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Vintage Treasures: The New Hugo Winners, Volume III and IV, presented by Connie Willis and Gregory Benford

Vintage Treasures: The New Hugo Winners, Volume III and IV, presented by Connie Willis and Gregory Benford

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The New Hugo Winners, Volume III and Volume IV (Baen, and May 1994 and November 1997). Covers by Bob Eggleton

The Hugo Winners, Volume I and Volume II, edited by Isaac Asimov and collected in one big omnibus by the Science Fiction Book Club in 1972, was one of the top-selling science fiction books of the 70s, and Volume III (1977) was gladly received by readers. But by the time Volume IV and V were released in the mid-80s, sales had fallen off so significantly that neither one was ever reprinted in paperback, and Doubleday ceased publishing them entirely after the fifth book.

It was Martin H. Greenberg who talked Asimov into picking up the tradition with The New Hugo Winners in 1989. The two of them brought the series to Baen, and produced two volumes before Asimov’s death in 1992. Although Asimov had openly championed having Greenberg pick up the baton after his death, that didn’t happen. Instead it was Connie Willis and Gregory Benford who edited (excuse me, “Presented”) The New Hugo Winners, Volume III and Volume IV, as paperback originals from Baen Books in 1994 and 1997.

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From the Library of Terry Carr: Here’s Your Chance to Own a Piece of Science Fiction History

From the Library of Terry Carr: Here’s Your Chance to Own a Piece of Science Fiction History

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A few of the (mostly new) Terry Carr anthologies you can buy on eBay for $3 each

Terry Carr is widely respected today, nearly four decades after his death, for his legendary work as a science fiction editor. He assembled some 70 anthologies in a career spanning over twenty years, including the highly respected Universe series (17 volumes), Fantasy Annual (five volumes), and the career-defining Best Science Fiction of the Year (16 volumes), which may well be the finest Year’s Best anthology series ever printed.

But he also edited an impressive number of standalone anthologies, both original and reprint, most of which are long out of print and long-forgotten. I’ve gradually taken an interest in them, starting with Creatures From Beyond, which I read in junior high, and I recently started collecting them more seriously

Last month I stumbled on a bookseller offering a fabulous collection — and I do mean fabulous — at ridiculously low prices on eBay. After I purchased a few dozen, we struck up a conversation. Just where on Earth, I humbled asked, did he find such a vast collection of virtually brand new 50-year-old anthologies by Carr, Robert Silverberg, Damon Knight, Michael Bishop, Groff Conklin, and others? Simple enough, he said. They had all originally belonged to Terry Carr.

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New Treasures: HellSans by Ever Dundas

New Treasures: HellSans by Ever Dundas

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HellSans by Ever Dundas (Angry Robot, October 11, 2022). Covers by Kate Cromwell

One thing I’ll say about science fiction and fantasy: there’s always room for an audacious idea. And that pretty much describes HellSans, the science fiction debut by Scottish writer Ever Dundas, about a font that triggers euphoria — or agony.

Publishers Weekly calls it “Wildly imaginative… [a] stand out,” and Library Journal proclaims it “A smart and unique dystopian thriller.” And Lisa Tuttle at The Guardian selected it as one of The Best Recent Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, calling it “a violent and compelling thriller, with far more psychological and moral complexity than the general run of dystopian fiction.”

I don’t know about all that. But I do know that when I picked up a copy at the bookstore last week, I was taken immediately by the originality of the idea — and the premise of a scientist on the run as she tries to find a cure for a ubiquitous font. I brought it home with me, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

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Street Thieves and Queen’s Guards: Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson

Street Thieves and Queen’s Guards: Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson

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Dance of Thieves and Vow of Thieves (Square Fish, 2019 and 2022). Covers by Rich Deas and Mike Burroughs

I don’t pay as much attention to Young Adult fantasy as I should. It’s not experiencing the explosion of bestsellers and media attention it was just a few years ago, but it’s still one of the bright spots in genre publishing, and where a lot of talented writers are doing some excellent work.

Fortunately Barnes & Noble makes it easy for me to stumble on some of the most exciting titles, and that’s exactly what happened on Sunday when I stopped in front of their YA display tables. There in the center was Dance of Thieves, the first of a two-volume series featuring an outlaw family, a legendary street thief, a dark secret, the young women of the Queen’s guard, a son thrust suddenly into power, and a life-and-death cat and mouse game between them all. It shares a setting with the author’s bestselling Remnant Chronicles, which helped pique my interest, and that (and the enticing description) was enough to convince me to take it home.

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Nerve Gas, Neighborhood Witches, and Forbidden Forests:The Year’s Best Horror Stories Series XI, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Nerve Gas, Neighborhood Witches, and Forbidden Forests:The Year’s Best Horror Stories Series XI, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories Series XI (DAW, November 1983). Cover by Michael Whelan

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XI was the fourth volume in this series edited by horror author and editor Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). It was copyrighted and printed in 1983 and was the eleventh volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories. (We’re half way through the 22-year series!)

Michael Whelan’s (1950–) artwork appears for a ninth time in a row. Whelan’s horror art is always creepy, and quite varied. This, however, was one of my least favorite Whelan covers. It seems more like a throwback to a 1970s-era paperback. But it’s probably right up your alley though if you’re a Paperbacks from Hell type of fan. It was re-used as the cover of the Underwood Miller hardcover omnibus Horrorstory: Volume Four, which collected Series X, XI, and XII of The Year’s Best Horror Stories.

Of the seventeen different authors that make up The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XI, all were male but two. Ten were American authors, six were British, and there was one Canadian, Donald Tyson. Seven stories came from fanzines, six from professional magazines, and four from books. Though Wagner continues to show that he is a widely read man, more than a few of these stories came from the pages of the T. E. D. Klein-edited Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine and Stuart David Schiff’s famous Whispers fanzine.

