth’s Core

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at-the-earths-core-first-edition-j-allen-st-johnOnce upon a time, I shouldered the enjoyable burden of analyzing all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus (Amtor) novels. Then, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the publication of A Princess of Mars, I took on the same task for the Mars (Barsoom) novels. It was inevitable that I would one day bring the same survey methods to the Pellucidar novels at the center of the earth. (Sorry, a Tarzan series just won’t happen. There are far too many Tarzan novels for the sanity of even the most hardcore ERB fan to take in concentrated doses.)

Our Saga: Beneath our feet lies a realm beyond the most vivid daydreams of the fantastic… Pellucidar. A subterranean world formed along the concave curve inside the earth’s crust, surrounding an eternally stationary sun that eliminates the concept of time. A land of savage humanoids, fierce beasts, and reptilian overlords, Pellucidar is the weird stage for adventurers from the topside layer — including a certain Lord Greystoke. The series consists of six novels, one which crosses over with the Tarzan series, plus a volume of linked novellas, published between 1914 and 1963.

Today’s Installment: At the Earth’s Core (1914)

The Backstory

Subterranean realms of the fantastic have a history reaching back to antiquity. But it was the nineteenth-century speculative theories of Captain John Cleves Symmes about the hollow earth that ignited a wave of fictional explorations of What Lies Within: “I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentrick [sic] spheres.”

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Win a copy of The Watcher at the Door: The Early Kuttner, Volume Two, from Haffner Press!

Win a copy of The Watcher at the Door: The Early Kuttner, Volume Two, from Haffner Press!

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The Watcher at the Door-smallContests! We love contests. It’s because we love to give you things, just like Santa Claus.

In this case, it’s something you really, really want: the latest archival quality hardcover from Haffner Press, The Watcher at the Door: The Early Kuttner, Volume Two, a massive collection of 30 early weird fantasy tales by Henry Kuttner. Here in the Black Gate offices we’ve been awaiting this gorgeous book for a long, long time. We first gave you a sneak peek back in April 2015.

The Watcher at the Door is the second volume in a three-volume “Early Kuttner” set collecting many of Kuttner’s earliest stories, most of which have never been reprinted. The first volume, Terror in the House, was released way back in 2010.

We have two copies of this beautiful hardcover to gave away. How do you win one? Now pay attention, this is the fun part. You must submit the title of an imaginary weird fantasy story. The most compelling titles — as selected by a crack team of Black Gate judges — will be entered into the drawing. We’ll draw two names from that list, and the two winners will receive a free copy of The Watcher at the Door, complements of Haffner Press and Black Gate magazine. Here are the titles of some of the stories in this book, to give you a little inspiration:

“We Are the Dead,” Weird Tales, Apr ’37
“The Curse of the Crocodile,” Strange Stories, Aug ’39
“Corpse Castle,” Thrilling Mystery, Nov ’39
“When New York Vanished,” Startling Stories, Mar ’40
“The Room of Souls,” Strange Stories, Jun ’40

How hard is that? One submission per person, please. Winners will be contacted by e-mail, so use a real e-mail address maybe. All submissions must be sent to john@blackgate.com, with the subject line The Watcher at the Door, or something obvious like that so I don’t randomly delete it.

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New Treasures: Invisible Planets, edited by Ken Liu

New Treasures: Invisible Planets, edited by Ken Liu

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Ken Liu’s been having a heck of a year. His English language translation of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem helped the book win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, and his first collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, appeared in hardcover from Saga Press in March. And the second volume in his new fantasy epic, The Dandelion Dynasty, arrived in October (read the first chapter right here at Black Gate).

That should be enough for anyone… but not for him, apparently. Last month Liu released his first anthology, a groundbreaking collection of SF stories from China that is getting a lot of attention. Invisible Planets is available now in hardcover. Don’t look for a review here any time soon… I didn’t mail our advance copy out to our reviewers, because I refused to part with it.

Award-winning translator and author Ken Liu presents a collection of short speculative fiction from China. Some stories have won awards (including Hao Jingfang’s Hugo-winning novella, Folding Beijing); some have been included in various ‘Year’s Best’ anthologies; some have been well reviewed by critics and readers; and some are simply Ken’s personal favorites. Many of the authors collected here (with the obvious exception of New York Times bestseller Liu Cixin’s two stories) belong to the younger generation of ‘rising stars’. In addition, three essays at the end of the book explore Chinese science fiction. Liu Cixin’s essay, The Worst of All Possible Universes and The Best of All Possible Earths, gives a historical overview of SF in China and situates his own rise to prominence as the premier Chinese author within that context. Chen Qiufan’s The Torn Generation gives the view of a younger generation of authors trying to come to terms with the tumultuous transformations around them. Finally, Xia Jia, who holds the first Ph.D. issued for the study of Chinese SF, asks What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese?

Invisible Planets was published by Tor Books on November 1, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition.

Truth in Historical Fiction

Truth in Historical Fiction

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Writerly boots on the ground in 12th century France (this illustration is a test, by the way).

Anet, Northern France, AD 1176
The summer breeze rustled the oaks where the tournament company of King Henry the Younger waited in ambush. It carried with it the sound of hooves, jingling harness and men chatting.
Sir William Marshal suppressed a grin. “Here they come, messers.” (*)

I was frankly terrified when I first put my writerly boots on the ground in 12th century France and perched on the shoulder of a 30-something William the Marshal as he lay in ambush with his lord, the bratty Henry the Younger.

In a sense, everything in my life had prepared me for this moment. I’d always been obsessed by Medieval History, spent my childhood dragging family around castles, read Malory at 11, Froissart at 12, and could recite the deeds of the Marshal when I was younger than that. I studied the subject to postgraduate level. I even have a sword scar and can teach you how to use a longsword.

Despite all this, writing that first line was terrifying.

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