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Future Treasures: Witch King by Martha Wells

Future Treasures: Witch King by Martha Wells

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

Martha Wells was one of the most popular authors we published in Black Gate. Her terrific Ile-Rien tales (“Reflections,” Black Gate #10, “Holy Places,” BG #11, and “Houses of the Dead,” BG #12) were set in the same world as her nebula-nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer, and her popular Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy (The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods).

Of course, her career really took off with the appearance of Muderbot. The first two books in the series, All Systems Red and Artificial Condition, won back-to-back Hugo and Locus Awards; after that Martha graciously declined further nominations to give other nominees a chance. That didn’t stop the Hugo electorate from voting The Murderbot Diaries the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Series (the same year that Network Effect, the 5th volume, won the Hugo for Best Novel).

Martha’s upcoming Witch King, her first new fantasy novel in over a decade, arrives from Tor.com at the end of the month and, as you can imagine, it’s one of the most highly anticipated books of the year. Martha has promised us a guest post on the book in a few weeks, so stay tuned.

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Future Treasures: Fall of the Iron Gods, Book II of The Mechanists by Olivia Chadha

Future Treasures: Fall of the Iron Gods, Book II of The Mechanists by Olivia Chadha

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Rise of the Red Hand and Fall of the Iron Gods (Erewhon Books,
January 19, 2021, and April 30, 2024). Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio. Covers by Rashed AlAkroka

Liz Gorinsky is one of the most respected editors in science fiction and fantasy. In fact, when I finished my first novel The Robots of Gotham, Liz was the first person I brought it to (she didn’t buy it). Liz left Tor Books in 2018 to found an independent speculative fiction publishing company, Erewhon Books. Liz left Erewhon last year, but not before growing it into one of the most exciting new publishers of SF and fantasy.

One of their recent discoveries is Olivia Chadha, a Colorado author of literary novels (Balance of Fragile Things), comic books, and SF/Hopepunk. Her first SF novel was Rise of the Red Hand, the tale of a group of rebels in a climate ravaged future South Asia who discover an appalling government conspiracy, which Nerd Daily calls “a stunning read from beginning to end.” The sequel, Fall of the Iron Gods, is due next spring.

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Monsters in a Mist-locked Kingdom: The Shepherd King by Rachel Gillig

Monsters in a Mist-locked Kingdom: The Shepherd King by Rachel Gillig

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One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crows (Orbit Books,
September 27, 2022, and October 17, 2023). Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

I enjoy a good fairy tale. Also a well told-gothic romance. My true love, of course, is monster movies. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a novel that took a stab at mixing all three. At least, not until I read this tasty copy on the back of One Dark Window:

Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom she calls home — she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head…

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure the kingdom of the dark magic infecting it. Except the highwayman just so happens to be the King’s own nephew, Captain of the Destriers… and guilty of high treason.

One Dark Window is the debut novel by California author Rachel Gillig, the opening book in a duology. Sequel Two Twisted Crowns arrives later this year.

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Beauty and Nightmare on an Alien World: NIGHTBORN: COLDFIRE RISING BY C. S. FRIEDMAN

Beauty and Nightmare on an Alien World: NIGHTBORN: COLDFIRE RISING BY C. S. FRIEDMAN

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Nightborn: Coldfire Rising by C. S. Friedman. (DAW Books, July, 18th, 2023, 304pages). Cover art by Jeszika Le Vye.

 

What if your feelings had shape and were visible?

What if you could see your nightmares manifest as they turned on you?

C. S. Friedman has published 14 novels, including the highly acclaimed Coldfire Trilogy and the groundbreaking science fiction novel This Alien Shore (New York Times Notable Book of the Year -1998). Her Nightborn: Coldfire Rising novel will be published this July, 2023 by DAW Books; this post reviews an advanced review copy (preorder from the publisher).

The stunning cover art by Jeszika Le Vye evokes and extends the signature covers of the Coldfire Trilogy crafted by Michael Whelan; the trilogy was released during 1991-1995 followed by a 2012 prequel novella, Dominion. Note that a revised version of Dominion, starring the Hunter himself, is in Nightborn.

And stay tuned — Black Gate has an interview in the works with C. S. Friedman (a perfect fit for our series on Beauty in Weird Fiction).

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Future Treasures: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Future Treasures: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

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Some Desperate Glory (Tor.com, April 11, 2023). Cover by Cynthia Sheppard.

I’m hearing good things about Emily Tesh’s debut novel Some Desperate Glory, coming next month from Tor.com.