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Vintage Treasures: Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction: Invasions, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh

Vintage Treasures: Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction: Invasions, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh

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Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction #10: Invasions (Roc, August 1990). Cover by J.K. Potter

This week we’re looking at Invasions, the tenth and final volume in Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction, a paperback original anthology series edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh between 1983 and 1990.

Asimov, Greenberg, and Waugh were an industry unto themselves in the 80s and early 90s. Together they produced some 80 SF anthologies, over half a dozen every year, until Asimov’s death in 1992. In general Waugh made the story selections, Greenberg handled the rights and the contracts, and Asimov wrote the introductions (and lent his name to the series, which ensured robust sales).

The Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction, a companion series to the 13-volume Magical Worlds of Fantasy by the same editors, was a fun set, with themes like Intergalactic Empires, Tin Stars (robot detectives), Monsters, and Robots. Invasions, which wrapped up the series, containing a Berserker novelette by Fred Saberhagen, novellas by A. E. van Vogt and Lester del Rey, and stories by Philip K. Dick, Eric Frank Russell, Bob Shaw, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Henry Kuttner, Avram Davidson, William Tenn, and many others. It’s a great volume to start with if you’re interested in dipping your toe in 80s anthology collecting.

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Cinema of Swords Book Announcement!

Cinema of Swords Book Announcement!

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Cinema of Swords by Lawrence Ellsworth (Applause, June 15, 2023)

Hellooooo, Black Gate! If you’re a regular reader, you’ve seen my circa-weekly Cinema of Swords articles about swordplay adventure films, but this week we’re here to talk about the full Cinema of Swords volume coming your way this summer, 2023, from Applause Books. This happy event is thanks in large measure to your support and that of Black Gate’s esteemed editor John O’Neill, so thank you! For an author, every new book is an anxious roll of the dice, and it’s a thrill and a relief when your work actually makes it to publication.

So, what will you find in Cinema of Swords? The book’s mouthful of a subtitle is “A Popular Guide to Movies about Knights, Pirates, Samurai, and Vikings (And Barbarians, Musketeers, Gladiators, and Outlaw Heroes) from the Silent Era through The Princess Bride.” Fully illustrated, it compiles 400+ informative short reviews of live-action movies and TV shows on those subjects up through the ‘80s, where I stopped because that’s all I could fit into one volume. I included only films and shows that an interested person can find on streaming services or disc without paying a fortune, so long out-of-print or otherwise unavailable titles didn’t make the cut.

Reviews are listed alphabetically, but in addition to a straight title index, the book includes genre indexes so you can easily find films related to a specific interest. Conveniently, that also provides a way to give you a fuller taste of the book’s contents. Let’s see what we’ve got.

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A Classic Returns: In A Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner

A Classic Returns: In A Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner

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In A Lonely Place (Valancourt Books, January 17, 2023)

Ah, Valancourt Books. You’re always full of delightful surprises. How well I remember that fateful day in 2014 when I first laid eyes on your table at the World Fantasy Convention in Washington, D.C. Groaning it was (the table, not the convention), under the weight of uncountable literary treasures. Since that day I’ve kept a keen eye on your catalog, and you’ve never disappointed.

I’ve been extra-special not disappointed this week, since you saw fit to rectify one of the great publishing injustices of the last four decades: returning Karl Edward Wagner’s legendary first collection, In a Lonely Place, back to print, where it can delight and horrify a whole new generation of readers.

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Skybound Moves Forward With Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber

Skybound Moves Forward With Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber

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The Great Book of Amber, containing Roger Zelazny’s 10-volume
Amber Chronicles (Avon EOS, December 1999). Cover by Tim White

Molly Templeton at Tor.com is reporting that Stephen Colbert has joined forces with Skybound Entertainment to develop an adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber, bringing much-needed hope that the long delayed-series will finally be brought to the screen.

In 2016, Skybound Entertainment announced that the series was in the works, with The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman also on board. Though it’s been nearly seven years, this team is still in place, alongside Vincent Newman Entertainment and now Colbert’s production company, Spartina. Variety reports that Colbert said, “I’ve carried the story of Corwin in my head for over 40 years, and I’m thrilled to partner with Skybound and Vincent Newman to bring these worlds to life. All roads lead to Amber, and I’m happy to be walking them.”

Roger Zelazny was one of the greatest fantasy and science fiction writers of the 20th Century, and The Chronicles of Amber was his magnum opus. If you want to dip your toe into the original novels, Rajan Khanna has a splendid book-by-book reread at Tor.com.

New Treasures: Silver Queendom by Dan Koboldt

New Treasures: Silver Queendom by Dan Koboldt

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Silver Queendom (Angry Robot, August 23, 2022). Cover design by Alice Claire Coleman

Have you ever made a purchase decision less than halfway through the book description?

That’s exactly what happened to me on Sunday at Barnes & Noble, about ten seconds after I picked up Dan Koboldt’s Silver Queendom and read:

Service at the Red Rooster Inn leaves much to be desired. The innkeeper, Darin, has a scowl for every new face. The homebrewed ale seems to grow less palatable with each new batch. The barmaid, Evie, only seems to work when wealthy young men are around, and the old witch Seraphina ensures that’s not too often. As for Big Tom, well, everyone learns quickly to stay on the bouncer’s good side. There’s a reason everyone in the Red Rooster crew is bad at their job… by night, they’re the best team of con artists in the Old Queendom.

That’s all I needed to decide to take the book home with me.

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