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Space Opera at its Most Grandiose: The Sun Eater Series by Christopher Ruocchio

Space Opera at its Most Grandiose: The Sun Eater Series by Christopher Ruocchio

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The Sun Eaters series (so far): Empire of Silence, Howling Dark, Demon in White, and
Kingdoms of Death. All published by DAW. Covers by Sam Weber (book 1) and Kieran Yanner (books 2-4).

Every time an author completes a fantasy trilogy, we bake a cake at Black Gate headquarters. I can’t comment on anyone else, but speaking personally, this job has kept me fat for over a decade. I have no complaints.

The corporate protocol is a little fuzzier when an author produces four books in a series (though I did see Bob Byrne attempt a souffle last month.) And when we see that rare five book milestone? I can’t remember the last time it happened, but I think it involved ice cream and a catapult.

We better figure it out soon, though. The fifth and final book in Christopher Ruocchio’s groundbreaking Sun Eater series is scheduled to arrive this year, and it will bring to a close one of the most popular and acclaimed space operas of the decade. Library Journal called the opening volume a “wow book… stretched across a vast array of planets,” and Eric Flint labeled it “epic-scale space opera in the tradition of Iain M. Banks and Frank Herbert’s Dune.” It won Ruocchio the 2019 Manly Wade Wellman Award.

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As Subversively Funny and Modern as Anything Ever Written: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville

As Subversively Funny and Modern as Anything Ever Written: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville

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The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (Dover Thrift Editions,
November 2017). Cover: New Orleans Map, Currier and Ives, 1885

Last night I finished re-reading Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. I had not read it in many years — I first read it in the mid-1970s in a graduate seminar on Hawthorne and Melville taught by the wonderful Professor Elizabeth Schultz at the University of Kansas.

It’s perhaps my favorite Melville book, and a significant influence on my writing; my first solo novel Good News From Outer Space was an attempt to cross the figure of the multiply-disguised Confidence Man from Melville’s book with the shape-changing aliens of classic science fiction.

It all takes place in a single day — April Fool’s Day — on a steamboat that leaves St. Louis for points south, carrying a carnival of American character types, among them a confidence man who assumes eight different disguises as he interacts with, and bilks, various passengers during the the course of the day. It’s been described as a series of sketches or conversations. But that description does not do justice to the ways in which this book deconstructs America — and friendship and society and capitalism and progress and nature and religion and language itself — pretty much anything that any of us put faith in.

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An Exemplary New Voice in Horror: The Word Horde John Langan

An Exemplary New Voice in Horror: The Word Horde John Langan

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Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters and Corpsemouth and
Other Autobiographies (Word Horde, July 5, 2022). Covers by Matthew Jaffe

John Langan is one of the fast-rising stars of modern horror. His first collection, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in 2008; more nominations followed for collections Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019) and Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies (2020). His second novel The Fisherman won a Stoker in 2016.

Ross E. Lockhart’s Word Horde press, which has been publishing Langan since 2016, just released his fourth collection and simultaneously reprinted his first. Here’s what Ross tells me about them:

John Langan’s first collection, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters (2008), marked him as an exemplary new voice in horror, and an author to watch. I’m pleased to publish a new edition of this classic collection (now with an additional story), alongside John’s latest collection, Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies. Between these two books, a reader can chart the course of John’s evolution as a writer, as well as explore the themes and threads binding his work together. Most of all, one can see that John Langan remains an author worth exploring.

This sounds like an entirely excellent way to spend the next few evenings. Here’s a closer look at both volumes.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12, edited by Terry Carr

Vintage Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12, edited by Terry Carr

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12 (Timescape/Pocket Books, July 1983)

I recently found a copy of Terry Carr’s 1983 anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year 12 in a paperback collection I bought on eBay, and I was astonished at just how many great tales it contained.

There’s Connie Willis’s Hugo & Nebula Award winner “Firewatch,” the story of a time-traveling history student doing research during the London Blitz who discovers much more than he bargained for; Joanna Russ’s famous novella “Souls,” a Hugo award-winner in which a resourceful Abbess faces off against invading Vikings; Bruce Sterling’s first short story sale, the Shaper/Mechanist novelette “Swarm;” William Gibson’s early cyberpunk classic (and Nebula nominee) “Burning Chrome;” and Robert Silverberg’s Nebula Award nominee “The Pope of the Chimps,” in which a group of chimpanzees taught sign language develop a religion centered around humans.

There’s even a fine tale by my friend Bill Johnson, whom I worked with for years at Motorola in the 90s, “Meet Me at Apogee.”

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New Treasures: The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

New Treasures: The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

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The Ballad of Perilous Graves (Redhook, June 21, 2022)

What’s the best thing about knowing writers on Facebook? They’re always talking about books, that’s what. Yesterday P. Djèlí Clark (A Master of Djinn, The Haunting of Tram Car 015) tipped me off to a great new debut fantasy by Alex Jennings.

The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings — featuring a New Orleans of sky trolleys, living graffiti, trans dimensional portals, and terrifying haints — gotta be one of the most amazing books I’ve read in a minute. Magical, lyrical, gritty, otherworldly… sh*t is hype like Bayou Classic in the 90s, set to song. Put this on your list for the summer.

Okay, that doesn’t tell you much about the plot. Social media ain’t perfect. Besides, we’re Black Gate, we have a staff of investigative reporters for that.