Tesh won a World Fantasy Award for Silver in the Wood, the first novella in her Greenhollow Duology, also published by Tor.com. Some Desperate Glory is the tale of the warrior Kyr, raised among the scraps of humanity to avenge the death of the planet Earth, and what happens when she’s thrust into a universe far more complicated than she was taught. Library Journal proclaims it “A monumental journey,” and Booklist says it’s “One of the best sf novels of 2023… with an action-packed pace full of exciting battles and gut-wrenching twists.”

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Future Treasures: Nightborn: Coldfire Rising by C. S. Friedman

Future Treasures: Nightborn: Coldfire Rising by C. S. Friedman

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Nightborn: Coldfire Rising by C. S. Friedman. (DAW Books, July, 18th,  2023, 304pages). Cover art by Jeszika Le Vye.

 

Nightborn: Coldfire Rising by C. S. Friedman will be published this July by DAW Books. The stunning cover art by Jeszika Le Vye evokes and extends the signature covers of the Coldfire Trilogy crafted by Michael Whelan; the trilogy was released during 1991-1995 followed by a 2012 prequel novella, Dominion. Note that a revised version of Dominion, starring the Hunter himself, is in Nightborn!

Pre-order Nightborn: Coldfire Rising now from various retailers via the portal page on The Astra Publishing House page (DAW imprints).

But wait, there is more! Black Gate has an interview planned with C. S. Friedman leading up to the release. This is part of our “Beauty in Weird Fiction” series that focuses on the aesthetics of art in dark fantasy.  Fans of the Coldfire series will know that the mysterious, energetic fae is a beautiful and dangerous medium (see the astral blue entity in the cover above), and we’ll corner the author on her take on working visual, alluring magic. …

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Future Treasures: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Future Treasures: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

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The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
(Harper Voyager, February 28, 2023). Cover by Ivan Belikov

I met Shannon Chakraborty at the 2018 World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore, where she conducted a delightful reading from her second novel The Kingdom of Copper, the sequel to her bestselling debut The City of Brass. Back then she went by the very cool name “S. A Chakraborty.” For her new book The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, she has changed her name slightly to “Shannon Chakraborty,” which is much easier to shout at somebody when you’re trying to get them to hold an elevator.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi will be published by Harper Voyager next week, and I’m going to go on record here as recommending you clear the end of the month for this one. Publishers Weekly calls it a swashbuckling adventure with “playful plot twists and thrilling action sequences [with a] charmingly crooked cast and dry humor,” and BookPage sums it up as “A swashbuckling high seas quest that’s rousing, profound and irresistible.” This sounds like the book I need.

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Future Treasures: High Noon on Proxima B edited by David Boop

Future Treasures: High Noon on Proxima B edited by David Boop

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High Noon on Proxima B (Baen, February 7, 2023). Cover by Dominic Harman

Nobody out there is doing anthologies like David Boop.

He started in 2017 with the Weird Western Straight Outta Tombstone (2017), which proved popular enough that he followed up with two more, Straight Outta Deadwood (2019) and Straight Outta Dodge City (2020). Last year he packed up his six-shooters and headed into outer space with Gunfight on Europa Station, the first…. uh… Weird Science Fiction Western anthology? I dunno, but I like it.

It’s a new year, and I’m delighted to see a new Boop anthology headed our way. High Noon on Proxima B contains brand new stories by Walter Jon Williams, Susan R. Matthews, Brenda Cooper, Milton Davis, and many others. It arrives in trade paperback from Baen next week.

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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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The Modern Horrors of Ronald Malfi

The Modern Horrors of Ronald Malfi

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Black Mouth and Ghostwritten (Titan Books, July 2022, October 2022). Cover designs by Julia Lloyd

There’s nothing quite like a thoroughly unexpected discovery in a good bookstore.

I couldn’t find the last Dell Magazines at my local Barnes & Noble in nearby Geneva, Illinois. So before Christmas I made a snowy road trip to the B&N superstore in Naperville. I didn’t find the magazines I wanted (what the heck, B&N magazine clerks??), but the 20 minutes I spent browsing their Science Fiction & Fantasy section turned out to be enormously rewarding anyway.

Possibly the most consequential discovery I made was a small section of shelving real estate devoted to a horror writer I’d never heard of, Ronald Malfi. I ended up taking two of his books home with me, Black Mouth and Ghostwritten, and spending time this week tracking down the rest online.

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