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Random Reviews: “The Wonderful Conspiracy” by Spider Robinson

Random Reviews: “The Wonderful Conspiracy” by Spider Robinson

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Cover by Vincent di Fate
Cover by Vincent di Fate

Because I’ve been asked about the process by which I’ve been selecting stories for the Random Review series, I thought I’d take a moment to explain how the stories are selected.

I have a database of approximately 42,000 short stories that I own sorted by story title. When it comes time for me to select a story to review as part of this series, I role several dice (mostly ten sided) to determine which story should be read. I cross reference the numbers that come up on the die with the database to see what story I’ll be reviewing.  This week, I rolled 40,770 which turned out to be Spider Robinson’s short story “The Wonderful Conspiracy.”

One of the things I’m hoping to get out of this series, from a personal point of view, is to discover authors and short stories that I’ve owned and have never read. Of course, I’m also hoping to share those discoveries, good or bad, with the readers of Black Gate.

The Wonderful Conspiracy is the final story of Spider Robinson’s first Callahan book, Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon and it has the appropriately maudlin nostalgia of a bar nearing closing time. Robinson has set the story on New Year’s Eve when the bar is mostly empty, save for employees Mike Callahan and Fast Eddie, as well as inveterate drinkers Long-Drink McGonnigle, the Doc, and Robinson’s narrator.

Although “The Wonderful Conspiracy” has many of the signature tropes of a Callahan story, including the series of puns and breaking of glasses, it is a lower energy story, just five men sitting around talking. Set at the end of the year and in a bar that is practically empty, the discussion between the men turns introspective, led by Long-Drink.

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In 500 Words or Less: Midway 2022 Round-Up!

In 500 Words or Less: Midway 2022 Round-Up!

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Becoming Crone by Lydia M. Hawke, Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, and Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales
of Insatiable Darkness, edited by dave ring. Covers by Deranged Doctor Design, uncredited, and Robin Ha

Back by popular demand! As you might have noticed, I’ve been on a serious reviewing hiatus lately due to busy (and exciting) times in both writing and teaching. But I love discussing new books and signal boosting works I think deserve some more attention, so I’m back!

With a caveat, however, that I’m changing my format slightly moving forward. Instead of a regular column discussing one book in five hundred words or less, I’ll be doing a round-up a couple times per year, similar to what I’ve done for my year-end posts. How many books can I mention in five hundred words…? We’ll see. And nobody count, in case I go over.

Thanks as always for reading and for the folks who asked, “when’s your next column, dude?” If you enjoy any of the books I mention, be sure to give them a review of your own on your platform of choice and feel free to let me know here.

In alphabetical order, please enjoy my reading picks for the first half of 2022!

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Flood Monsters and Ghost Riders: The Year’s Best Horror Stories Series VIII, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Flood Monsters and Ghost Riders: The Year’s Best Horror Stories Series VIII, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VIII (DAW, July 1980). Cover by Michael Whelan

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VIII was the eighth volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, copyrighted and printed in 1980. This was the first volume edited by horror author and editor Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). Artist Michael Whelan (1950–) appears for a sixth time in a row on the cover. I have been very impressed with Whelan’s variety. The covered and walking corpse is a good horrific image for this volume.

All of the authors of The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VIII were male. Eleven were American, four were British, one Belgian (Eddy C. Bertin is back). Wagner included four stories from professional magazines, five stories from books (all anthologies), and seven total stories came from professional fanzines, especially Whispers and Midnight Sun. You get the sense that Wagner searched far and wide for horror stories in the most obscure places.

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Vintage Treasures: The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy

Vintage Treasures: The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy

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The City, Not Long After (Bantam Spectra, February 1990). Cover by Mark Harrison

Bantam Spectra was, without a doubt, the imprint where the action was at the end of the last century. Founded by Lou Aronica in 1985, it published some of the very best science fiction and fantasy of the 80s and 90s, including David Brin’s The Postman (1985) and The Uplift War (1987), William Gibson’s Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country (1989), Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992), Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars (1993 – 96), and a little book titled A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (and its sequels). The imprint was eventually retired in 2009, but not until it had published hundreds of fine books and launched a great many careers.

Pat Murphy published two memorable books with Bantam Spectra, both in 1990, the Philip K. Dick Award-winning collection Points of Departure and the Mythopoeic and Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated novel The City, Not Long After, a postapocalyptic tale of a depopulated San Francisco.

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The Sillliest Stuff I’ve Ever Read: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

The Sillliest Stuff I’ve Ever Read: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

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HIPPOLYTA

’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

THESEUS

More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear?

If you take the time to skim over the history of criticism of William Shakespeare’s sublime A Midsummer Night’s Dream (ca. 1596), you might lose your mind. Early commentary seems to have centered on the appropriateness of depicting imaginary beings such as the fairies while more contemporary scholars (say, over the last fifty years) have seen support, as well as opposition, to such things as patriarchy and the “hegemonic order.” All sorts of dark sexual allusions are intimated by several authors.

It’s not all like that, with much focus on metatextual aspects like artistic creation, dream versus illusion, or metamorphosis. Some of this is interesting, some of it ridiculous.

Oh, there are things being said about art, love, and perception, but little of that matters much to me, and none of it matters to the pleasures of the play. For my tastes, the most accurate comment  about A Midsummer Night’s Dream is from Thomas McFarland, who described it as “dominated by a mood of happiness and that it is one of the happiest literary creations ever produced.”

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